Fuel your New Year's resolutions with love

OK, it’s officially next year. One can’t help but become reflective, which is wonderful. It is so useful to step back from the speed and commitments that occupy most of the year and use this grace period between Christmas and New Year’s as a time-out-of-time to fly up and hover at 50K feet, looking down on your life and asking questions such as: What did I achieve? What did I fail* to achieve? What would I like to happen in the coming 12 months? What are my deepest wishes? How can I live them?

These are all completely awesome and very important questions. I’m asking them of myself pretty much day and night this week. However, although it’s wonderful to contemplate, analyze, and rouse dedication, often the whole new year’s resolution thing contains significant elements of shame, agitation, aggression, and even self-loathing. When I think of the things I want to accomplish, I also connect with the fear that I will fail to do so. I think this is pretty natural.

This year, I discovered something that changed the process from one of grasping to something more relaxed.

I included others. I made what I call the Sympathetic Joy list. Sympathetic Joy is one of Buddhism’s Four Immeasurables, those qualities which we naturally possess in endless quantity. They are the qualities that have the power to bring us absolute happiness. They are:

1. Loving Kindness: Feeling tenderly toward others
2. Compassion: Feeling their sorrow as your own
3. Sympathetic Joy: Feeling their joy as your own
4. Equanimity: That quality of balance that gives the first three an earthy and human (rather than an ethereal and angelic) vibe.

As this year ends, in addition to listing the things I want to achieve, I thought of those I love and what they hope to accomplish. I put myself in their shoes and tried to feel into their hopes and dreams and the reaction they would have if their dreams came true. For example, I thought about my friend “Darcy” (names changed to protect the innocent) and how unhappy she has been in her job. Her work doesn’t fulfill her and she feels trapped by economics. So I added to my list simply this: I wish for Darcy’s professional and financial happiness, no matter what that might look like, and I pray for this to happen in 2011. Then I thought about my friend Charles who is lonely because he doesn’t have the partner he longs for. I included: In 2011, I will share in Charles’ dream for love and hope for it alongside him, so that it might come true.

And so on. When I tuned into the lives of those I love, not to correct or judge them, as in “I hope Charles will get some therapy for the family-of-origin issues that are at the root of his loveless life” or “Darcy should take more professional risks in 2011,” but to feel alongside of them what they dream of until, quite naturally, the aspiration for their happiness arose, the whole goal-setting process suddenly seemed like a big love fest. I felt how dearly I love the people in my life. I felt their love for me, and how joyful my success would make them. Wanting to succeed suddenly seemed like something I could do for us, not just myself. Expanding in this way made the whole process one of relaxation, gratitude, and honest longing rather than desperation.

So, if you feel like it, make your own Sympathetic Joy list to start the year. And as you go through 2011 and check in on the progress of your own aspirations, reconnect in your heart with the aspirations of those you love. If they remain stuck or unfulfilled, take this in and send out to them some love, support, camaraderie. You don’t have to make suggestions, offer advice, or make judgments. Just know that you stand shoulder to shoulder with them and have taken on their joy as your own. What could be more supportive than this?

Wishing you a new year immeasurably full of the Four Immeasurables, that they may be felt by you, for you, and all around you. And, if you want to multiply your success in 2011 beyond your wildest dreams, take on the joy of others’ accomplishments as your own.

*My friends. Don’t shun words such as failure, problems, fear, disappointment—these are all part of life. We give words too much power by refusing to use them because we should be more “positive.” This borders on superstitious and magical thinking. Your mind is so much bigger and smarter than this.

categorized in: dharma