How Far Is It to the Starting Line?

January 2011

Are your resolutions the bars of a cage or springboards to the future?

Lotsa folks make New Year’s resolutions — health, wealth, relationship, community, spiritual. In fact, the culture has spawned an “improvement materialism” marketplace this time of year. Just incidentally, home gym equipment is on sale. And office organization systems. And new business opportunity expos open. And as long as you’re inundated with the screams of Madison Avenue about what you “should be wanting” to improve so that you can play the game, it’s very difficult to hear the emerging voice of the future wanting to live through your gifts.

What if you challenge that?

Without a single bit more muscle, without a new cash infusion, without learning a new skill… who would you be? Without a new flame, without losing a pound, with no additional meditation time… can your gift still be given?

Once you recognize the gift that appears as you is already flowing, there’s nothing you need to do to reach the starting point. Then, with that under your belt,

ask a new question

Beginning from what is, just as it is, what evolution allows this gift to be delivered with more intensity, more reach, more clarity? As Michael Beckwith puts it, “What am I asked to become in service to this vision?”

When the vision is bigger than the me, when it’s about what is needed in the world and how you serve that, more than what is wanted for the small self, the evolution flows effortlessly. Even dozens of exercise reps that are damn hard work… come effortlessly. You don’t have to argue with yourself to get around to it. The importance is obvious, shining. The doing simply flows from your beingness, without you having to think about it and rationalize it (over and over and over).

You’re already growing, evolving, becoming anyway. There’s no point saying stop it. But you can look at what’s fueling the direction that it takes. Thoughts can take you one direction; beingness guide you another.

When to Ask Why

As we’re taught as a society to set New Year’s resolutions, a key question to ask yourself is “why?” Any resolution created to earn reputation, worth, admiration, or value can’t hold since your very existence is already everything of worth and value, everything admirable. On the other hand, the human-personality-you exists only to earn, never to reach. Test your resolutions by ending them with the phrase, “so that…” and see what comes out.

Can I be satisfied with the situation just as it is, if nothing changes? Consider Lynne Twist’s emphasis on sufficiency. What amount to earn is “enough”? What weight is “enough”?

Can you give your gift through the situation just as it is?

This is not to create a culture of complacency and mediocrity. It’s to remove the externally-generated compulsion that we must become more-better, something other than as we are, before we are good enough, before we reach the starting gate, before we can even play. Without that external compulsion, we’re free to follow the urgings of the still, small voice and create something beyond the current cultural norms.

Then, recognizing that you are already “enough,” what evolution might support living your gift in a fuller, more wide-open way?

One person may want to lose weight in order to attract the attention of a potential mate, or to be more socially likeable. Another person may realize that they need to shed pounds they’re carrying to increase their energy level in delivering their message from the stage and affect more lives. Either person wants to lose weight.

So, without the glossy-ad-hype and the superchain sales, in what way could the next unfolding of personal evolution serve your vision? What are you asked to become? What resources, in all of Existence, are available to support you in that?

Try It Now

Take 2 minutes to write your standard list of resolutions. You already know the top 5 that beat on you every year. By the end of this year, what do you want to have accomplished?

1. Look at the list for a moment. Doesn’t it look strangely like a resume, describing what you’ve done for the me? achieved, earned, went, bought, married, travelled…
2. Wad up that paper and drop-kick it across the room.
3. Now take a couple minutes to drop into full alignment with the vision emerging as you. This is the part that has the –ing on it… giving, serving, inspiring, contributing, loving… rather than the part that ends with –ed. What is the quality of living that wants to be released into the world as you move forward?
4. What are 5 things, mental, emotional, or physical, that inhibit the flow of living this?
5. What are 5 practices that well up in your attention that could release those inhibitions?
6. Choose one to begin playing with. Rest knowing that Life has the rest on the shelf, to be offered up for you in perfect timing throughout the year.

Just consider, without any need for action, with these inhibitions released, is the probability higher or lower that the wishlist-of-the-me would come to fruition? (Just in case you were worried about that drop-kick…)