According to the Gregorian Calendar we use in our culture, it’s a “new year” and the habit of many is to make resolutions, plans, goals and lists of things to do in the coming 12 months. And as anecdotal evidence suggests, the majority of resolutions, plans and goals fall by the wayside before too long.
Some years ago, I realised I was making mostly content based resolutions every new year out of habit and a sense that “I should”. I also noticed I became very attached to them as a way of measuring my worth and value. This strategy did not ever deliver what I had hoped for which was to simply experience myself as lovable, valuable and ok, no matter what was going on.
So I decided to let go of my “lists of shoulds” and start each year by choosing a personal context that supports whatever I am choosing to do rather than focusing on all the content issues and “stuff” to resolve or do or achieve.
This year I choose the context of peace. I choose to experience deep, unshakeable inner peace no matter what’s going on inside or outside of me. What this requires is my willingness to BE peaceful, to detach from personalising everything from my ego’s view, even when there is temptation all around me to get plugged in and react. Not easy.
As the integrity of our human process dictates, as soon as I chose peace I began to experience lots of “not peace”! A friend’s dog nipped my toe; a man honked and glared at me in the traffic; the builder across the road brought in a rock-breaker going hell-for-leather hour upon hour, etc. I could react and get stressed or I could choose peace. Again, not always easy and certainly I had some moments of strong feelings and reactions, yet as soon as I reconnected with my context of peace I returned to being peaceful and things began to change without any effort or stress on my part. That’s peace.
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"I could choose peace instead of this"
A Course in Miracles
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