New Year’s Resolution
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Jean A. Costa / Posts tagged "New Year’s Resolution"
January 4, 2015 In Faith

Trusting in Christ

Affirmation:  I dedicate this year of 2015 to
trusting in Christ.
It’s January 1st, 2015 and that can be a time for
reflection and retrospection.  I know
many people make some sort of New Year’s
resolution.  It can be a very common
topic during the first few days of January; “Have
you set any New Year’s resolutions?”  We all
know how they usually go.  Most people
are lucky if they hold onto those resolutions for more than a day.  You know the usuals: lose weight, stop
smoking, begin exercising, eat healthy, spend more time in prayer and or
mediation, etc. and then life takes over. 
The holidays are finished and most of us head back to work or to our
normal routine and that routine doesn’t
include those good intentions.  There is
however, ways to make permanent changes in our life.  Some changes we choose, those can be a gift
we give ourselves.  Other changes are
thrust upon us, and depending upon how we approach those, they can also be a
gift we give ourselves.  
I’m
very excited about this New Year.  I must
admit coming out of Christmas and looking towards the New Year, I didn’t feel excited. 
I felt anxious but I’ve been consistently
journaling and reading as much inspirational and motivational writings as are available to me and I’ve decided that this is my
year to simply go with the flow, to let go of the struggle and the challenges
that I’ve always created for myself.  My study group, The Seekers, is presently
reading Martha Beck’s Finding Your Own North
Star.  I really had a difficult time
relating to the beginning of the book but midway through it took on new
meaning.  The section we are presently
studying is about The Change Cycle. 
Change, one of those elements that every human being experiences and
experiences all the time.  Sometimes we
are aware of the changes, they are dramatic and potent but most change is
subtle and insidious.  We go through life
not paying much attention to it.  It hasn’t really commanded our attention but it’s always there and how we deal with small changes is a
precursor to how we deal with large changes. 

My Enneagram type, Type 7, is
prone to anticipation.  It’s part two of Martha Beck’s Change Cycle. 
That may sound exciting but the truth is it can be exhausting and it
takes me “out of the moment,” out of
the experience of the present.  I miss
too much by not paying attention to the Now. 
Between Martha and the information about my personality type in the
Enneagram, I decided not to live like that this year.  This year my intention is to allow life to
unfold.  I want to live in the movement
of the spirit.  I can’t tell you what that will look like and I will tell
you I have prayed that I am not called to be a martyr but I’m still going to go with it. 

I owe this year’s intention to one of my dear friends and study group
traveler.  She gifted me with the book, One
Word That Will Change Your Life by Jon Gordon and she has shared with me
over the year the impact of focusing on one word, like taking a mantra.  I know my intention is more than one word but
the word I’ve chosen to focus on is Trust.  It’s been
here now for a few years, floating in and out of my consciousness and my
affirmations.  A while back I developed
the RTR principle: I fully Rest in God’s care,
I Trust in God’s love and I Release myself from any struggle.  It was helpful but it was a little like a
resolution; I didn’t hold onto it for very
long.  I have discovered that when I take
an intention for the year, miraculous things, subtle and not so subtle take
place and without a lot of effort my life takes on new meaning and color. 
This is the third year of taking
an intention, declaring the year a “year
of.”  This
last year you might recall was “The year of connecting to the
Divine.”  It’s been a wild roller coaster
ride with the publishing of my book in February, the death of my mother,
Margaret Grolimund in March and the marriage of my daughter, Ellen, to Adam O’Sullivan in May but through it all there’s been a peace and a sense of being in the presence of
a greater power.  Each morning my journal
had the year’s intention written at the top of the page and even
though I mostly left the thought as I went throughout my day, I still carried
it with me in my inner being.  As with
all affirmations I believe they first enter your consciousness, then our
subconsciousness and then they permeate our cellular being and we are
different, different in ways we might never even imagined but different in ways
that enhance our lives. 

I’m
ready!  I’m
excited about this year’s intention.  I am expecting amazing, miraculous
things.  I know life will still hold all
the challenges life normally holds and maybe a few I can’t even imagine and for which I would never ask but I’ll be good.  I’ll let this new intention seep deep within me and
whatever the world throws at me, I’ll be
breathing deeply and knowing that since I’ve made
a conscious choice, every day to trust in Christ, I’ll look back on this year, just as I did on 2014 and
see the miracles and the blessings in all the hills and the valleys that is the
ride of my life. 
January 6, 2013 In Uncategorized

Don’t Make a Resolution, Create an Affirmation

How many new years have you tried to enact some form
of change for yourself?  New Year’s
resolutions present themselves every January, and once in a while a resolution
works but all too often they fail leaving us exactly where we started and
feeling powerless or just plain sad.  One
of the problems with a resolution is that most of them are phrased using the
future tense.  “This year I will begin
exercising.”  “As of January 2nd, I will
begin my diet.”  “I will stop
smoking.”  It’s like making a wish and
then sitting back and waiting to see if it comes true or not.
A more effective way to initiate change in your life
is to set an intention and then to create an affirmation.
When teaching yoga I encourage the participants to
“set an intention” for their practice session.  That’s all I say.  I could give them examples but it’s so much
more effective and powerful when a yogi forms his or her own intention.  I have carried this beginning practice step
into my life.  I make an effort to set an
intention for each day and especially for the beginning of the New Year.  Once my intention becomes known to me, I then
form an affirmation to cement it into my mind, body and spirit.
 
What exactly is an affirmation?  An affirmation
is a statement that makes firm that which you believe.  It is a statement
about that which you perceive to be true. 
You can have positive or negative affirmations.  When I began
writing out my affirmations, I discovered the power of controlling my
thoughts.  Once you take charge of what
you’re thinking, you then take charge of your life.  For me there was also joy and power in the
process of creating the affirmations.  I
love testing the words, seeing what resonated and deciding what was so important
to me that I would focus on it day after day.
Not sure it will work for you?  Think about this.  All those negative statements you’ve been
telling yourself for as long as you can remember, how have they been working?  They’ve probably worked quite well but
unfortunately not to your benefit. 
Changing them to positive statements will work too and think how much
better you’ll feel.
What does your self-talk look like?  Sometimes,
you’re having the conversation when you’re alone.  Sometimes, you’re saying
the same things to yourself but you’re not alone.  And, sometimes you’re saying things aloud
about yourself that you would never say to or about a dear friend.  What are the phrases you’ve adopted over the
years?  “Boy, am I stupid.” or “I never get it right!”
How about, “I can’t do that.” or “It frightens me.”  An affirmation is about changing the things
you tell yourself in order to empower yourself and improve the quality of your
life.  It’s a powerful free tool that can
make a positive difference in your life.  Begin by noticing when your
self-talk weakens you, makes you feel powerless, or useless.  Pay
attention!  That’s the first step, awareness.
When creating an affirmation avoid the word
“not.”  It won’t work to your benefit; it may even work to your
detriment. I heard a story many years ago about a mother teaching her
daughter to drive.  There was a huge
bolder in the road ahead.  The mother
kept reminding her daughter about it. 
“Don’t go near the bolder.” 
“Don’t’ hit the bolder.”   What do
you think happened?  They were both so
focused on missing the rock in the road, they drove right into it.  It’s the same with negatives in your
affirmation.  You won’t hear the “not”
and you’ll move right into the place you’re trying to avoid.
There are phrases you can use instead of enlisting the
negative.  For example:  “I release” or “I let go
of.”  Two of my affirmations using those phrases are:  “I
let go of fear and anxiety.” and “I release myself from my childhood
limitations.”  It’s simply more
effective than saying: “I will not let fear and anxiety influence my
life.”  I have chosen to tell myself, “I eat mindfully”
instead of saying, “I do not eat foods that are bad for me.”  Another example is, “I attract financial
prosperity.” rather than, “I don’t waste my money.”  Can you hear the difference?  Can you
feel the difference? 
I sometimes write out the affirmation without too much
thought and then take time to fine tune it. Begin by taking a few minutes
and re-reading the words.  You are
looking for words that stir an emotion in you. 
Don’t over analyze it.  Let the
sentence be a statement of how you want to perceive your life.  Write it in the present tense.  It may be a statement you have a difficult
time believing but try it anyway. 
Sometimes those are the most powerful. I have a dear friend whose
affirmation is, “I am a gifted and talented artist.”  When she first claimed that, she did not feel
that way but that’s how she wanted to feel. 
It worked!  She now is a gifted
and talented artist.  Her affirmation led
her to the steps which led her to believe in herself and to expand her gifts
and talents. 
One example of an affirmation I use in my daily
practice is:  When I stay focused on the
present, I am calmer and more peaceful. 
I created this one because I believe what is truly important is
today.  Worry magnifies my difficulties and diminishes my ability to live
fully in the present moment.  Anxieties
almost always arise because I fail to put all my effort into the here and
now.  I am calmer and more peaceful when I focus more on the gifts of each
day, instead of worrying about tomorrow or reliving something unpleasant from
the past. 
The quality of my life is all about how I perceive
every event and person, including myself. 
If I can change myself for the better, won’t that help others? If you
did the same thing, wouldn’t that help you, the world, or at least your world?
It’s an amazing process. Take full advantage of it.  Write them down, write them every day, post
them on your bathroom mirror, by your doorway, on your computer and wait! 
Instead of another set of New Year’s resolutions you didn’t keep, you’ll have
created a set of affirmations that will change your life in ways you never
before dreamed possible.