It has been my tradition since I was in high school to list my goals and resolutions every January first.

During the next year, on occasion, I sneak a peek at The List. Pulling it from an obscure hiding place, tucked haphazardly in a drawer, incorporated with miscellaneous receipts, business cards, notes to self, and outdated coupons, I steal a glance at the numbered contents.

Yep.

Yep.

Still working on this….

Nope.

Yikes….what made me think this was something I wanted to do?

Oops, forgot about that one.

Should I revise this one?

Ha, ha…

Yep.

Yep.

I stuff The List back in the drawer and forget it, but in a few months I retrieve it again for another review.

At the end of the year, I fetch The List for the final assessment. With pen in hand, I judiciously, and joyfully cross off those goals and resolutions accomplished.

I study the unmarked enumerated intentions.

Sometimes I experience remorse. Regret. Wishing I’d had more resolve to complete a task or commit more fully to a resolution.

Sometimes I chuckle. I am amused at my own naïveté.

I evaluate whether to add the unfulfilled ones to The New List, or trash them.

And, on January first, early in the morning, I find a lovely piece of paper, a nice pen, pour myself a cup of tea, and sit down to meditate on the coming year and write out The List.

I have repeated this process for over fifty years.

However, on occasion, Once in a Blue Moon (meaning “rarely”)…..but enough times in my life to recognize it now….I experience a “paradigm shift” creeping, crawling into my mind. Infiltrating my thinking when I am agitated or reflective.

Perhaps, because I am in the habit of striving and brawling like a thug to change my circumstances, I am not responsive to a knock upside the head, or a slap in the face.

Explosive revelation doesn’t seem to be part of my journey. No burning bushes, or parting of the sea.

A “paradigm shift” disclosure that I am able to embrace has come like a caterpillar….in an unhurried, nonchalant but determined forward stride.

I realize, in time, but reluctantly, that I must admit my attitude and my thinking need to adjust to a reality I had previously been unwilling to identify as unchangeable.

I was not raised to believe “it is what it is.” I was raised to believe that what “is” can be changed with prayer and hard work. And, while I wholeheartedly subscribe to this view, I have experienced circumstances that are NOT alterable:

The responsibility of caring for someone 24/7.

The death of an unborn baby.

The death of a son.

The theft of a trust.

The betrayal of a friend.

The ravishes of a disease.

Once I capitulate, once I surrender, once I yield to the understanding of “it is what it is” I am free to let go of the fight to change something outside my ability to alter.

2012 is a Once in a Blue Moon kind of year for me.

The List is ready. I’ve written down my goals and resolutions, but on this New Years Day, I have no strategies, no plans, no ideas of how to accomplish what I want to do.

The List is ready to be superimposed on the “it is what it is” reality page.

I will have to adjust, tweak, and rearrange this overlay to accommodate pursuing my intentions on The List.

Of course, the process doesn’t happen in a day. It may take the first six months of a New Year…..but, just as the caterpillar emerges from the cocoon a butterfly, I believe my adjusted reality will allow me to achieve my goals and resolutions.

Do you have a List of goals and resolutions for the New Year? Have you experienced a “paradigm shift” recently?

Wishing all of you a blessed, joyful, prosperous New Year!

Kathryn

http://tea4kate.com