At the end of every year people are asked what their New Year’s Resolutions will be. Inevitably by the beginning of February they’ve dumped them for something else or forgotten them or not even started. One of the statistics I read stated that only about 8% of people who make them stick with them. This is from the 50% of the population who actually made any in the first place. Statistics are not people.
An article in Psychology Today (2014) talks about why people can’t keep their resolutions – not about statistics. One psychology professor says that people make resolutions to motivate themselves but ultimately are not ready to make the changes to their habits.
The key here is making changes to our habits, our behaviors. To truly change these we need to rewire or recode our brain. This occurs during hypnosis and meditation, something we can do for ourselves. I believe what the psychology professor stated though in that not everyone is ready to make these changes.
Rather than make a resolution at all, I love the idea of creating a theme. A few years ago I decided at the end of each year I would pick a theme, incorporate it into my daily life and learn how to make it enhance my life throughout the upcoming year. The first time I did this was on the topic of detachment. Before being able to truly attract what you want in life, one must learn to detach not only from the outcome but also from things in our life that no longer serve a positive purpose for us. It was a challenge but worth it!
This year I went a step further. I read an article by Theresa Reed, The Tarot Lady in which she discussed her views on resolutions and suggested coming up with a word via the major arcana and some numerology. You can read her article here. I went through and came up with two options, the High Priestess (she’s often my card that I pull) and the Justice Card. I read though the words she provided and then used the thesaurus to exhaust my options.
I wanted to use both cards to find my words. I decided I could have two words. I kept coming back to intuition and integrity. Intuition was easy to stop at. I didn’t need to delve any further to find the word that fit for me this year. I know I am meant to go further with developing it, understanding it and utilizing my intuition not only for myself but my clients as well.
Integrity is where I got caught up. I went deeper into the synonyms and found something I liked even better. Synonymous with ‘integrity’ is the word ‘virtue’, I let my intuition take me on a path to the words similar to ‘virtue’ and there it was – FAITH.
Faith has never been an issue for me. I’ve always had a deep connection to my higher power. I refer to this as God, sometimes the Universe. Others choose different names. I’ve never doubted or had what some may call a crisis of faith. I’ve asked questions, oh so many questions and I will continue to do so.
I think though, I have put faith in the closet along with my blue swede boots from junior high school and the kimono my grandmother never used. I put it with the things I want to keep, maybe use if or when needed and but not keep out where it could get dusty or damaged. I hadn’t realized I had done that until this moment of writing this. I never gave up my faith but I have in a sense ignored it – assumed it would always be there. It will but it can be so much more.
So this year, intuition and faith are my words. What will your word or words be?
P.S. I also chose a theme song to represent what I want to experience this 2017 and the words are perfect for me and my intentions (I’m gonna use up my time by feeling fine):
https://youtu.be/0aY3vu6fzeU
