I don’t know about you, but I’m not a great fan of New Year’s resolutions. There’s nothing particularly bad about them; making lists of goals to achieve, personal qualities to develop, behaviours to improve upon are all noble pursuits. It’s just that resolutions are future based and thus have the unwelcome habit of whisking me away from the richness of my present moment experience and into the murky realm of ‘if only’ and wishful thinking.
If only I could….lose a few pounds, exercise more, spend more quality time with my children, have better work life balance, be more considerate, less reactive, improve my relationships etc etc (insert wishful thought here)……then everything in my life would be perfect, rosy, peachy keen!
The list of course is endless and however valiant the attempt to ‘get all my ducks in a row’ I am in some fundamental sense, creating anxiety for myself by wanting and wishing things to be different from the way that they are. What’s more I am apt to fall into thoughts of self blame and judgement when, at some not too distant point in the future, I’m faced with the rapidly widening gulf between my ‘hoped for achievements’ and the reality of my efforts!
So what to do this year? Well my resolution this year is about exploring the richness of present moment experience through a series of mindfulness practices that can be found in this little book. There is a practice for each week of the year and it is my intention to attempt to practice all 52 of them over the course of 2012 and share my adventures with those practices in this blog.
Each new weekly practice will be posted here on Sunday afternoons, the first starting 1st January 2012. I very much hope you will get curious and join me to try some of them out, thereby experiencing some new and creative ways of bringing mindfulness into your daily life.
These practices are taken directly from How to Train a Wild Elephant & Other Aventures in Mindfulness by Jan Chozen Bays. You can find out more, read my review of and purchase this book from my Mindfulness Library (page 2).
I’m excited about this idea – it’s fun to think that other people might be engaged in the same practices each week … I’ll definitely be giving it a go. I like one of the example suggestions in the review of the book, to focus on the hands and just let the tension go. I have experienced releasing tension, (using EMG muscle biofeedback) with a friend and colleague who specialises in Biofeedback (see http://www.york-biofeedback.co.uk). I remember being surprised at discovering just how much tension I was holding in my forearms as a result of a sort of imperceptible ‘gripping’ in my supposedly relaxed hands. Letting go of this gripping was a revelation to me as it seemed to go hand in hand (!) with a greater ability to trust. Thank you, James for offering this way of weaving everyday Mindfulness into our New Year.
I’m excited about them too Melissa; I’ve never done any of these mindfulness practices before so it will be intriguing to see what ‘discoveries’ lie in store in the form of insights, observations and difficulties with each weekly task. The beauty about them of course is that anybody can join in to try out these exercises, you don’t have to have an established meditation practice or to have done an 8 week course to give them a go. This is important as ‘formal’ mindfulness practice can appear daunting at first glance, so these practices give people a chance to bring a sense of curiosity and discovery to the experience of daily life.
I believe these practices are made for sharing and as you say will be fun to do with other people. The more people share their process by commenting on their experiences of each practice, the greater the sense of common purpose and more fun we will have, enriching our lives in the process!
May we all be safe, secure and free from suffering in the New Year….oh and happy too!
James, Melissa,
Hello!
OK, so…
The book is on my Kindle and I have ordered the paperback, too (to avoid dropping the damn Kindle in the bath!)
I can see no possible downsides to joining you two people in your year-long journey, so if you are willing to have me along…
My own blog has been idle for too long: maybe I’ll even be tempted to resurrect it for this project too. We’ll see.
Anyway, wishing you and yours a year full of wonderful moments to appreciate!
Chris
Hello Chris,
Delighted to have you along…welcome! Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.
Have a great New Year’s Eve.
All best,
James
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hi there,
I like the idea of no resolutions, just be mindful from moment to moment and if not it also doesn’t matter…looking forward to following the weeks tasks James.
ATB
Hamish
Hi Hamish
It’s not so much about not having resolutions, but rather about managing our own expectations around the ones we do have in a skillful way. Coming to realise that the end result is not nearly as important as the experience gleaned from attempting to get there.
In this way we can bring gentleness and compassion to ourselves around our hopes and desires, particularly when we perceive that they are not met. On a personal level mindfulness and meditation practice helps me with this endeavour.
Happy New Year!
How inspiring, I’m in as well! My resolution for 2012 was to stop making any resolutions and just BE. I get caught up in planing and often end up disappointed when the reality doesn’t live up to my expectations. I’d like to be mindful and present thoroughly in every moment of 2012, live without planning and let the New Year take me on a journey. As Thich said, ‘The mind can go in a thousand directions, but on this beautiful path, I walk in peace.’ Happy New Year :)
Hi Marta thank you for your lovely post and quote and welcome to the Embrace practice blog. Delighted to have you here and look forward to receiving your thoughts and comments. My intention with exploring these practices is to try and build a ‘digital’ sangha where people can develop a sense of enquiry, curiosity and common purpose with their mindfulness endeavours.
One of the things we can do with planning and having expectations is just to notice them and be gentle towards ourselves in that noticing. As Ajahn Chah says…”Try to be mindful and let things take their natural course. Then your mind will become still in any surroundings, like a clear forest pool. All kinds of wonderful, rare animals will come to drink at the pool, and you will clearly see the nature of all things. You will see many strange and wonderful things come and go, but you will be still. This is the happiness of the Buddha.”
dear james and everyone
i’m not sure how this landed in my inbox, but v happy that it did, thank you all for your comments and thoughts…my intention too will be to try and follow these practices. i don’t get much time to get to sitting group these days so aim to bring mindfulness practice into my everyday life and being
enjoy your sunday, kris
Hi there Kris and welcome to the embrace mindfulness practice blog.
I too find it difficult to get to sitting groups these days hence this idea to have an online sangha/community where people can practice together and get support for their process, identifying with others doing the same. People can drop in and try out a practice in any given week, when they have the time and inclination to do so. I hope to convey that these weekly practices are about inquiry, curiosity and enriching life through investigation.
So….looking forward to hearing your thoughts. The practice for week 2 will be posted later today.
Have a great Sunday.
PS If you think any friends of yours may be interested, let them know….all grist to the mill :)