The New In Renewal

I find this to be the most interesting time of year. That period between Christmas or Hanukkah and New Year's Day where we seem to float, a bit disengaged, tangled in the memories of the past year and bursting with the urge to start over. Filled with the need to begin anew and aligning ourselves with visions of resolution. We begin charting a course towards becoming what we feel would be a better person. Most likely we've overindulged a bit with the holiday parties and dinners. It might be that the stress meter is running a little higher than normal particularly if you've had to fight mall traffic or sit next to an unpleasant in-law over the course of a family meal.

Yes, culturally we've set ourselves up for the promise of change. As if one we go to the sea murmuring "My new year's resolutions will solve that ___", "All I need to fix is this and I'll be ___", "Well on the first of January I'll start to ___" - you fill in the blanks. We're primed; we've guzzled and gulped, simmered with apprehension over gifts and family, and in the small hours of the morning hung our heads in remorse at past misdeeds of the fleeing year.

What better time for transformation. The urge is built into our behavior. It's become a part of our societal DNA. We go running hard and then slam up against this wall of promise - the New Year, the New You, the New Life, ah I love the sound of that - who doesn't? What's going on though? It seems like we're bringing to the forefront our weaknesses, our faults and identifying with them. In this post-partum moment we say to ourselves "I need to change". This is all good but the fly in the ointment is that we've've built up this pressure behind it. So instead of examining habits and inclinations and forging a new spirit evoked by gradual change we reach out and proclaim "I must be New!" This is the fallacy of our current lifestyle. We're conditioned to expect that we can get what we want quickly and relatively easy. Simply proclaim the new and improved You hence you are now new and improved.

True change is a laborious process, not altogether unpleasant, but it requires a lot of work, daily work, with a constant vigilance towards keeping on the path. We get all wound up with this concept of New, of being transformed. If we're not careful we mistake the process for the purpose. Rare is the legitimate overnight shift to a new way of being, even less often that St. Paul moment with a vision striking you into conversion, real upheaval, to the core, not merely conversant in the terms of conversion (unless of course you are chosen by God to be a saint, then all previous comments need not apply).

Revolutions, you may notice, generally only replace the people in charge. As The Who succinctly put it, "Meet the new boss, same as the old boss". What modifies societies and people in a permanent fashion is an underlying current of evolutionary behavior. It is wave after wave that reshapes the ledges of the shore just as it is slow tidal movements from deep within that fashion a new life. Ultimate change comes from small actions practiced over and over with awareness of purpose. This is yoga.

I'm not saying don't make resolutions. I think they're good for you and help you focus on what you want. I have a few myself. What I am pointing out is that you should prepare to undergo the long journey if you want permanent change. That brief momentary feeling of victory where you start from a gully of remorse and then climb to the edge and look out over a field of poppies is seductive but misleading. The new you is better served with small, insightful steps bearing a course that aligns with your spiritual nature. Trust that you'll get there without banners and proclamations but simply arrive when your Being is ready to accept what is.

Start by dropping the New from Renewal and work with what's left ~ Real.

photo credit: Sunburst by John Gavrille