"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result."
~ Albert Einstein
Well 2024 is already showing me what it has in store. In the first week I’ve already been punched in the nose and couldn't be happier for it.
For the past several months I have been purging many aspects of my old life in terms of my physical environment (i.e. 5 garbage bags full of clothes). I felt a great need to do this before the beginning of 2024 to make space for the new everything that is coming my way.
In the last week of the year my wife and I contemplated what we would like to bring into our lives in the New Year. We spoke of leisure time, finances and romance. We spoke of these things from a slightly different context than we had before as we had both learned a lot in the past year. We felt good about making progress in these areas were excited to begin 'work'.
Then something interesting happened. As we were tidying and reorganizing our bedroom my wife found an old notebook. Contained in its pages a wake up call. It was a 'resolution' list for 2007. It was from around the time that we began personal development work. The list contained 12 items that spoke to different areas of our lives. 7 of those 12 were identical to what we had talked about creating for 2024! Smack right in the nose. With all of the work we had done on ourselves and our relationship since then were we really still in the same place? Has all of this work been for nothing? What the fuck have I been doing for the past 17 years?
I had to take a time out and take stock. When I looked back over the last 17 years I realized how far I've come in my life and the truth is the work on myself will never be done. I've come to love and be excited about that work. What I learned is that as I learn, grow and evolve my environment needs to continually evolve and be tweaked so that I can continue on my journey, my evolution of Self.
As it turns out most of the similar items on the lists have actually changed greatly and the 'issues' that we wanted to fix (as was our mindset at the time) are a distant memory but they are key areas of my life that will constantly need to expand and recreated as I do and my wife does.
The other areas that we are still working on hat haven't changed are the ones that I'm most excited about. I realize that we've been using the same approach to change/ recreate these areas for well over 17 years. And clearly it hasn't worked! A change in my context for these areas is necessary if it is to evolve as I do. What does that look like? It looks like a whole lot of Love and Joy in those areas right here right now. It looks like not ignoring what is not working and diving into the not working to expose of the decisions and feelings hat lead to where I am now. It is important to see the darkness for what it is and thereby bring light to it. Only then can something be transformed and healed on a deep fundamental level.
So why the Love and Joy first and look into the darkness second? Do you go into a dark space without some sort of light to see where you are? It is important to look at the not working parts from the perspective of Love than from make-wrong or self-hatred. Looking at these things 'negatively' to elicit change never works. You end up forcing change and building on an unstable foundation. Exactly the same as just ignoring everything that led you to where you are - ignoring the darkness. Another way to put it is there is only so far you can stretch and elastic. The farther you stretch the more force you need and it takes a lot of effort and energy to keep it stretched. When you change the perspective you view your situation from to something more in line with what you inevitably want (all we ever really want is to feel Love and Joy) you get the opportunity to actually throw out the old elastic and get a bigger one to start fresh with.
Here's a little assignment to start the new year off with:
Look back over the past 5 years at your ‘resolutions’ or things that you've been wanting to change. Have they been the same thing year after year? If they have changed is that because you achieved your goal or because you gave up on it? If you achieved it the great! There is much to learn from that. If you gave up on it then great! There is much to learn from that. If you didn't achieve it then great! There is much to learn from that too.
‘til next week!
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