New Year Resolutions

I think one of the best gifts parents (and grandparents) can give their children is a belief in themselves and that they are ‘good enough’. So many problems arise for us all in later life if we are insecure inside, and somehow feel that we are not living up to a particular standard set before us by parents/teachers/society/or religion.

I have just enjoyed a particularly happy family Christmas. I was able to spend a lot of time with my five and a half year old grandson, Finn. He is a very secure little boy and actually does believe in himself and that he is good at things. I noticed that as he is starting from a belief that ‘he can’, it truly helps him to do it. This inner confidence has helped him leap ahead with his school work. He hasn’t yet learned the lesson of losing though. We had games of Snakes and Ladders when he expected he would always beat his granny, and tears when he didn’t. However he will learn and gain from the losing times (in games and in life, as we all do) but the golden inner core of confidence will carry him through.

In the December issue of Stella Polaris, Finn’s Mum (my daughter Sara) wrote about ‘A Perfect Christmas’ and New Year’s resolutions. She talked about how the making of resolutions (and the often inevitable breaking of them) can add to an existing feeling that somehow we are not as good as we should be, and always have to strive for greater achievement and perfection. To quote: ‘Reeling from the imperfections of Christmas we find there comes a new challenge. New Year. New Year—new start. New Year resolutions. All promoting the notion that we are not quite good enough. That if we just tried that little bit harder, we would be perfect! In many ways, this is wonderful. Like the seasons, our lives are renewed. We can always start afresh, always move on. I may climb the stairs slowly, but I am getting higher all the time! I love that encouraging thought. On the other hand, though, it is possible for us to take it a little too far. The other message that the New Year resolution gives us is that we are in constant need of improvement, that there is something wrong that we need to fix, all the time. White Eagle says: “Of what use is it to stand in a dark room and contemplate the darkness? No progress is made in that way; but if a lighted candle or lamp is brought into that room, it illumines and reveals all”.’

These last few days I have been contemplating all these things, and the feeling that there is something wrong with us which we have to fix, and our New Year resolutions will help us do this! Sara wrote about how resolutions can focus our thoughts on negative aspects of our lives rather than celebrating the positive and quoted White Eagle saying: ‘Perhaps you are unaware that whenever you think negatively, you are actually creating negative conditions for yourselves. To create positive good, you must always think positively…What you think today, you become tomorrow.’

So I have decided I shall do what Sara suggests and choose just one positive thought for my New Year resolution…I won’t tell you what it is, but end with Sara’s closing quote from White Eagle: ‘Be true to your innermost light, and you will create heaven and know complete happiness on earth.’