Why I don't do New Year's Resolutions

Little me on the right with my two sisters. I'm happy but I'm dreaming. PS My mother made my dress with the rick rack that I loved.

Younger years, when goals and resolutions seemed very important
I gave up on resolutions years ago. I used to try to come up with goals for the year, after evaluating what I had achieved in the previous year. It felt important to improve myself-especially coming from a childhood and adolescent environment where achievement was important, both at home and at school. I tried to evaluate my life, even before it had really begun. I remember starting college and  writing copiously about my life, trying to find meaning in what I had done and what had happened to me. It seemed that I wouldn't be able to succeed in life, if I didn't understand where I had come from. But often I would become mired in self doubt and recriminations. It was like trying to measure the growth of a plant when you have only planted a seed. The more you stress about it, the less healthy it gets. 

"Fearbiter" painting 2020, measuring and evaluating is important but it can lead to anxiety

Working with intentions that could be measured
In later life, I played with the word intention, instead of goal and resolution. This word felt more expansive to me, and yet I still spent hours writing and mulling, coming up with intentions that could be measured and that I then tried to evaluate on a weekly or even daily basis. And this could be very helpful. I learned a lot about myself. I learned to think more critically (in the healthy sense of this word.) I started to discover  what it was that made meaning in my life. Things started to make sense. 
I think that this self examination and exploration was important at this phase of my life and I still return to it sometimes when it feels right. 

What's underground ready to be hatched? Images from my most recent intuitive journal, watercolor crayon and pencil

Aligning with the Seasons of Nature
More recently, and this probably came along with when I discovered doll-making as a healing method, I have simplified this process even more. For the past four years or so, I have been participating in a daily practice that involves praying the rosary in a way that isn't connected to any church or religion. Within this practice I choose a "heart's desire" every 54 days and then kind of let it go, though restating it daily. And then after the 54 days, I choose another one, or sometimes stay with the first. 
I find that if I stay away from "self-improvement-y" desires I do better. If I focus more on desires that feel expansive, that come from my heart rather than my head, it works better. I do better when I connect with desires that are loving and accepting. My latest desire is to step back and see my whole self, and that especially includes my gifts, my light, my expansive self. Otherwise I spend too much time in the shadows, not that the shadows aren't important as well. The shadows make up one half of the circle that is me. I have spend a lot of time on the shadows (witness my teaching an on-line flip-doll making class for four years, Befriending Our Shadow)* What I want now is to find wholeness. 
*note this was the original, very first offer of this class. For now I am not offering the class again, but who knows?

Dark days of Winter. Winter Ice Crone and Earth Mother. from 2020 intuitive journal, with flap that opens out.

Dark days of winter as a time of dreaming and reflection
During the dark days of winter-these liminal times-growth happens underground. Trees are completely bare but a ton of activity is going on down among the roots. I believe that is what happens for us as humans too during our winter (and for some, this might be another season of the year, you may not necessarily align exactly with what the season around you is doing. For instance, for some, winter is the most active productive time of year and summer is a time of reflection)We may be doing "nothing" on the outside, but inside (or underneath) all sorts of new growth is occurring. 
January especially is a time of dark, of reflection, of rest, of dreaming. I have used various creative methods of connecting with this time of year, envisioning what is to come and releasing what was. Over the last five years I have been creating a sort of totem pole vision of the year, or at least the first six months, inspired by a technique taught by the wonderful Fonda Clark Haight. 
These days, sometimes the goal is to live each day more fully. Am I feeling alive? And actually, I really don't think about the whole year as I envision what is to come. It is about the winter, what do I envision for myself in the winter? How do I want to show up? As I write this, I am sensing something completely different  wanting to be birthed in the spring. But not yet. Now I want to focus on the steps right now in front of me. I want to see the beauty in the bare branches of the trees and listen for what might be hatching below. 

I am curious what comes up for you when you read this? Respond to this blog post and let me know.