2018: Open

When I make resolutions or set goals at the start of the new year (which is not all the time, but more often than never), they don’t typically go…anywhere (I was going to say “go well,” but the truth is that they just kind of go nowhere most of the time). I realize that I am not unique in this. Even when I do not choose a “resolution” per se, my intentions or focuses seem to go astray somehow. Last year, I decided to join the trend and chose “Compassion” as my word for the year. I thought a lot about it in January, but sometime in February or March I lost track of it. 

I think that the problem is that I usually choose goals and mantras that are all about improving myself in a way that would fundamentally change me. Compassion, for example, was an aspirational goal about becoming this zen person who could and would rise above the pettiness into which I too often find myself descending. (I could give other examples, but what’s the point, really? They are all variations on a theme.)

And so as 2018 approached, I wasn’t particularly thinking about either a resolution or a word, though “Acceptance” had briefly crossed my mind. Then on December 28 I decided to take some time to free-write about what I need and want from 2018. And by the end of the writing session, I had this line:

Open to life as it unfolds.

Or, perhaps even more simply: open.

Why open? Because it seems that all the hard and frustrating places in my life, and all the ways I fall short of living my values, have to do with tightness and closing off. When I have a problem or a fear, or when I am just plain annoyed by something or someone, my knee-jerk reaction is to identify a solution based on control. And what is control but closing something or someone off, forcing it/them into a box that is not necessarily the right shape or size? Control limits experience and puts a damper on relationships. It is restrictive rather than expansive.  

I treat my body similarly, talking the talk of acceptance but walking the walk of judgment. My youth taught me that fat is danger and ridicule and rejection. The society around me dislikes a woman who takes up space. And so no matter what I say, I yearn to reduce myself to the “right” clothing size. I aspire to the size I once was, not the size I am now. (I think I must also imagine that achieving this smaller size will magically erase wrinkles and gray hairs, too.)

I am in the middle of a sabbatical year, which at the outset (and from the outside) looks expansive. But in practice and internally, I struggle to find traction and momentum with this project. I lack confidence. I wonder if completing it matters, or if I am even interested in it. I think to myself that I made all the wrong choices in getting to the specific field of study that I am in.  I feel constricted.

It’s not all bad or gloomy, of course. I am not having an unhappy year in general. Some days I can focus and enjoy the process with my work, regardless of how much I accomplish.  Or I focus on how I feel in my body rather than what it looks like. Consistently during this sabbatical year, I have made time for talking with my seventh-grader when she gets home from school. She sits on the chair in my office and tells me whatever is on her mind about her day—she calls it the “therapy chair.” Sometimes I set aside time to write either creatively or personally—scratching an itch, feeding a yearning that has been growing stronger over the past couple of years. Or I pull out the yoga mat and listen to how my body wants and needs me to move, rather than trying to do a set routine.

In these moments, I open. I release expectations about how things will turn out or how others might see me. I breathe more deeply and laugh more easily. I see the love that surrounds me rather than fear judgment lurking around every corner.

I want more of that. I need more of that.

And so, without planning, I find myself with a word (and phrase) for 2018. I will attempt to open myself to life as it unfolds rather than clinging to the past or worrying over the future. I will try to remember, as often as I can, to breathe deeply and open my chest and diaphragm rather than tightening my shoulders and taking shallow breaths.  I will check in with how my body feels.  I will try to focus on the next step, not the big picture.  I hope to be more open to others: listening more and talking less, giving rather than hoarding, and identifying with rather than comparing myself to others.

This of course runs the risk of becoming a new set of lofty ideals that simply mask the desire to change myself in a fundamental way. I’ve been thinking a lot about how to avoid that.

And then I realize that open is not about perfect, nor is it about becoming like someone else. It’s about being present with everything that I feel and experience. That includes judgment (of myself and others), pain, indecision, procrastination, and fear. Recognizing and welcoming them without letting them rule me. Open is curious instead of judgmental, even when I don't live up to my ideals. It accepts the need to go through something rather than escape or avoid it. Open is okay with failure and imperfection. Open does not have an agenda.

Open means living my life as it is rather than as I think it ought to be.