Resolutions

The following piece was written for a storyteller show at the beginning of this year.  I found myself going back over it, as it is still relevant…and will always be relevant!  Do you remember your New Year’s Resolutions?

When I hear resolutions, I automatically think of identifying New Year’s resolutions.  To be honest, I really struggle with creating New Year’s Resolutions. Secretly, it almost feels forced to me to create this goal at the beginning of the New Year…that personally, I most likely won’t achieve.  The first thing that usually comes to my mind are gym’s being over crowded to later die down and some people to never be seen again!

After stewing in my thoughts of not liking New Year’s Resolutions…stuck in my pouting mode I realized it’s not the idea of resolutions that I struggle with.  It’s the idea of waiting until the New Year to create a resolution, to set a goal, to do something different, to aspire to be more, to improve in a skill. Once I shifted my mindset, it came to me!  I knew what I wanted to share. About 8 years ago, I started to change some things in my life around, and for the past 4 years…I have been very intentional in taking action in changing my life…and I would like to share some steps I have taken:

1. First, I had to be willing to evaluate myself. Explore what was working, what wasn’t working, and how did my behaviors fit into the puzzle.  Now, don’t get me wrong…this evaluation was very difficult as there are times that I wanted to blame others for the end results I was getting.  Other times, it was my fault just by being my own worst enemy. These voices that I heard in my head (don’t worry, they were mine) saying “Liat, how could you not know, you should have known better” “You could have done better”  or “shit…I don’t know shit!” So, I had to learn to be kind to myself, as I’m listening to everything I tell myself.
2. In evaluating myself, I had to be willing to learn.  Learn from my experiences, admit my mistakes and shortcomings.  Why does learning have to be so painful sometimes. I found out that it was hard for me to learn…not let me read something and pick up this book knowledge type of learning…learning about myself, about the mistakes I made, learning what I did wrong.  It’s like taking a bullet to your ego… But I over time I began to change how I thought about learning. It didn’t have to be all about what I did wrong. I again, had to change my mindset and to be open to feedback and criticism, to do better, to be a better person, be a better critical thinker, to allow others to challenge me, call me out on my bullshit when I needed it.
3. Then I went on a mission exploring what I had control over.  I always think back to the serenity prayer: God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
4. In theory, the serenity prayer is awesome…I don’t know about you but just saying it makes me feel more at peace.  But the application…that is a totally different beast. Like accepting that I can’t change the behavior of someone else that drives me crazy.  Accepting that my son’s will make their own gosh darn decisions…even though I am the one who brought them into this world. So CONTROL…I think a lot of us..including me have control issues.  And we keep hitting our head over and over again trying to change something that is out of our control. That vaguely reminds me of the common definition of insanity. By the way..hint, hint.
5. So, when I finally recognized what was truly in my control, what was not in my control, and like a true control person…what I may have some influence over…then I had to learn to accept and let go.
6. The movie Frozen has a great motto, but damn it…letting it go is one of the hardest things to do.  But, the times that I have made it over that hump…it’s the most wonderful, beautiful experiences I can have.  It’s like I have been carrying the weight of the world on my chest…which my weight is light, so I can only envision this…and then once I changed my mindset, I’m lighter, I can breathe easier…and dammit, I became my own superhero.

So, I truly believe that I have been going on this journey on a daily basis.  Sometimes I’m walking with tears in my eyes, some days I feel like I am in quicksand, some days I get scared and I take a couple steps back.  But in the end I have discovered that when I stop judging myself harder than I would judge my friend, when I tell myself positive things, when I keep it real with myself.  When I experience something, I put my whole heart into it, I put my mind into it, I am choosing to live in each moment, to live my life without regrets, and without the should haves or would haves.  I am enjoying this life that I have been given, I’m smiling, I’m laughing, I’m crying, and I’m arguing… but I don’t carry the pain into my everyday interactions as if it is still happening. So, my resolution is to continue to learn about myself, continue to be a better person, to achieve my goals and dreams, to not put myself on the back burner for others, but to be kind to others, to help others within my capacity.  To live my life as tomorrow isn’t granted. But God, I would still like to see tomorrow!