Cleansing a Challenging Year

A Challenging YearThe darkened skies and hot red-shaded sun of our debris-filled atmosphere here in California could not help but darken our mood. Our confinement in our homes to prevent breathing noxious particles bodes ill for an apocalyptic new normal marked by climate change.

We have been spit out of a roiling two years of politics marked by ignorance, corruption, nepotism, increased debt, lack of support for the military and federal law enforcement, and dangerous national and international policies that have stunned even our most conservative thinkers. Each day we receive our news alerts and grit our teeth for another day.

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Jung: Call to the Dreamer

The New Year, 2018, is upon us and many of you have battled ferociously in 2017 with tumultuous events in our country and on the world stage. Political trends have held sway and have enveloped many in a reoccurring sense of foreboding leading to a constant teeter-totter between anxious alarm, fury, dismay and exhaustion, as forces, seemingly out of our control, have moved our country in directions never imagined. We require a way to sustain our inner balance and resilience as we weather the destruction of values that many have relied on as a democratic world-view.

I am inviting you to turn inward – in contrast to our current externalized way of life – as we are catapulted insistently toward outward preoccupation. We are pulled, dragged, mesmerized by the outer world: the constant stream of input, night and day – either by choice or by our propensity for distraction. Our brains fire up as we flit from topic to topic, picture to picture, posting to posting, until we feel fragmented, as we disintegrate into pieces of information and the emotions they fetch; up and down, in and out, we run like a wild merry-go-round – but a not so merry one. Then exhaustion and depression hit; we are drained.

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Struggles in the New Year

The New Year in California started with a continued deluge of rain, which brought heavenly moisture to our dry land and dry bones — and has caused some to feel soggy, cold and constricted.

The New Year also brought chaos on the political front with an endless bombardment of controversial executive orders reflecting a lack of circumspect and prudent leadership and stabilizing governance in a time of transition for our divided country. There has been little collaboration with other governmental department heads, or experienced qualified others – even the President’s Cabinet – thus appropriate dialogue that encourages civil and community discourse has not occurred. Rather, announcements resulting in cataclysmic change have caused chaos, fear and shock waves across the globe. The President continues to exhibit his significant personality disorder discussed in my post titled A View of Character – The President-Elect, and his impairments dominant the stage and result in faulty leadership on all fronts. The press continues to observe and report even though attempts are made to suppress what doesn’t compliment the leader’s frail ego.

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Reframing Resolutions

Each New Year brings us opportunities for significant personal changes that can build on our prior successes and accomplishments or help shift areas of regret or disappointment. Every year we have an opportunity to choose and prioritize that which is most valuable and leave behind what we know to be inconsequential or even destructive. The idea of New Year’s resolutions seems quaint and superficial in that we realize we are unlikely to keep them. It can end up as a pretend gesture and we can laugh that we tried for 3 weeks and then go on about our business.

We can approach this effort with a bit more sincerity and intention. It might be advisable to pick one or two changes for maximum effect – eliminate the laundry list that will get blown off by the end of January. Maybe you could think about one item that really matters to you above all else. What do you want to reinforce that will provide a true avenue for the Self – what supports your development in ways that will make you feel proud and fulfilled? What states of mind are most nourishing – peace, generosity, gratitude? Or perhaps seek times of non-activity in order to allow a sense of spaciousness.

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