The business of presence is rampant. I watched many an email and ‘alert’ message drop into my various mail and social network accounts yesterday, with a mixture of fascination and dismay. Organisations and individuals purporting to be mindful and aware, seemed unable to to allow their community a day, just to be.
Each communication was offering something, most urging purchase of books, courses, workshops and events that may help attain a greater sense of wellbeing. Indirectly this is a kindness perhaps, but for a person that read even one, the marketing behind the email will have taken them away from staying with their conscious awareness.
Of course, not everyone celebrated New Year yesterday, but being present in one’s own life is what most of us hope to experience. For some, reading these emails may have given a sense of hope or affirmation of mindful practice, but with most of the world acknowledging the shift in the calendar, January 1st is one day of the year we might look to keep for ourselves.
In allowing time for self we learn to listen to our needs, but without slowing down the brain it’s very difficult to hear and feel what our body is signalling. The flurry of activity from the digital world can be exciting and open up opportunities but it’s also fairly noisy and quite demanding of our attention. Perhaps it’s worth contemplating that the word resolution is derived from the latin, resolvere, to ‘loosen’ or ‘release’. How interesting that the English form has altered it to almost the opposite, with ‘a firm decision to do or not to do something’, being how we see this ideal in approaching the new year ahead.
The lovely team supporting UMEUS have a lot to offer our community in the coming days, weeks and months of 2019. But firstly we want to wish you all a looser, releasing year, one where any resolution you might make is based on what you feel, be that in recognition of your body, or in the appreciation of it’s connection with the mind.
May 2019 bring you what you need, what you hope for, and most of all, a sense of peace that will remain as you meet the 363 days that form your New Year.