Seven Questions for the New Year
Whether you are a ‘resolution maker’ or not, here are a few simple, yet reflective questions that can help steer the course for an incredible 2023.
1. What is one thing you would like to celebrate about 2022?
Before you put on your running shoes and gear up at the 2023 starting line, take a moment to reflect and think of at least one thing you would like to celebrate about your 2022. Be sure to take one really positive momento or lesson with you as you leave 2022 behind.
2. What is one thing that you would like to celebrate at the end of 2023?
Are you ready to ignite that cosmic (or pea) sized dream to lift off? Do we wish for a change in our lifestyle or health status, or a new relationship, or a complete shift in life paths? And what are you willing to do to bring it into fruition?
At the end of the day, we get to choose if the quality of our life will disintegrate or become better because of what we hoped and worked for. The choice is ours. Not to choose, to just let things go along in the same unsatisfactory routines as always is a passive choice that will undoubtedly point you in the wrong direction. Then you might find yourself sitting by the wayside, writing your unfulfilled dream off as ‘hopeless’.
Improvements in our lives do not happen on their own. It’s a funny thing about us humans but we frame the dynamics of life in such a way as to imagine that change in whatever form somehow gets delivered to our doorstep. That is, we don’t realize how much we have to be the initiators in the positive changes we want to see come into our lives.
A wonderful New Year’s activity aimed at this question is to write down all of the positive new things you want to bring into your life this year on small pieces of paper. Take a pot with some fresh soil and seeds and plant these pieces of paper amongst the seeds. Water and nurture them and watch them grow to fruition this year.
3. What can you contribute to your community to make it a better place?
It’s been my experience that not many people think much anymore about their place within their community. Parents may get involved in the schools their kids go to, but schools are only a part of one’s community. Community is made up of the people in your neighborhood, schools, churches, local businesses, and the health of your neighborhood in general.
Positive contributions could be deciding to volunteer, donating money to local animal shelters or food banks, picking up that piece of trash lying there – just anything that feels like a positive devotion of your energy to keeping your neighborhood a special place.
4. In what ways do you want to evolve and grow this year?
This is a robust question and one that requires reflection. It is not a question that you should reply to without serious thought because you really are setting an inner intention for yourself.
Are there any ways you want to change how you are now? Do you want to handle a big or small addiction that you have? Do you want to finally settle a conflict with someone? What is something new that you would like to learn about the world, about yourself, about the other ‘side’? Do you want to challenge how you think about the Middle East by learning more about that part of the world? Or, do you want to be a kinder and more thoughtful person?
I challenge you to up your evolutionary game by getting out of your comfort zone and learning something completely new.
5. Whose life do you want to help and how will you do that?
One of the greatest feelings I know is to help lift someone up. But stepping into the life of another person has to be done carefully and with great wisdom. It is not a good idea to fly into someone’s life, offer to take charge of their problems, and then vanish. It’s also not wise to offer to do more than you can.
An easy way is to act anonymously. You could, for example, find a child that needs a scholarship and contribute to his or her support. Contribute to a charity in a different country. Or if you have the time to create a personal relationship with someone, you could find a family with a special needs child and offer to take that child for a walk once a week to give the family a small rest. Or you could take a dog from a dog shelter for a walk once a week. We all must find our own way that feels the best, but regardless of what you choose, helping others increases the positivity on this planet and gives a boost to someone else’s life.
6. What changes are unfolding in your life that you need to accept?
This is a very personal question that requires reflection and maybe a bit of time to answer. If you say that nothing is changing in your life, then you might want to take another peek. Change is always unfolding. We are always moving through cycles of death and rebirth, endings and beautiful new beginnings. From the release of plans and paths you had planned to walk, to beginning something exciting and new, your life continues each day with new variations. Sometimes it can feel really disheartening and sad to see that the new changes in your life are not what you wanted or expected. Some things are worth the fight to turn around and get but sometimes there is a divine force at play that is pulling you in another unforeseen direction. Do you feel comfortable accepting and following this pull, this path? And how do you know when the change is because of a wrong turn you took or due to a divine force that is showing you a better way?
7. Do you feel a desire to deepen your spiritual life?
It is important to remember that a spiritual life is not an intellectual or mind driven experience. It is a prayerful, contemplative, mystical, reflective journey that, in fact, draws us out of our mental and intellectual space.
Be wild, curious and wondrous on your spiritual path. Fall in love with silence and do not fear it. Try ceasing to look for the distractions of sound. Take time to ‘disconnect’ and return to silence and quiet. Then ask yourself, “What is of value to me? What is my relationship with a Higher Power? Am I comfortable in my spiritual skin? Or is it time to deepen my connection?