It can feel that life goes by incredibly fast. We are each handed 86,400 seconds in every day… and so many of these moments are missed entirely in the noise, the chaos, the scrolling, the speed in which we’re invited to move through our lives.
New Year is interesting in this. We tend, by degree, to stop and notice. It can feel like a universal collective sigh, stretch, deep breath… where so many stop, take stock, resolve to make change.
New Year is magic.
Two free New Year workshops
On Friday and Saturday (New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day) Carolyn Cowan, our founder, has two entirely free workshops on Zoom. Exploring letting go on 31st and setting intentions goals on 1st of Jan.
It is a wonderful time to play with these energies and ideas. You can sign up here.
Just for that moment…
Time is a construct, we hear those cynical about the inherent drive to set goals on January 1st yell back. We do not disagree. But to pause, to acknowledge the moment, the present, what has been, what we hope for, where we are, in time, right now, before falling back into the melee… it is a practise, in presence, we’re keen to encourage.
When the clock strikes Midnight on New Year’s Eve it is, however much you are willing to acknowledge it as such, extremely magical.
In that moment, just for that moment, millions of human beings in each time zone, all at once, allow for the past and the future to exist in the present. So enamoured are we with this magical moment that many of us choose to come together to countdown to it. It’s really quite a thing.
What will you do with it?
It’s been quite a year… again!
Over recent months we perhaps each believed that things would be getting easier now, but they haven’t really got any easier. And this is to be acknowledged as we walk toward 2022.
It is interesting in how we approach making resolutions, setting goals, creating change.
We all have a drive to keep transforming, expanding. In the times we’re living through it can feel that we have no control, no agency, no ability to choose. But we do. We always do.
In essence, this is what Kundalini Global is all about. Creating your own change. The magic of (coming back to) the mat. How, when we can soothe ourselves, reset ourselves, change the rhythms of our bodies and minds… and when we can keep doing that, we become more and more potent. For ourselves. By ourselves. Change is possible. And what we do, as teachers, is to act as guides through this.
If you’re reflecting on the coming year, this week, and wondering how to approach transformation in 2022, we thought we would share a few ideas, pointers, concepts to dissect, reflect on and play with.
Work with what’s already in place…
The etymology of the word resolve can be dated back to the late 14th century in the form resolucioun, which meant ‘a breaking or reducing into parts, the process of breaking up, dissolution’ which came from the Old French resolution and directly from the Latin resolutionem which was the process of reducing things into simpler forms.
This opens up an interesting idea…
As we reflect on what we would like to change, we may consider it as a process of looking at the components of our lives, our days, our 86,400 seconds in each. As we do this, rather than deciding to add new things in, new components (a gym membership, a punishing diet plan, a commitment to learn 6 new languages), we could look at those components already in place and resolve to do more of what’s already supporting us and to reduce the things that are not crucial and that create stress, offence, upset…
Acknowledge nature
One of the simplest and most transformative practises we could consider exploring in 2022 is to commit to noticing the ever present gifts offered to us by the natural world.
Acknowledge the gift of a new day as you wake up. The gloriousness, the wonder, of another sunrise. Notice trees. Listen to nature on a walk rather than a podcast about serial killers.
Maybe masses of us, in this community, could commit to seeing, acknowledging, the first sun rise of the year. What could be more magical, more sacred, than that? Better than waking up at midday with a hangover, that is for sure.
Notice what social media does to your brain, your body, your life…
One of the reasons we write these posts on the Kundalini Global website is in our aim, our hope, our goal, to do things differently. We do not bow to the invitation to be high speed, super-fun and overwhelmingly positive.
Studies say, marketers are told, stats show, our attention spans shrink and shrivel to be, now, just 8 seconds. Less than a goldfish. Articles talk of the importance of creating ‘snackable’ content. We’d rather offer a nourishing meal.
Carolyn recently spoke on the pressure to keep performing on such platforms, and how it made her feel like being stuck in a lift where someone else is pushing the buttons.
Social media, our phones, the relentless pull toward scrolling, liking, posting, checking… we may believe ourselves to be extremely mindful, selective and chilled about the whole thing. But, even if this really is the case, do check in with yourself. Notice how you feel before opening Instagram, then notice, again, how you feel after even a few minutes on such a platform.
If we can put down our phones, if we can do more of the things that allow us to be gentle, slow, considered, present… we may find that, not only do our attention spans begin to expand over the coming year, but that our overall sense of wellbeing will too.
Be you
Kundalini Global is big on this idea. Do not resolve to be someone else.
Never forget, as you walk toward New Year, perhaps holding some expectation that it ‘should’ mean creating an entirely new version of yourself… there’s a whole lot about the you of this very moment, as you sit to read this, that is not only worth keeping but that is so exquisite, so perfectly imperfect in its humaneness, that it would be a travesty if it were lost to the pull of some manufactured notion of perfection.
Goals are great. Sticking to them can be tricky. Keep things small. Achievable. But most of all, be you.
