Tag: new year resolutions

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Temptations

Ah, it is January and you’ve made New Year resolutions once again.

My condolences.

Temptations are going to happen.

But here is what I learned about temptations.

They are showing you that you have a repressed emotion. It is the emotion you need to address, not the temptation. Not the cupcakes, the potato chips, ice cream. Not the cigarettes. Not the distractions. Not your procrastination or so called weak will. These are stories that point to an emotion not acknowledged. These things make you feel something. It is not the craving or the longing or the resistance that you need to fight, it is the underlying emotion that you need to recognize, accept and love.

Temptations purpose is to show you something. Not defeat you.

They cause an emotion, and emotions never, ever, ever, ever, respond to logic.

Emotions need to be felt, and this is the tricky part. To allow your emotion, to accept it, on its own, without judgement, detached from the story of why you have it.

If you rehearse the story of why, and judge yourself, you are forever trapped in your emotions and temptation will defeat your best efforts. You will stay forever angry, or sad, or whatever you are feeling. The feelings are not wrong. Emotions are not wrong. They are energy that needs to be felt and released. It is only your judgement of them that makes them wrong.

Forget why you feel something.

To resolve your issue you must sit with it, by yourself. Quiet. Feel it. You will find that your emotion evolves, it may start out as anger but becomes sadness. I found the issue I had with overeating had many different emotions attached to it; anger, self loathing, worthlessness, boredom, feeling deprived etc. But if you focus on the ‘why’ stories attached to those you never get out of it.

However, a good cry does wonders. Just be careful you don’t stay at the self pity party too long. That is a story of why and is self defeating to say the least. Whenever you act out an emotion you need be very careful you don’t rehearse the story of why you feel it.

I learned that when I did bag boxing. Boxing is a fabulous stress reliever, providing you focus on the blows you inflict to the bag, and not the problem you are beating up. You are not punching your boss, you are releasing the hurt you feel. This is not about your boss, this is about your sadness. Keep your mind off the story and on what you feel. It is tricky to do. But like all things, practice makes it so. The punching bag also got a lot of hugs while I cried.

Rocky has no worries with this one.

So I learned it is better to sit quiet and locate the emotion in your body. Is it in your throat? Stomach? Legs? Where ever it is, focus on that and feel it until it gradually disappears. This has to be done every time you are triggered, and it does not matter if you succumb to the temptation confronting you the first few tries. Eventually you will no longer have the desire to fulfill the craving or longing, or to resist. It goes away.

This is very hard to do. It requires a lot more effort than just lacing up your running shoes and going to the gym. But the effect is a lasting one, and makes going to the gym for the long term that much easier. It is a whole lot better than padlocking your frig. A whole lot better than beating yourself up with guilt and shame.

And the side effect of this is, you will then make the right choices in your life. They will be love based choices, not fear based. You will respond and not react to situations.

Later you may learn why you feel certain things; for instance a past hurt, a rejection, homesickness, loneliness, worthlessness, and a whole host of victimhood stories from your past. But if you dwell on these stories and not allow yourself to feel your pain, without judgement, you will never be free.

It is called self love.

I have said this often before. If you use any of the above wisdom to do or justify something evil, to act out your rage on others, to harm anyone or anything else, you are not understanding and I will not condone your behaviour on any level.

Oswald Chambers said something very wise and I paraphrase: “The devil does not tempt us just to make us do wrong things, but on the premise of shifting our point of view.” Then we will be trapped in sin and not see the damage of it.

Worth thinking about the next time you are faced with temptation and where that might lead.

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Getting Unstuck

I don’t like to make new years resolutions as I will quickly abandon my best intentions and then feel like a failure. Who needs that? I have plenty of opportunities to feel like a failure in my normal every day life. Mostly because I am doing a whole lot of shit I don’t like doing. New Years resolutions don’t usually involve fun, and that is why they don’t work. I already have enough of not fun in my life.

I suspect that many others have a lot of not fun too.

That is why so many determine to change their lives at this time of year.

But boy, life can sure try to keep you where you are at.

Why is that?

Despite our longing to be free, our supreme desire to be different, our yearning to follow our passions, we fail to get a breakthrough. It isn’t for lack of persistent trying. Many have pushed and pushed and come up empty. We never hear about the failures, only the success stories. I think hearing only one side of the equation makes people feel very very bad and sets them up for unrealistic expectations.

But I am definitely not saying don’t try, to give up before you even start, because you might be one of those success stories. At the very least, you will have learned something and got some valuable experiences. It is sad however, that most of us never get the lasting changes, the highs we want.

I know I often talk about failures, only because I think to fail is more realistic an outlook than success.

I do know that even when you do try, you still have regrets. I hate it when people say to me “Well, at least you tried. At least you did it”, implying that having just pursued a dream is good enough. It is not. Anyone who has pursued their dreams and failed know this. You still have regrets, maybe even more regrets because you failed. Your dreams are a big part of who you are, so they leave deep wounds. It touches your identity. It can make you lose hope.

The best advice I can give myself is to look for joy. Joy can be found anywhere in most everything. It can be extremely small and yet fill your heart with warmth. It may not change your world, but it will change the moment. If you can find joy in the moments it can help get you through all the rest of the shit you must endure to stay alive.

Getting unstuck from bad situations can take a long time, and I think we get disheartened because it takes so long. We are quick fix creatures, so we need a lot of Zen to make things happen.

I think you need to know what it is that you really want. Not the external stuff like houses, cars, money. But the inside deal – freedom, peace, love, that kind of stuff. If you know what it is you truly want, then maybe you can match your experiences to that, and find it, and keep it and change your world.

So don’t set any resolutions. Just try new stuff, new experiences and look for joy and endure another year. Maybe you are closer to success than you realize.

At least, that is what I keep telling myself.

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Waiting For January 2nd

It is hard to not make New Years Resolutions.

The same force that compels us to have the Christmas spirit is the same that makes us want to promise all kinds of things for next year.  It is not our fault.  It is a very real energy.

When all that energy wears off however, usually by January 2nd, we wonder, what were we thinking?  We spent way too much money, ate till we near burst and we made resolutions that will inevitably just not happen.

The reasons why we don’t change, can’t change or won’t change is because it is no fun.  

I stopped making resolutions many years ago because I got tired of beating myself up.  They are very ego bruising.

We are pleasure seeking creatures, like most animals, we don’t excel with misery.  If resolutions mean work, well, that means misery and that means we are not going to do them, at least, not for long.

Therein are the secrets to keep resolutions, after the thrill is gone of making them. The first secret is to make them pleasurable.  We make everything tedious work.  Make it play and you will easily do whatever needs to be done – well, almost.  You may need a bit of discipline once in a while, after all, old habits die hard.  However, if you continually make it an effort, you are done, you won’t budge, you won’t do it.  The second secret is to be open and try many things.  There is always more than one way to an end.  And trying many things – guess what – is fun!

Exercise.  Ugh.  How many of us are going to make that promise?  Off to the gym we trudge like we are doomed.  Who says exercise has to be the gym?  There are hundreds of different ways to get physically fit.  You could try every single one of them and still have plenty of choices left for next year.  Perhaps one of them will click with you and you will – oh my goodness – enjoy it so much you’ll keep going!  You can walk, run, swim, do karate, ballet, boxing, rowing, tennis. . . or do everything if you have the energy!

Diet.  Oh, how many times have I been down this dead end.  And hated every single minute of it.  Instead, I learned how to cook healthy and found healthy foods I actually enjoy eating.  There are many ways to get into the spirit of good food – cooking classes, seminars given by nutritionists, beautiful healthy food cookbooks and magazines, the internet is bursting with thousands of recipes and ways to make your favourite foods with substitute ingredients for all the bad stuff.  And I also learned to like my body, lumps and bumps and all.  It is way better to feel good inside than to look like a model.  When I feel healthy and strong, well, I’ve met my goal!

Changing a personality trait or behaviour can also be fun as you try on new ways of being.  We are very flexible and adaptable creatures.  As always, I only support positive changes never destructive ones.  There are infinite ways of being a better person than you are now.  But perhaps, you are already good enough.  None of us are perfect.  Maybe you are trying to be who you are not – somebody else – and forgetting what a great person you already are.  Any destructive behaviour however, is worth making a resolution to change it for good and forever.  Not just for you, but for everyone.

My only thoughts for the New Year are to keep on doing what I love and do more of what matters to me.

No, I’m not going to make a resolution now.