Done w Resolutions Yet?

The days are finally starting to get longer. Can you feel it? We have passed the turn. That longest night on December 21st was one of many rituals of this time of year that is about rebirth and return of the light – Christmas, Hanukkah, the Gregorian calendar’s New Year’s Day and also the (lunar!) Chinese New Year.  

We have passed through a time that is so ripe for darkness and introspection.

I hope you had a chance to slow down. I hope your imagination was sparked by the possibility in the coming cycle of the Earth around the sun, not haunted and burdened by bullshit resolutions. (Why are resolutions so often sponsored by shame or self-criticism instead of love and inspiration?)

I did something different this year and I loved it and I want to share it with you. A precap: imagining that you are standing at the end of the event or project or year and celebrating all of the things that went great for you. It’s a wonderful way to set your imagination free and also lay down tracks for the story that you want to tell- and live- this year. (Thank you to Rachel Rodgers and Susan Hyatt for sharing this tool with me.) 

Also, it’s so important for all of us, the leaders of the Great Turning (toward a just and life-sustaining society, thank you Joanna Macy for that term) to practice keeping our dreams big and fresh, when the racist, patriarchal Story of Normal is working all the time to keep our imaginations in the tiny little boxes of being “savvy” and “realistic” and also (this isn’t a coincidence) dead inside.

A precap is especially wonderful when you do it as I happened to: on the way to an island, with a wonderful friend, with whom you will see gray whales up close for the first time in your lives and be touched forever and inspired to dream really really big because the world is full of miracles that are always there even though we only sometimes get to see them.

And it’s easy. Here are three steps to create your 2023 precap:

1.    Imagine for a moment. Feel your breath, your feet on the ground. If you are doing this with a partner or your team, do this together. Close your eyes. Imagine that you are standing at the end of the year, campaign, effort, looking back with so much gladness in your heart. You did it! You achieved your goals plus so much more!

 Not alone- with the support of all your beloveds, your community, your ancestors. (If you don’t yet have a connection with your ancestors, check out my precap next week. That will be part of the work of my coming year!)

And not just for yourselves. For all of our descendants, human and beyond human, for whom we are willing to imagine a future that is living and whole and worthy of love and labor.

Imagine the very best that is possible.

Then, what if it were even better? What would that be?

2.    Use this easy journaling practice. Use the technique of a timed writing to make getting this on paper so easy. Using a start line, you set a timer and your only job is to keep your pen moving. You can write the start line over and over, just keep that pen moving! This technique helps turn the critic off and gives your creator some room, thank you Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones for this tool. You can make it a beautiful ritual. Make a cup of tea. Light a candle. Get on a boat and sit by the water and stare at it for a few minutes so that the silvery light starts to seep into your soul.

Or you can do this ANYWHERE. And in ten minutes.

Write at the top of your paper “2023 was so amazing because…”

Set a timer for ten minutes and keep your pen moving. You’ll be amazed at how fast it flies by. Keep going if you want to or let ten minutes be enough. It is!

3.   Speak it into being together. You can journal together and then read aloud, as my friend and I did on the boat. And, you can do what we did after we saw the whales lifting their fins and tails, arcing and blowing and rolling as slowly the crowd on the shore grew to more than a hundred people beaming happiness and awe and wonder towards each other and towards the huge whales that played for more than an hour in the silver January water.

You can speak it into being together. Say aloud “2023 was so amazing…” and finish the sentence. If you are doing this with a partner, they might say “I remember that! That was incredible. Then what happened?” Let the first person share everything they can think of. If you are inspired and you have enough trust, you might add something awesome that they would love. “Remember when your project got that award! Remember when your kid decided he loved doing the dishes? Remember when your hot young lover took you away for the weekend?”

Okay, maybe not that last one if you are doing this with your team. In that case, just go in a round, each person finishing the sentence: “Remember when we…” Do it for ten minutes and then make a list of what you remember and love and want to keep as part of your vision for the year.

This is SO fun. Try it. Journaling first probably helps. Whales do too… whales help everything. Stretching your imagination and allowing yourself to love the future helps. We are the authors of the Great Turning. And healthy Author-ity means dreaming big enough to tell a story we want to live.