The Most Important Resolution of All, To Me

Of all the promises I can make to myself, there is one that casts its powers over all the others.
In the past, I’ve resolved to lose weight, stop smoking, be more positive. I’ve stepped forward into the New Year with thoughts to learn Spanish, better food habits, or incorporate more exercise into my life. I’ve promised to stop making lists.
I’ve tried the images of releasing fear, embracing compassion, and halting my co-dependent tendencies.
I’ve vowed to finish the four novels of my Sacred Bundle Series, visit sick friends, be a better wife, mother, daughter, and grandmother.
I’ve hung prayer arrows to release bad habits or bad thoughts and fashioned ones to point me toward brighter days.
I’ve written pages of explanations to myself and others trying to make amends for hurts I’ve caused, confidences I’ve betrayed. Then I’ve burned them in the New Year’s Eve fire to let go of the guilt that held me immobile for years.
I’ve made the intention to re-establish relationships with my husband, children, and grandchildren, my mother and my sister friends. Our coming back together is important to me. What I’ve discovered is that the relationships and communications have to be important to both of us, or it doesn’t move any closer.
I’ve also discovered that all the promises I’ve made to improve myself, to be healthier, to be a better listener, doer, and person won’t work unless I believe in and accept the individual I am right here, right now.
I am incapable of changing any part of myself until I sink into the beingness who is me on this Earth plane, at this time, in this moment.
Here is where it begins.
So, in 2010, in my 65th year, I officially resolve to love myself, all of me, every attitude and habit, every grey hair and bald spot, each wrinkle, all my aches and pains, and my very complicated world view. It means I love my skills, my integrity, my honesty, my passions, my forgetfulness, my intentions and desires. I love me, and from that, all else is free to flow.

What I believe.

I firmly believe that the more each of us can find balance within ourselves and our lives, the better we will be at holding a point of calm on our particular place on the web of life. Balance isn’t just about being able to stand on one or both feet without falling down. Although after an introductory study of Aikido, I realized how many elements are involved in doing just that.
When my mind is scattered or problem-oriented, I’m not in my body enough to be able to stand in one place without falling over or being pushed over by a stiff wind or someone breezing past. When my heart is squeezed tight or overflowing in someone else’s direction, I don’t have enough juice for myself to convert into personal stability. This is also true for my emotional state, my level of ‘busyness, acceptance/rejection of love, attention, compassion, etc. For many events, fears, plus angers and frustrations pull me away from being in the moment and being able to stand in relaxed readiness for my own life.
Of all my relationships, I have a choice, each time I approach them, to be in awareness of them and myself so as to be open in that moment to the joy of being alive.
This time of reflection I spend has become important for me to find balance within all the myriad influences of this one life of mine.
As I’ve reflected and written over the past 20 years, a story has emerged that has become a series of four books, now named, The Sacred Bundle Series. Where the intertwining stories will be completed with the fourth book, my reflections on seeking balance will never be done until I pass away. This is the theme, it seems, of my life: finding balance in all my relationships.
So the imprinting of thoughts here in this blog are offered as my work in trying to step every day and in every moment into that place of balance where I can do no harm. Join me in seeking to center ourselves so we may strongly maintain our point of contact on the web of life no matter what’s happening to fray its connectivity on another part of our Earth.