Thanks to Eric’s new piloting job, we spent a chunk of December in the UK and, albeit briefly, in Maine. These trips, both literally and metaphorically, expanded my horizons. I reveled in fresh experience, swapping mundane routine, accompanied by habitual thoughts, for present awareness of what I was witnessing, sensing…and eating!
That’s the appeal of travel; plucking yourself out of mediocrity and self-imposed comfort zones to immerse in a very different world.
Buoyed by the space and expansion December ushered in, my New Years Resolution is starkly different from usual. Normally I break all areas of my life into themes-family, marriage, career, financial, health, fitness and so on- and set pretty ambitious goals. For instance, last year I dedicated (on paper at least)! to taking four/five yoga classes per week, plus four hours of cardio, with resistance training every other day. Being the stubborn little Scorpio/Libra that I am, I’d do my darnedest to meet this fitness challenge. When I didn’t- or couldn’t– it was definitely more often than I foresaw in a frenzy of resolution yeah-ness in January. Then I’d feel the pinch of failure. And, therefore, in effect I punctured the very reasons I created these lofty goals in the first place…to love myself more.
This year my sole goal is EXPANSION. I want to try new things, meet new people, get out of the house more. I want to receive each conversation as if its a divine prescription, a synchronistic event. I want to linger in present moment awareness much more as I not only behold new sights but move through the habitual. I don’t want rules that incarcerate my free, intuitive impulses. How am I able to forecast what I’ll be inspired to be, do or have in October, say, from the vantage point of January?!
I intend to say ‘yes’ more. Thus far I’ve embraced this spirit with gusto. We have multiple trips planned and I said ‘yes’ to a girls trip to Asheville, NC, booking flights before the over-cautious-can’t-afford-it-me could block it with excuses. See, I was so dunked in heady rebellion for the best part of my teens and twenties that once my thirties arrived, swamped in diapers and baby paraphernalia, I threw the pendulum the other way. I swung into a world of creating comfort, for my little people and me; plumping pillows, researching supplements, fine-tuning recipes and generally absorbing myself into all the wonders of a home life.
But here’s the thing…life can’t reach you indoors, wearing slippers, furrowed in a throw, binge Netflix watching. If I seek expansion in all the small ways- talking to new faces, trying new activities, going to unfamiliar places, even taking the dogs walking a different route-then I invite in a momentum of opportunity, of possibility. The Universe has space to pour in serendipity, without being constrained by dogged routine and stubborn habits.
This feels like self love; trusting myself in the moment to choose for myself. This is parental me saying to inner child, ‘I believe in you, now go have fun!’ and relying on the wisdom that I’ve installed years past to be enough to care for me, whatever may come. Freedom = Love. If you love someone, set them free, that’s the old adage, isn’t it? And that’s exactly what I’m doing.
My only goal for 2018 is to seek even more to love. Namaste.
