many of us will begin our yearly tradition of a New Year’s Resolution. perhaps we began yesterday, or will begin today, or tomorrow after the weekend.

whatever the habit-breaking, habit-forming, or self-improvement goal may be, let’s engage it with love. love for ourselves, love for our mental health, love for our physical health, love for others and for our world. let’s not engage it in competition with others, false ideals, or to impress others.

so many of these body centric resolutions seem born out of dissatisfaction with our bodies, even disgust, but it doesn’t have to be this way. we don’t have to be motivated by aggression. instead, we can be motivated out of love for our bodies, cherishing the miracle that they are and wanting to support their health the best way we can. the human body is formed by trillions of cells, roughly 30 trillion human cells and roughly 38 trillion nonhuman bacteria cells. we are the caretaker of this community of cells which allow us to have life. we can be motivated out of love for them, which is also loving ourselves.

when it comes to mental health, we often approach resolving to end our harmful habits or add beneficial habits with similar aggressive energy, trying to be someone else or be like someone else, and beating ourselves up when we fall short. i’d wager this rarely or never works in the long run. a quote by the beloved Persian poet and Sufi mystic, Rumi, comes to mind – “Raise your words, not voice. It is rain that grows flowers, not thunder.” in meditation practice this is our approach as well. we approach with gentleness. this approach cultivates spaciousness and spaciousness, an opening of heart and steadying of mind, waters the beneficial habits.

we can love ourselves, think we’re pretty amazing, and still take actions that benefit ourselves, our health, others, and our world. as the Japanese Zen Master, Shunryo Suzuki Roshi, famously said to his students, “Each of you is perfect the way you are and you can use a little improvement.”

~j

⭕️❤️🙏🏻

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