True Grace

Did you make a New Year’s resolution? How’s it going now? 

As a teenager, I remember writing down well intentioned things I wanted to do on bits of paper and setting light to them on New Year’s Eve. If they flew up the chimney that was a good sign - it meant they would stick. I thrilled to the idea of the fresh start, the blank piece of paper, of the possibility that this coming year would not be so chaotic, that my handwriting would stay neat on the page, that I wouldn’t lose so many gloves, spend so much money, eat so much chocolate, that there would be fewer arguments, fewer chewed nails and split ends; that I would become the slim, elegant, efficient person I dreamed of being. The advertisements and magazine articles backed me up, ‘New Year, new you!’ they shouted. I think I really believed that with the pealing of the bells and the burst of fireworks I might actually turn into a new person, I might leave my imperfect, messy, painful self behind. 

Whenever I hear the phrase ‘becoming the best version of yourself,’ a red warning light flashes.  What happens to the unacceptable parts of yourself that don’t cut it? To transform into your best self, there is always talk of productivity, setting goals, and focussing more efficiently. As a woman on the verge of her sixth decade, I know that I bring myself with me wherever I go, whether geographically or in time. I see how it is by including all our aspects and parts that we become whole.

When we became industrialised and colonised, the clock started to rule us. Factory owners forced workers to become ever more productive, to focus and specialise to the point of monotony. Creativity, resting, curlicues and dreaming became the enemy of that kind of productivity. Straight lines and efficiency ruled. Now we no longer need the overseer to whip us into greater productivity because most of us are doing it to ourselves, driving ourselves ever harder, criticising our own efforts. How many of us truly allow ourselves to rest or give ourselves time to dream? As a culture, we have internalised the tyranny of the industrialised, patriarchal system. 

43% of New Year’s resolutions fail by the beginning of February. This can be because we asked ourselves to make too big a step, because there was a lack of accountability, because we didn’t address the limiting beliefs which hold us back. It can also be because we are driving ourselves to change, to produce more, to be more effective without listening to the dreams, requests and mysteries of our true natures.

There is another way of thinking of New Year’s resolutions. Rather than, ‘I resolve to do better,’ and thinking of ourselves as improvement projects, it can be an opportunity to reflect on what we wish to invite more of. Rather than aiming to become the best version of ourselves, how about giving our truest selves permission to emerge? A single word can act as an invitation.

My photo taken in Austria

My word for this year is grace. 

I see grace in nature. It is the mist rising above the lake. It is the silence of the heron waiting in the water upon one leg. It is the sweet song of the nightingales in May. It was the white feather watched by me and two friends as it floated and twisted upon the warm currents of June air and landed on my left shoulder, just after I had said the words, “I trust the way my life is unfolding.” 

It is when my train was running 7 minutes and so it turned out was my connecting train. It is in that pause before a new born baby’s first breath, their very first cry.

Grace is elegant flow. It is alignment and connection. It is a blessing. Grace is all around me. It is my true nature. I feel it when I am dancing, when I have forgotten myself. It is there beyond that which I can control. It is the reflection of clouds upon the water. I am inviting more grace into my life.

What is your word for the year?