Sunday Journal Prompt

“And now we welcome the new year. Full of things that have never been.” 

– Rainer Maria Rilke 

While I appreciate holiday sentiments like “May the new year bring you peace and joy,” the phrasing positions us in the receiving state. The waiting place. Perhaps we can consider a more active approach: What can we bring to the new year? What new part of ourselves are we birthing and what can we do to foster the process?

Rather than thinking in terms of resolutions, this year I want to focus on resolve—a verb that means to find a solution. What challenges, problems or patterns in your life are in need of a solution? How can you resolve to explore a new approach to an old problem?

For help in addressing these and other questions, I highly recommend Sarah Susanka’s Year-End Review ritual, a practice I’ve done for several years: 

http://www.notsobiglife.com/resources/documents/TheYearEndRitual.pdf

What are you bringing to the new year? How can you resolve to explore a new approach to an old problem?

Sunday Journal Prompt

“We are better throughout the year for having, in spirit, become a child again at Christmastime.” 

– Laura Ingalls Wilder 

It’s been lovely to see my sons—now in college—as spirited about Christmastime as they were as children. What’s different now is that their enthusiasm is about giving. Each has spent a significant amount of time and energy making or coordinating a gift for someone they love. Alex has crocheted items for people in his life, and Michael arranged for a professional artist to render characters created by his friend Cole—who, after opening the poster created by his favorite artist, tweeted that it’s the best gift he’s ever received.

Over time, the boys have perfected making parts of the holiday meal enjoyed by our extended family: Alex is the gravy master, and Michael makes fruit-filled Jello cups. When their grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins enjoy the food they make, the boys get another taste of the magic of the holidays: the joy of brightening other lives. 

How can you experience the childlike magic of the holidays?

Sunday Journal Prompt

“Every action you take is like a vote for the type of person you want to become.” 

– James Clear, author of Atomic Habits 

Atomic Habits author James Clear advocates for creating systems in our lives that make healthy habits easier. By boosting visual cues of choices that benefit us, such as keeping the dental floss next to our toothbrush rather than in a drawer or having a book on our nightstand, we can increase the likelihood of following through with practices we say we want to do. It works the other way too: Hiding or eliminating the visual cues of what we want to avoid can help us minimize bad habits.

Beyond habits like these, I’m interested in the idea that our actions define who we’re becoming. It can be easy to think that a behavior is temporary and only affects the current moment, such as not making time for exercise while immersed in a busy time at work or avoiding friends while studying for exams. But short-term behaviors like these can compound to the point that we automatically skip exercise or avoid our friends when we’re too busy. Worse, perhaps we make ourselves too busy as an excuse not to exercise or spend time with the people we love.

How might you combine what matters to you or better integrate seemingly opposing elements into your life—without sacrificing too much time? To combine work and exercise, perhaps you rehearse a presentation for work while using the elliptical at the gym. Having a workout buddy helps motivate us to exercise and gives us much-needed social connection. To avoid quarantining themselves during exams, several of my students meet up for a study-break meals or schedule study sessions with their friends.

Who are you becoming? What actions reflect that? How might you combine habits that matter to you?

Sunday Journal Prompt

“When you enter a place of stillness, you awaken the divinity within you.” 

– Peggy Sealfon

This past semester, I had the opportunity to teach a freshman seminar called “How to Live a Fulfilling Life” in which students read excerpts from philosophers, poets, essayists, researchers and religious figures. As we learned from readings ranging from ancient Greek philosopher Epictetus to positive psychology and flow researcher Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, humans have been after the same things for centuries: happiness, joy, peace and fulfillment.

Most of my students express stress and anxiety about their demanding workloads and doubt themselves about their choices of a major or career. Toward the end of the term, I asked them to explore two personal practices from a list of options including meditation, tai chi, yoga nidra, shinrin-yoku (Japanese forest walking), journaling and prayer. I thought I’d get push back about this assignment, afraid they would view it as a waste of their time, but they embraced the exercise. “My mind wasn’t being bombarded by the constructions noises of the future I’m building,” wrote one student about his meditation experience. He said he could see how regular meditation can help “shed off the negative coating that covers our positive attitudes.”

How can you shed off the negative coating and awaken the divinity within you?