Happy New Year!

We have a tradition of coming up with resolutions for the new year. In that spirit, here are some things that I want to work on this year, and probably much longer than that!
I want to let love be a guiding principle in my life, and I want to let go of fear whenever I can. This idea feels good and right to me. I don’t have well-defined plan how exactly how to accomplish this. But I’m reading some good books about it, and I believe some of my other areas of focus for the year will help me.
I want to become more mindful and meet each moment with my deepest values. Inherent in this idea is the need to define my deepest values. This sounds like a lot of work, but I think there are some truly meaningful rewards to be found here.
I want to live my life more intentionally. I want to examine my automatic scripts that I use in my daily life and rid myself of the ones that really don’t serve me. I want to be responsive instead of reactive.
This one is not a unique New Year’s resolution: I want to make care of my physical self a bigger priority. A long time ago, I got the idea that physical talents weren’t my strength. I think this core idea has allowed me to justify not focusing on physical fitness. But as I find myself smack dab in middle age, I think it would serve me to focus on fitness so that I can continue to do the things that I enjoy. There’s also this crazy possibility that I could gain physical skills and abilities!

I hope that you have a wonderful new year!  And I also wish that we all are successful working towards the goals that we choose to pursue!

Don’t Let Hate Win

Try to remember that a symbol doesn’t have any power or meaning that you don’t give to it.
Instead of allowing a symbol to inspire feelings of hatred, contempt, disgust and intolerance, try instead to choose to experience the feelings that will increase the love and the kindness in our world.
When I see a symbol meant to inspire negative feelings, I choose to deny it that power. I choose to feel grateful for the positive steps we have made towards tolerance and acceptance of others, instead of experiencing feelings of frustration, separateness and hatred. I choose to be grateful for the opportunities we still have to become more loving and understanding, instead of feeling depressed and hopeless about the injustices some of us may still have to experience. Instead of allowing General Lee’s battle flag to bring up sorrow in me, I choose to celebrate all of the good people in the world who are not perfect, but still choose to demonstrate love, kindness and tolerance more often than hate, greed and ignorance.
Don’t let hate win. Be strong, and find a way to personally translate those symbols into reminders to spread love instead.