(Re)solution

 

 

Sometimes our lives demand activity and action, a true engagement in the world. Life is relationship and the Yogic path also encompasses these relationships.
Gitte Bechsgaard, The Gift of Consciousness

 

Resolution:  from the Old French resolucioun, "a breaking or reducing into parts; process of breakup, dissolution." 

 

Taking on a new challenge, making a resolve does seem to require some loosening-up of the old ways of doing things to make way for something new.  In the breaking apart, we can discover the next small step we need to take to reach the greater goal. Hiking helps me to understand what it takes to attempt a challenge.  When I look up at a distant peak, it can seem like an impossible goal.  Starting out, I am not sure if I will make it to the top.  I am a little afraid.  Will I have the strength and stamina, will the weather hold out, will I lose my will along the way? I feel the fear and step out anyway.  I am amazed how the first step and the hundreds of small steps that follow get me closer to the top. 

 

This year my resolution is not let fear and negativity stop me from manifesting my purpose and longings in the world.  I want to grow, and I know that growth requires movement from the known into the unknown across the bridge of groundlessness. I am working to move closer into the fear rather than retract from it because fear points me to the direction of growth.

 

I don’t always get to the top of the mountain.  I have been turned back by fatigue, thunderstorms, whipping winds, rivers too deep and wild to cross.  At other times, all seems to work in my favor.  Each  trip teaches me something about myself.  This is what every push in life is like.  Taking a smalls step towards a goal, discovering the next step along the way, seeing more clearly how fear works to stop me in my tracks, how faith and courage are found alongside the fear.