I am not against resolutions. I make them. In fact, as 2011 rang in, I made a fabulous resolution. It had nothing to do with how I looked or saved or what I wanted to stay away from. I made a resolution to love. Love what or whom? Everyone. I resolved to live a life free of anger, gossip and other such negative feelings or actions towards my fellow man/woman/child.
I was inspired by the writing of a man named Emmet Fox. I read a couple of inspirational things each morning in hopes of starting the day off right. In one of those books, Fox’s December 31 entry included the following:
The way of Love, upon which you may step at any moment … requires no formal permit, has no entrance fee, and no conditions whatever. You need no expensive laboratory in which to train, because your own daily life and your ordinary daily surroundings are your laboratory. You need no reference library, no professional training; no external acts of any kind. All you need is to begin steadfastly to reject from your mentality everything that is contrary to the law of love. You must build up by faithful daily exercise the true Love Consciousness. Love will heal you. Love will comfort you. Love will guide you. Love will illumine you.
All I have to do is change my thinking? I can still have cake, skip the gym, splurge on shoes – you name it – as long as I am coming from a place of love. It is not about putting on a display, people-pleasing or impressing anyone. If I can just stop myself before I speak or act, and ask if my words or actions are coming from a place of love, the rest of my life will sort of fall into place. I don’t even have to do this perfectly, according to Fox. He refers to each life as a laboratory. Labs are where experiments happen and mistakes and miscalculations are made more often than not. In fact, they are to be learned from and appreciated – even loved.
This love starts inside of me, which means that I must accept myself every day exactly the way I am. When I let myself go and really practice this, it is amazing how much acceptance I have for people and situations that may ordinarily upset me. Ironically, when I accept myself, the things I struggled with, like making good choices for my health and finances, fall in line. The more I come from a place of love, the better I seem to treat myself.
Happy New Year. No need for a new you; just get in touch with the real you. ♦
