The Anti-New Year's Resolution Challenge

Give me five minutes a day & I'll give you self-forgiveness

A warm welcome to the first of my six Just As You Are pieces. I am offering you a five minute exercise which will help you to usher in 2024 with sweet tenderness towards yourself, to all living beings & to our dear Earth. Step with me onto this sunlit path through the trees…

I want to go here. Although maybe I already am…

I tried it over and over again for decades. The New Year’s resolutions. The diets. The elaborate early morning routines. The vows to save all my money, or to keep on top of the gardening, or to only spend ten minutes on the internet a day.

I began in excitement. Finally, this will usher in the ✨Shiny New Me!✨ My resolutions worked for a while. I lost a bit of weight. I had perfectly productive days. I didn’t know what to do with all the time I had freed up from not being online. I felt fresh and pure and happy and a teensy bit smug.

A week or two in, I thought that one slice of cake when out with a friend wouldn’t hurt. I needed to go online twice because of that important work email. I had a very late night and so one morning’s skipped yoga was acceptable. Before I knew it, I had either tumbled back to where I was before, or got mired in a backlash of extra chocolate-eating, doom-scrolling or lazy lie-ins to make up for the lost time.

I am a slow learner, and I had to experience this repeating pattern literally thousands of times before I began to wake up.

Something wasn’t working. What was the alternative?

I am finding a new way through the forest. I am walking a little more slowly than I was before, I am pausing to notice a pine-cone, a shaft of sunlight, a bird’s call. I am bringing my tendencies along with me - my sweet tooth, my predilection for overworking, my inconvenient introversion. They sit alongside my other qualities - my loyalty, my excellent Get-Shit-Done parts, my sharp mind, my generosity.

I am coming to see that all of this has pros and cons. My overworking is keeping me distracted from old pain in the best way it can. My need for order is understandable when you know where it came from. My introversion makes me very tired after I hold space for groups, and I also love it - the joy of an afternoon alone!

For many years I have been soaked in the (incomplete and flawed) love of other humans. I have been supported and nourished and sheltered by dear Earth, and astonished over and over by her beauty. I have had little dogs jumping onto my lap, and

Ralph and Aiko don’t care about how much I weigh - in fact, more weight = a squishier, comfier lap. My spouse Kaspa doesn’t care about how much money I make or how famous I am. I don’t have to prove my virtue or worth before gulping water, before lying on the sun-drenched grass, before drinking in the extravagant smell of the roses in the temple garden.

I am coming to believe that maybe, just maybe, I might be loveable just as I am.

Would you like to experiment with getting a taste of this too? Are you trust me with five minutes of each of your January days?

The simple version of my anti-New Year’s resolution challenge is:

Spend five minutes a day imagining that you are loveable just as you are.

If you’d like to make this into more of a ritual then I’ll offer some tips below, but they’re not necessary. My suggestion is that this practice will give you a new taste of self-forgiveness even if you only remember to do it for twenty seconds whilst brushing your teeth.

The most important bit is to withhold your judgements or your preconceptions - just do it for a little while and see. What do you have to lose?

A note: I am not asking you to change anything else about your days. If you’d like to make one (or seven) New Year’s resolutions, or start some good habits, alongside this practice then do go ahead. I am not anti-planning or anti-change. In 2020 I vowed to do an hour’s vigil for the Earth every day for a year in my local town, and I did. I have vowed to write many books, and I have written them. We need to make plans and have fresh starts and all of that. This exercise will be like switching an extra cosy lamp on, or opening the curtains onto your existing room and letting the morning in.

A second note: If there are parts of you that are convinced that you are certainly not loveable just as you are, or if there are worries that if you do this exercise you’ll end up slumping into a self-indulgent heap, then that’s also okay. Let those parts of you know that they can continue to hold those beliefs about you, and that you’re not expecting any of your get-stuff-done parts to stop working hard. You are just experimenting with this idea, and it’ll be up to your different parts if they make any changes as a result or not.

Puppy photo break:

Aiko at 10 weeks old

So: my suggestions for powering-up your five minutes.

⭐ Find a time and a place where you’re unlikely to be disturbed - in bed when you wake up or before you go to sleep, in that spot on the living room floor where you get a good view of the sky, on your train commute, on a dog walk.

⭐ If you’re sitting, sit comfortably with your back straight.

⭐ Set a timer so you don’t have to keep sneaking a look at the clock.

⭐ Take a centring breath at the start of your five minutes - one slow, deep breath that allows you to land in this moment and in this place.

⭐ Keep your eyes open or shut, whatever feels best. If you want you could look at a candle while you sit, imagine a warm light shining onto you, or connect in with your chosen deity, or knit, or chant a mantra, or imagine yourself lying on a warm beach.

⭐ When your mind wanders (it will) just notice your thoughts, feelings or physical sensations and remember that all these parts of you are loveable just as they are.

⭐ At the end of your five minutes, either say ‘thank you’ or make gassho (put your palms together and bow) as a way of expressing gratitude. Don’t worry if you don’t feel any gratitude yet - just see it as writing a thank you letter to your Great Aunt for that unfortunate Christmas jumper¹.

⭐ Tweak or totally change any of this so it suits YOU.

The important bit is that you spend a little time every day imagining that it just might be possible that you are loveable just as you are. Not at the end of January, not when you stop being so irritated by your next door neighbour or when you pay off your debt or when you get a girlfriend, but right now.

I will be doing this practice alongside you all, and I am looking forward to it. I am also looking forward to hearing how you all get on.

Whether you join me or not, I would like to wish you a soft and delicious 2024 with learning, meaning, and hopefully occasional sparkles.

Go gently,
Satya <3

Tell me: What thoughts and feelings arise in you as you read this piece? What objections do parts of you have to trying out this practice? Are you in??

If you’d like to receive the remaining five Just As You Are pieces, where we’ll take a deeper dive into the reasons why we don’t see ourselves as loveable already, explore how we can best set ourselves up for change, use some Internal Family Systems magic and practise receiving love from all around, become a Supporter below for the equivalent of two cups of coffee a month ☕☕ or cheaper if you subscribe for the whole year. If your finances are tight drop me a message and we’ll sort something out. Your New Year’s gift to yourself maybe?

1. I actually love unfortunate Christmas jumpers and would genuinely be very happy to receive one.