For many of us, the wish of real action towards a New Year's resolution as the clock turned from 2022 to 2023 has already faded. The clutter and chaos of day-to-day has already pushed that promising thought into the background. But is all hope really lost? Perhaps not. Researchers surveyed 19,000 persons on how much they changed in the past ten years compared to how much they believe they will change in the next ten years. Whether 30, 40 or 50 years old, persons were consistent in believing personality, core values or preferences were now fixed, even after noticing a change in these domains in the past 10 years. Apparently, we underestimate our capacity for future change.
The research did reveal change is a constant, regardless of age. Just as winter will turn to spring, so shall our capacity for change offer the opportunity to remake ourselves anew.
So, given that change is inevitable, how can we join this process? One option is to go blindly forward, like a rudderless ship, allowing the external current to determine our path. The alternative is to become an active participant in this process. The first step to participation is awareness. Just like planning a journey to San Francisco, the first step is to know if am I starting in Chicago or Buenos Aires. Mindful awareness invites me to understand, with self-compassion, the answer to “who am I today?” Mindfulness invites a deepened awareness of how my thoughts and emotions drive behaviors - like those behaviors we set out to change when the clock struck midnight last month! Mindfulness also creates a gap between impulse and action, and a gap allows the freedom to practice new healthier options. Finally, mindfulness places me in the only time frame where change occurs - NOW!
So, as the clock turns from January to February, let's hit reset on that month-old intention to change, and revisit empowered by mindfulness.
Happy New Year, again!
You Can't See It, But You'll Be A Different Person In 10 Years
Tags:
awareness, change
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In the Sufi tale of Looking for the Key, we find the wise sage Mulla Nasrudin searching for his lost key outside his home. A passer-by, curious about Mulla’s searching in the dust, offers to help. As time passes, the crowd grows assisting in the search, as promises grow of riches to be shared once the key is found. After many hours, a young boy asks Mulla, “Are you certain you dropped the key right here?” “No,” replies Mulla, “…I lost the key somewhere inside my house.” The crowd stops and asks, “Why are we looking out here?” “Your insight is clear…,” responds Mulla, “… it is far too dark to look for the key in my house. There is far more light out here!”
As we approach another turning of the year, making resolutions to do more of this or less of that, where are you looking for this change to occur? Far too often, while we honestly seek change, we look where the “light is brightest,” only at the action. But from both neuroscience and Buddhism, we learn that all action is preceded by intention. Athletes use the power of mental imagery to perform a specific movement to improve their abilities. In this mental rehearsal, nearly all the same neurons are fired just as though their body is moving. What if we put this power of intention to work in our daily lives?
As we seek to change, either prompted by New Year’s Eve or later in 2023, consider a new approach: learning how to shine the light into those dark areas where intention dwells. Mindfulness practices invite us to access this innate capacity to witness the unfolding thoughts that drive emotions and behavior. This simple act of observation creates a gap between trigger and reaction. And within this gap, dwells choice: the choice to continue to reinforce the habitual reactions or experiment with a new response. Remembering that neurons that fire together, wire together, we invite true long-term behavior change with each choice made a new. And a true “out with old, and in the new” arises.
Wisdom Tales: Looking for Lost Keys
Tags:
change, mindfulness, sufi
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