I am not typically one for making a New Year’s Resolution. Quite frankly, I don’t need the pressure – I don’t need one more thing to make me feel badly about myself when I mess up. So, I am not going to call this my New Year’s Resolution. Instead, it will be my “goal” for 2011.
My New Year’s “Goal” for 2011 is mindfulness. I want to make a conscious effort to “stay present” as much as I can throughout the year. I know I am going to mess up, so this isn’t a New Year’s Resolution. I recognize that after living most of my life in a dissociated state, it is not going to be possible to “flip a switch” in my head and suddenly be mindful all of the time. In fact, I am not sure if being mindful 100% of the time is even possible.
Instead, this is just a goal I have for myself in 2011 (and hopefully beyond that). I want to get in the habit of returning my focus to the present moment. I want to stop spending my time fretting about the past and worrying about the future. Of course, there is always time for reflection as well as planning, but I don’t want that to be my “normal” state of being.
This is a big leap for me after the weeks I had during the holidays. I was constantly triggered and doing everything I could to stay away from the present. However, the holidays are now over, and it is time for me to get back to living in my body again.
As I write this, I am recovering from a cold, so staying in my body is more of a challenge right now. I really need to be able to do yoga, exercise, and engage in other activities that help me want to be in my body. However, I have to start somewhere, so I am doing the best I can until I can physically engage in these activities again. I am reaching toward this goal through self-love, not through self-hatred.
Did you make a New Year’s Resolution or goal this year? If so, what was it? Have you built in room for falling down and getting back up again?
Photo credit: Hekatekris
Blooming Lotus 
This year I am going to sleep if I can. Last year it was sleep if I was tired.
I am seeing mindfulness now as a spectrum not a continuum.
I have never seen it as relaxed or bliss. I need to be present with my fear, my anger ect. I need to be present with others emotions as well. There is not a specific end result rather is the the way I choose to live.
Making marbles or being in a meeting is in the spectrum of mindfulness.
Much of it is not trying to save and experience for later rather having reflection on the experience being in a different part of the spectrum of mindfulness.
For me it is not about balance rather dealing with the inherent unbalancedness of being a human.
Where I really get weird is I see meditation and something that happens naturally in sleep to do it will being conscious of it and being still is a moment wasted. This may change as my body changes from healing from the PTS.
Great goal Faith. I prefer to call them goals because that way you CANNOT fail! You can not reach it, you can get closer than you had been, really super close, or you can actually reach or surpass it! It’s more of a mile marker than a pass/fail kind of a label. So, I like that.
I want to move forward in a big way in my coaching business. (speaking of goals….) Coaching pretty much revolves around goals, how best to achieve them and supporting people while they work their process. It’s pretty easy to see why this is my life work! As I help others, I re-learn and reinforce the concepts myself. But I digress….
My goals:
Be more patient with my family (get a better handle on anxiety)
Be more consistent with self care
Keep moving forward with my Coaching biz.
Peace Faith. May your consciousness never waver!
mia
This is one of my goals as well. One resource I found to be helpful is Jack Kornfield’s The Wise Heart. He’s a practicing Buddhist, but he’s also a Western therapist with his own history of childhood trauma. This combination of influences really works for me, but of course your mileage may vary.
Hi, Sarah.
That’s for the recommendation. That book sounds right up my alley!
– Faith
i am new to your post. Abused by older male cousin at the age of 4y. My goal for this year is to read the Bible through with Wendy Pope from Proverbs 31. We are on day 6. Check out her blog if you like. i used to be angry at God and wonder how He could let something like that happen to me. I have since realized He was there, weeping with me then and now. The world is not as He intended…He does promise to bring good out of this for His glory. Check it out!
It can be scary setting goals as you say it only makes one feel bad if they mess up. Some of us need concrete goals because it motivates us to get things done, but the rest of us prefer a milder approach to setting goals.
To be able to live in the present and enjoy the moment rather than fretting about the past of the future is what i’d like to work on myself and the key is as you say mindfulness.
By constantly revisiting the past doesn’t help my present situation because i cannot change the past so being mindlful on a daily, even hourly basis is the key to more bliss i believe.
Thank you for your article and for reminding me what’s really important to achieve.