Rick Hanson, Ph.D
Traditionally, the beginning of a New Year invites you to start anew by setting some goals you might wish to reach. Usually they involve behavioral changes, and often fade away in a month or two. If you can drill down to your underlying current of values, passions, and purpose, then you are working in the ground of your being instead of your doing. Your being, identity, and essence preclude your doing. A life well-lived is comprised of doing what is valued by and meaningful for you; it flourishes out of your being. So, setting an intention that emerges from your deeper self has a greater chance of being realized and will feel more gratifying. Think of it as a stimulus or GPS, calling you to an expanded, fuller life.
Tending your inner garden this winter can be about both restoring your fertile ground and cultivating what it is you intend to manifest in the new year. In his Letters to a Young Woman, Rilke wrote: Tending my inner garden went splendidly this winter. Suddenly to be healed again and aware that the very ground of my being—my mind and spirit—was given time and space in which to go on growing; and there came from my heart a radiance I had not felt so strongly for a long time…
Get Fired Up:
Listen to what draws your heart. How will you be tending your inner garden this winter?
How do you wish to grow in this next year? What do you want to manifest?
Let your journey be organic. Follow your heart.
"May what I do flow from me like a river, no forcing and no holding back." Rainer Maria Rilke
