Begin. And Begin Again...

Reflecting on the past year and preparing for the next, I was taken aback when I realized that a lot of my hopes and ambitions for 2024 looked like a total repeat from the year before. Did I really accomplish nothing at all? Am I a failure?

I felt like the butt of the perennial jokes about how we make the same old doomed resolutions every year, intending, but never quite managing, to lose ten pounds, quit drinking, or put more money into savings or what have you. But I sat with it for a while, and it wasn’t long before I realized: it’s not because I wasn’t serious about these goals that they popped up again on my list — but because I really am.

My commitments or resolutions just don’t adhere to a one-year cycle.

For a couple years now (maybe even a few…), these interests and intentions have stayed with me. Like an echo or a refrain, they may build, wane, then grow again. They sometimes come back around looking a little different, shaped by new experiences, lessons learned, or possibilities. Or they may remain familiar, like an old friend. And — like friends — I feel I’m in relationship with these aims, not merely waiting to check them off a list.

Many do have an element of adopting habits or practices, whether living more healthfully or mindfully or authentically. They are less about things to be “done” or achieved than they are about ways of being. They are like North Stars.

It was helpful to read Brian Stout’s exploration of “Embodiment, Integration, and Transformation,” which speaks to the time and commitment it takes to make new ways of being lastingly our own, likening it to building muscle memory so that it’s no longer “effortful and inconsistent” but part of who we are. He also shares at some length about his own journey of what it looks like to create the space-time for the practice required for such integration. For him, this includes seeking out and learning from teachers, healers, and guides.

And it just now occurs to me (as someone who usually keeps my own counsel and probably tends to try to do too much alone) that perhaps this is one way my intentions will keep evolving with me this coming year: if I have the wisdom, humility, and good fortune to engage with others who can help me follow these North Stars. I wonder how much farther along I’ll be after this next trip around the Sun if I do?

Yes, it’s an artificial marker of time, but every New Year is a beginning — as much as every day, every hour, and every “now” holds that same potential, inviting us to begin. And begin again.