Nourishing Our Seeds: Having Faith for the New Year
What makes the new year new? Of course, we can all point to things we want to have or that we want to have happen. But is that truly what makes the new year new?
Sometimes new opportunities or relationships can cheer us and give us hope for the future. But how quickly do our own ugly patterns recur and bring with them the pall of past failures that dampen the promise. If we are not new ourselves, the opportunities are lost, and our future begins to look sadly like our past.
This year, we are committed once again to renewal. And what makes the new year new is us: our growing ability to be fresh in our responses to old challenges and innovative in our response to new ones.
How do we do that? To begin with, we can start by asking new questions. When a familiar situation arises, a situation that we have encountered before and which we find discouraging, we can ask: Is this situation actually the same? Or does it just look similar? Is this similarity real, or am I interpreting it as such?
Supposing after inquiry, we determine that the challenge is the same, then we can still ask new questions: Are all the players really identical to those from the past? Is this current person really the same as my former partner? Perhaps not at all. But even if he or she has similarities to people from the past, am I putting them in a box, or am I giving them space to find and draw on other strengths in themselves? Am I giving them the chance to respond in unexpected ways, or am I reacting to them as though they had already proved their inability to be different?
And what about me? Let’s say that I have given in before, or I’ve tried to overpower and control my partner in the past; let’s say I see myself doing it again. But am I the same? Am I not able to shift to a different behavior, once I really see my patterns dominating? Haven’t I grown?
The fundamental question is: Am I locked in the past? Have I been looking at the elephant in the livingroom for so long, that I am blinded by the image? Is my memory overlaying current reality, so that I cannot see what is actually there?
Let’s take a moment to inventory ourselves. In the past year, how have I changed? What new responses have I been developing, if even at a minimal level? What insights have I achieved? What potentials have I been unleashing?
Can’t I have faith in myself? Faith in my ability to grow? Faith in my ability to change? Faith in my ability to listen where I have been deaf before? Faith in my ability to see where I have been blind? Can’t I have faith in you – whether or not you are a new partner, friend, employer or boss, or you are someone I have known for years? Can’t I believe in the miracle of growth?
When we see the plants sprouting from the ground, we are not surprised, and yet their emergence from the soil is miraculous. If we did not know that the seeds were there, we would not expect them to sprout. And even when those seeds have been planted by the human hand, we cannot know if they will take root and emerge
Seeds have been planted in us, the seeds of change. And it is no more or less miraculous when those seeds take root and burst forth with the youth and vitality of new life. Sometimes these seeds have been consciously planted by us through our participation in programs of growth or through other therapeutic processes. Sometimes these seeds have been planted through the natural course of our lives and the observations and experiences we have had.
No matter how the seeds were planted, let us nurture them. And for that, we need to recognize they are there and take the time and effort to bring them the resources they need to flourish.
Being different can be challenging and requires time, effort and a lot of consciousness. This is equally true for us and for the people around us. We need faith in ourselves to inspire us to provide the nurturance we need to grow, and we need faith in them to offer the crucial ingredients of support that allow a spindly young sprout to truly thrive.
This year, let us have faith in ourselves and one another, faith in our ability to change. Let us recognize our old patterns and believe it possible to be different. Let us see one another’s potential and keep reminding ourselves that our potential is no less real than our patterns. And let us, together, have the courage to risk it all, to throw the dice of life, betting on our capacity to thrive.
Happy New Year!
