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This is the time of year, for many of us, as we reflect on the past twelve months, that our thoughts turn toward what we would like to have or do differently in our lives. Lose weight, start exercising, stop smoking, eat more consciously – it is the time for New Year’s resolutions. It’s a new year, a time to begin anew, a time to transform what we don’t want in our lives and to claim what we do. It’s time to consider change.
Anger is a destructive emotion; if it’s allowed to build up, it can destroy your health and your relationships. People are always trying to ‘manage’ their anger, or as I like to say, ‘stuff’ their anger. Our culture emphasizes civility or at least politeness when the other person is in the room. The result is passive aggressive behavior, stuffed anger, and mounting resentment.
We all have money issues and, with the current economy, now more than ever. The bubble has burst as individuals, families, companies, and governments come to terms with overspending and living beyond our means. We were given easy credit, no money down, and promised “The American Dream.” Look what’s happened?
Welcome to the New Year and I hope that your holidays have filled your life with joy and grace. It’s a wonderful time of the year, as the New Year ushers in, to begin to identify the patterns in our lives that serve us well, as well as to determine what we choose to do about those that don’t.
It is February already and if you’re like us, last month seemed to end before it even began. But time marches on and if we’re lucky, we recognize the blessing of new beginnings as they occur.
According to recent statistics and surveys, more than 10% of Americans shoplift. The vast majority of them shoplift not out of economic need or greed but in response to personal and social pressures in their lives. For most shoplifters, it’s not about the money or the thing--Winona Ryder and Lindsay Lohan proved that. Most act out of feelings of anger, loss, disempowerment, and entitlement. Many become hooked and addicted to this behavior as a way of coping with these emotions. Nearly 70% of shoplifters arrested will shoplift again. Have you or anyone you know ever shoplifted?
In this magical world of connectedness; instant intercontinental telephone service, television that broadcasts live into our living rooms from every corner of the globe, cell phones that will allow us to take and send pictures around the world to each other with the press of a button, e-mail, Skype, the world-wide web internet, an ever increasing plethora of dating services and social networks, it seems we are hungry for, searching for, even desperate for connection. What are we really looking for? What is it that so many of us spend so much of our time and treasure seeking?
Ask any kid what their mom is most afraid of and I bet you’ll find a common theme: Kindergarteners have name and address labels sewn inside their backpacks. Grade-schoolers learn to recite their phone numbers from memory. Pre-teens are dropped at the movies with in-case-of-emergency, pre-paid cell phones. And teenagers are asked to rattle off in-depth itineraries before borrowing the car on Friday night. When you’re a kid, it becomes clear very early on that your mom’s greatest fear is that you will get lost.
This time of year, it’s easy to end up with large, handwritten letters spelling out G-r-a-t-i-t-u-d-e on your To Do list like any number of other items to complete in your day. Get the turkey, pick up your parents, take in the dry cleaning, clean up the house, put extra towels out for the guests, and oh yes, don’t forget to be grateful! It can seem like a chore, something else to be remembered.
There isn’t anything funny about cancer but it did change my life and some of the changes, like wearing a wig on a windy day, were surprising. I once thought my wig had blown off and after searching for it under and around the car, I found it in the hood of the jacket I was wearing. A week later, I was filling up the gas tank on a windy day, and mindful of the previous experience, had one hand on the pump and the other on the top of my head. The man at the pump ahead of me commented, “Mighty windy today – good thing you’re not wearing a wig.”
For much of my life there has been a secret belief agonizingly gnawing away in the hidden recesses of my mind that “If only I can get – ‘this’. If only I can achieve ‘that’, then - then I would be safe, then I would be satisfied, then I would be fulfilled… then I would really be happy. The unvarnished truth is that there is nothing to get, nothing to achieve, in fact, no place at all to land – life is a journey. And on this journey we have a choice.
It is more important than ever to have simple tools that we can use in the moment to release emotions as they are arising—including anxiety, overwhelm and frustration. So much of the world today is enmeshed in the culture and, I believe, ideology based on neoliberal economic theory. Two principles of this leading theory are scarcity (limited supply) and that self-interest drives human behavior. It is easy to see how our feelings of competition, isolation—believing we can rely only on ourselves, and scarcity or lack arise from this foundation.
Compassion for others seems heartwarmingly heightened this time of year, as many people are moved by this season of giving and gratitude. While many of us attend to the suffering of others—we give of our money, food, and time to various charities and causes, we care for ailing loved ones, etc.—we often pay little attention to what is going on inside ourselves. How long can we expect to sustain help for others when we fail to honor our own needs?
Aside from all the hustle and bustle of the holidays, winter can be a quiet, reflective and even gloomy time of year. The harvest is over, the leaves have fallen and the natural world is in a sleepy, grey holding pattern until the thaw of spring. But the quiet lull of winter doesn’t have to get you down. The chill outside (and the madness at the mall) makes it a great time for hunkering down, taking stock of what you’ve accomplished over the past year, and dreaming of the year that’s yet to come.
Almost everyone spends at least some time envisioning their hopes and dreams for their future. For most people, a vision for the future is an improved version of their current status and lifestyle. Whether it is health and wellness, workplace success, finances, or relationships, practically everybody has the desire to make something in their life better than it is currently.
Our lives, our day to day experiences of pleasure, pain and all that we have ever felt, touched, created, or uncreated have occurred as components of an ongoing process of evolution. Values are how we decide whether our actions are good or bad, right or wrong. Our values determine how we feel about our actions and those of others, and are the primary motivating force behind our actions.
