Here we are again, together marking another rotation of our planet around the sun.  As this cycle ends and a new one dawns, you, like me, may be considering what resolutions you want to make for the new year.  But let's be honest.  Does not the vibrant rainbow we see on January 1st of what our future holds (if we can just commit to our resolutions) so often fade to grey come February?  Still, it is true that the cyclical nature of time on this planet does hold a great blessing in its offer of a chance to reflect, start afresh, and try again until we 'get it', and let us not make light of that blessing. 

So what stops us from making our resolve stick?  Could it be our vice-like grip on the story line or plot of what our life 'should' look like.  Can this attachment over-ride our efforts to change, and thus we reset back to the comforts of autopilot?  As Albert Einstein said, 'No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it',  so that door that opens for us to make changes like quitting smoking, coffee or alcohol, losing weight, exercising more, or eating healthy foods can close quickly when our level of understanding about what honestly drives our behavior is not revealed.  The 'why' of our harmful choices holds the key to complete change:

'Why do I need substances to numb out or distract myself?'                             
'What is it I am trying to avoid feeling?'
'Why have I chosen to be driven by a part of me that allows choices that are harming to myself and others?'   
'Why do I so often not explore the why of my behaviors?'

Do we not avoid such questioning simply because we don't want to be busted?!  We may work extremely hard not to be exposed by others, our secret wounds wrapped in the bandages of a life that may outwardly appear to be great - so why would we go through the painful process of personally exposing the soup we are in? If in sensing the pain of our wounds we develop a belief that delving within ourselves will only find something loathsome, if we don't sense even an inkling of the magnificent jewel of our true nature hiding in that soup, we may be terrified to take this level of responsibility.  Especially to take not partial, but 100% responsibility for the situation we are in.  Yet taking gentle, loving responsibility for the complete exposure of the illusion we are in is just what may stand between a mere existence, and daily joyful living and truth.  My favorite cartoonist, Michael Leunig illustrates this for us beautifully:

Hello beautiful!  Whoa, no need to look around for who I am calling out to.  I am talking to you. Yes, you!  Go on - try it on for size, this exquisite garment called "I am beauty-full".  I see you hesitate, and I do understand.  Funny as it is , it can be hard to let go of those old fashion trends of doubt and self-loathing.  Perhaps we know all too well what happened to Joseph when he began sharing his inner-vision, and then topped it off by putting on his technicolor dreamcoat.  It turned out pretty amazing for him in the end as a ruler of Egypt, only second to Pharoah.  But that was after being shoved into a pit by his brothers to die, sold into slavery, and sentenced to rot in an Egyptian prison cell.  Of course, in that story, Joseph presented himself as superior to his brothers.  The beauty I see in you is equal in us all, but it still can be scary to let it shine.  So, as for me, at the risk of such persecution and excommunication for showing the bright light of our truth, I am done with my worn out, worthless wardrobe of "not-enough-ness".   I have been willing to try on far too many of these false little numbers such as 'I am....too thin, too fat, too short, not smart enough, not charming enough, not pretty enough, not clever enough, not rich enough, not successful enough, not popular enough.........shall I go on?  I've built a large walk-in wardrobe here folks, and it is all on it's way out.  Every day I wake and remind myself to try on "I am beautiful, I am love" for size.  Go on, try it on yourself. The secret is, you have always been wearing it.  Shed those garments that vainly try to cover the magnificence of who you truly are.  You are undoubtedly beautiful, beyond, beyond.  Love is the new black, people - try it on for a change.