New Year, new me

 

Winter arrives touching the city with the shades of gray, the palette of nature in its decline.  One day, the sunlight gets paler, the sky whiter, and the colors all around us lose the brightness of the summer days.

 I was born in a tropical country.  The sun shines the whole year, the weather is very nice, not too dry, not too humid. There is a month or two where there are naturally occurring fires in the woods, on a daily basis, due to the heat and brightness of the sun. In general, any day would make a great beach day unless it rains. And when it does rain, it actually pours.  I like to think that nature in Venezuela is always a feast for the imagination, exaggerate, voluptuous, giant, convoluted. Fertility is everywhere, at any moment, with a vibrant renewing energy that expands to the hearts of the inhabitants.

 There is a beauty in the growth, and there is a beauty in the harvest. A life soaked energy, celebrating the joy of being alive. But it might be a little trickier to find beauty in the winter, the time where life seems to melt, to sink back into mother earth’s womb. The feeling inside resembles despair while looking outside the window to find out that the colors have disappeared, and for some of us, arises an internal hope that these days are over as fast as possible, the same way you wish nightmares to finish, or hard moments to pass.

 Nature in every country has its own way of expressing ritualistic destruction.  In Venezuela it can be the fires and the never ending pouring of certain months, in Hong Kong the arrival of gray winter, in Canada the white snow covering everything that exists.  In any case, there is a ritualistic time for dissolution, destruction, emptiness, that prepares the ground for a new beginning. In Hindu tradition, the name of the deity that is related to this process is called Shiva.  In ancient Greece, Dionysus in his tragic aspect. He dies several times just to be reborn afterwards.  That is why Dionysus is also related to spring, summer and celebration of life and harvest in his comedic facet, which is really a great symbol for unity in all this everlasting life and death flow.  

 Learning from nature, and reading about the myths helps us deepen our insight.  We can see ourselves reflected in the mirror that the world puts in front of us. Our lives are interconnected with our surroundings.  

 Can you go back to your early years, remember the surprise and excitement that brought each new day? The sense of adventure, the will of making every moment a new creation?  All of us are made of this expansive energy, willing to create happiness with every action.  And it is our natural cycle to always reconnect with the inner flame, our true beauty and strength.  But to be able to contact with this requires to commit oneself to fully embrace our inner winters in order to give a chance to a “new me” to be born.

 Take some time to be alone and go through this year all over again.  Be loving with yourself, non judgemental.  Send love to your wounds, feel whatever you need to feel, and grant yourself time for full recovery.  

 Winter time is a great moment to make a Sankalpa, which in Sanscrit means “resolution” or “affirmation” or “positive mental statement”. The way it is done is critical to the success of its practice.

Sit by yourself in a quiet place. Think about things that have happened and dream about how you want your future to be. Think about the purpose in your life, your goals, your mission, and write it down.

Choose only the most important goal you wrote down and write down a sentence with it.

Think deeper in your own need. If you feel you want more money or you want to lose weight, just to give an example, you might want to ask yourself why. Maybe deeper what you really wish for is to feel more confident.  Or what you are truly craving for is more peace in your own mind. Once you know, then you will feel more connected with yourself, with Earth, with life, and things will start to flow differently.  You will probably get much more than what you originally thought in the first place.

Make it short, and the words you choose must remain the same, with no variation at all, until the sankalpa is fulfilled.

The sankalpa involves you, so it is made in the first person, using “I” or “my”.

The sankalpas should be stated in present tense. Whenever you choose to state something in the future it never materializes, because in your mind it is always ahead of you.

Sankalpas affirm something, that is why they are always structured in a positive way. For example, instead of “I am not ugly”, you can affirm “I am beautiful inside and outside”, instead of “I am not broke”, better say “I am always prosperous”. It is crucial that you believe what you say.  If you find it hard to believe your sankalpa, or feels too fake, then you can rewrite “I choose to be always prosperous”. This way it makes it more approachable for you to enjoy positive feelings while you pronounce it.

Also avoid using words that enhance the problem or negative situation.  Instead use a positive reinforcement.  If you want to stop smoking, the sankalpa “I am free from addiction” won’t solve the problem, because it brings to your mind all the feelings that you associate with being addicted.  Instead, go deeper into what keeps you smoking and you might find that you smoke more when you feel nervous, when you feel sad, or when there are moments of strong emotionality.  Then you can come up with a different sankalpa such as “I openly share my light with the world” or maybe “I am in peace with myself”

 

Sankalpas and winter go very good together, because they both invite us to go deep and take a step ahead towards understanding ourselves.  ”WHY?” This is the question behind the formulation of successful Sankalpas, and it is also one of the principal questions that lead to inner growth.  To prepare the ground of the mind for the next harvest in this winter, means taking the steps to live a most fertile life today…starting with the inner fields.

 written by Corina Sucre