I love birthdays. It's the one day out of the year that commemorates your existence; a day dedicated to you, an opportunity to honor your entrance into the world and your journey through it thereafter.
Here I am. 26 years old today, and celebrating by making a few personal resolutions... 26 personal resolutions, actually. To be precise, my 26 resolutions are housed under one big umbrella resolution I'm promising to commit to this year: to love myself. Yup, love love love, I'm making a birthday promise to conjure a hefty batch of feel-good, be-powerful, straight-up awesome-sauce Love for the one and only Self. To be shared with others, of course. As an extension of my last blog, I'd like to share with you the 26 ways I will be remembering myself this year. With the intention of whipping up some sweet, sweet self-love, here are my 26 mindful practices:
1. I promise to live intentionally.
I've come to find that moving through life with intention is a powerful thing. I first learned about intention when I started practicing yoga, and it took me a few years to understand it. What I understand now is that when you mindfully connect with your intention before you enter into an action, you are connecting the what you are doing with the why you are doing it. This puts quality in your experience. Your actions hold more meaning for you when your head is in the game, and you know exactly why you are doing the things you are doing. Being mindful of my intentions as I go about life connects me more deeply to the core reasons of why I do things, thus, connecting me more deeply to my values, and my sense of self. Being clear on your intention before you act puts purpose behind what you do. It reminds you of what is important to you, and it helps you act from a genuine place.
2. I promise to sit in silence.
Oh, good, sweet silence. A little bit each day. Enough said.
3. I promise to be present.
The past is done; it's gone, it's but a memory. The future hasn't happened yet. Why dwell on things that don't exist? The only thing that really exists, the only thing we can really be sure of, is now. It's all we have. Let's revel in that and see what happens.
4. I promise to give.
My time, my smiles, my word, my energy... whatever is fitting... I think the best way to feel awesome about your self is to step outside yourself and do something nice for someone else. Fail safe. Tried and true. If I had a religion it'd be Kindness. Best medicine ever.
5. I promise to snuggle with my cats everyday.
Because they're fuzzy and soft and really cute and they make me feel like I got champagne bubbles inside me. Laughter bubbles... Love bubbles... A super easy way to muster up love bubbles is to give love to a furry friend.
6. I promise to tell my husband I love him everyday.
More importantly I promise to take a moment and feel the gratitude when I say it, too. It's easy right now - we're still fresh - but I also know it's easy to fall into a routine with the one you live with... the daily responsibilities of life are more pressing than mushy-ness and such. However, if I may paraphrase the Dalai Lama, he said somewhere recently that "a loving atmosphere in the home is the foundation for your life." Bring on the Love!
7. I promise to think of one thing I'm grateful for each day.
Maybe when I wake up in the morning first thing... Or when I brush my teeth so I can make it a habit. I think it's super important to make the effort to feel gratitude. As humans it's like we're hardwired to feel lack... We're conditioned to strive for things, which I think gives us a bit of a complex: we're more likely to think of what we don't have rather than what we already do have. That's a dangerous mentality, because it tends to lead to feelings of low self-worth, or not deserving what you want. That paradigm imprisons you, and it's completely false. Eee. Much more fun to think of what you do have...
8. I promise to enjoy having a healthy body.
This is a rough culture for the woman's body image. It wasn't fun as a teenage girl, trying to live up to what society convinced me was beauty. It wasn't fun as a young adult, berating myself as I was striving for an unattainable ideal, photoshopped and featured in magazine pages, created by something outside of myself. Silliness. I'm revolting against the whole thing. Screw society and it's false conception of what beauty is. Beauty is my own fleshy flesh because it's mine. Boo-yah. It's pretty awesome to love your body - every dimple, curve and roll - it makes you want to treat it well. Make it sweat, feed it nourishing food, give it rest.
9. I promise to practice Yoga.
For many, many reasons. Yoga is the shiz-nit.
10. I promise to call my mom.
Moms are important. They ground you. As a teen, it was a different kind of grounding... Hehe... Now it's more of an anchoring to what's important. Mom's have a certain wisdom no one else can match.
11. I promise to do something that scares me, large or small, whenever the opportunity arises
Nothing like stepping out of the comfort box. Fear is an amazing thing to explore. I think when we experience fear, we clench up, and identify with the fear. That's when we allow the fear to become us, and it's debilitating. When we make the choice do something that makes us uncomfortable, we realize we are greater than our fear, which is pretty self-empowering.
12. I promise to be decisive.
It's easy to fall into the habit of letting life live you. Meaning, allowing life to run you over; allowing yourself to get worked up over things like getting stuck behind a train or spilling coffee on yourself. No doubt those are annoying things which warrant an inward growl. But don't forget you have a choice - you can choose to let those things roll off you. You can choose to laugh it off, or you can choose to complain to everyone you know and perpetuate a bad day. Ultimately it's up to you to decide to be happy. Every instant you make a choice - you choose to react, or to respond. You choose to either stay locked in your present paradigm, or you choose to move forward. When you are conscious of your choices, you are living life - not the other way around.
13. I promise to read.
Just because it's something I love to do. I'm on a fantasy kick right now. Also I think it's good for the brain. And for the soul.
14. I promise to write.
Writing is the yoga of mental exercise.
15. I promise to run.
Running is a pretty deep exercise for me. It's a simple activity; putting one foot in front of the other - but after a while it becomes a way to explore your inner drive. Then it becomes empowering. When I run I feel like a warrior princess who can take on anything. Like a viking or something. Rawr.
16. I promise to laugh.
I don't think this needs explanation.
17. I promise to make music.
Nothing like playing your own song.
18. I promise to dream big.
Because I can, and because it's fun.
19. I promise to have fun.
Why not? Who said we couldn't have fun?
20. I promise to face discomfort with openness and courage.
Meaning the uncomfortable phone call I don't want to make, the truth I don't want to see, the feelings I don't want to face... I think it's an easy initial tendency to either launch ourselves into denial, freeze up, run away or become defensive when uncomfortable situations arise. It's important to remember that the sage does not encounter problems because he faces them. Perhaps the discomfort doesn't come from the situation, it comes from your reaction to it. I think when we face our discomfort with acceptance, it diminishes, and you realize how strong you are.
21. I promise to respect my environment.
I would like to promise to keep my home tidy. I simply feel better when the environment around me is clean. Keeping my environment tidy is a way of telling myself that I deserve to sit in comfort, with beauty to look upon.
22. I promise to walk in nature whenever possible
Fresh air, wind through the trees, birds chirping, greenery fills the eyes - it's medicine. Very grounding, very centering. Happiness-inducing.
23. I promise to enjoy exercising.
I don't have to do it every day. I'm simply promising myself to remember how good it makes me feel.
24. I promise to eat my food mindfully.
Man, I think we take eating for granted. Munch, munch, munch I could do it all day - I'm such an eater, and food is all around. I think it's a pretty beautiful practice to be mindful of the food you put into your body - mindful of where it came from, how it was prepared, what it can do for your body. The way you eat has a pretty powerful effect on your quality of life - it can affect your sleeping patterns, your brain chemistry, your energy levels... Simply being mindful of the experience of eating, and its affect on you is another way of respecting yourself.
25. I promise to give myself a break.
Some days are good. Some days, not so good. In the end, it's all good.
26. I promise I won't give myself a hard time if I forget about these promises.
It happens. Life is a river and it keeps moving. The mind is a big sky, with many forms of weather that blows through it. All I can do is weather the storms and bask in the sunshine.
Posting this with Love. Namaste.
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