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Road to Purity
"New year" means "new soul."
That's what British writer G.K. Chesterton once observed.
Many of us, though, already feel like we've soiled our souls with botched New Year's resolutions.
And the rest of us will feel pretty soiled soon if statistics are any indication. The average New Year’s resolution lasts only 3.74 months, according to a recent poll by Forbes Health/OnePoll.
Only 6 percent of us will make it through the entire year.
If Chesterton was right, perhaps we need to make New Year's resolutions that improve our souls instead of resolutions that improve our thighs, finances, and cardio.
It's winter.
Stillness. Quiet. Rest. Those are winter words.
Our New Year's resolutions tend to be filled with words like "vigor," "energy," and "activity."
It's no wonder we fail, says health writer Emma Suttie. "Winter," she says, "is a time to rest and recharge—a natural ending of the seasonal life cycle—a time to reflect on ourselves and the year that has passed."
Suttie counsels people to avoid active resolutions and, instead, try more passive resolutions. She suggests eight:
Impulse purchases kill household finances.
They're also the result of a desire for a dopamine hit, which is something we ought to avoid during these winter months.
Instead of making impulse purchases, Suttie advises people to wait a day or two. "Once the dopamine surge of an impending reward wears off," she says, "and a calmer mind prevails, you'll likely find it much easier to avoid unnecessary purchasing."
Social media is digital crack cocaine.
“Platforms like Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram leverage the very same neural circuitry used by slot machines and cocaine to keep us using their products as much as possible,” note researchers at Harvard University.
Social media also substitutes for real human relationships, and that's very troubling. Social connectedness is the number one leading indicator for happiness. “[H]appiness," said sociologist and bestselling author Robert Putnam, "is best predicted by the breadth and depth of one’s social connections.”
Human relationships are also the number one indicator of good health, resulting in lower rates of colds, heart attacks, strokes, cancer, depression, and premature death of all sorts.
Neuroscientist Iain McGilchrist has amassed an enormous amount of historical, literary, philosophical, and neuroscientific evidence that modern culture is frenzied and hectic because the left hemispheres of our brains are out of control.
All of Suttie's recommendations quell the left hemisphere, especially this one.
Our left hemisphere is designed to preserve our bodies. As a result, it is predatory (finds food) and protective (eliminates threats to our survival). These are great things, but they make the left hemisphere, says McGilchrist, "essentially competitive." The result: the left hemisphere inclines us to compare ourselves with others.
Current studies consistently show this is a path of misery. Someone always has more or has it better. Comparisons bring discontent, which leads to sadness.
"Instead," says Suttie, "focus on yourself and all the beautiful things in your life. Write them down, and spend some time thinking about them every day. This small act can make significant changes in your perspective and help you appreciate the goodness in your life—and attract more of it."
The act of complaining might be the most psychologically damaging thing you can do.
Harvard's Kevin Majerjes and founder of Optimal Work says it's the number one common denominator among people who struggle with everyday life.
The act of complaining strengthens the negative by pretending that negative things shouldn't exist.
But they do exist and should exist: they make us stronger.
"We only complain," says Dr. Majerjes "about challenges, but challenges are the only way we grow. The fact that something is hard is proof that it's where your growth is."
So ditch the complaining about your challenges. Instead, try to figure out how each challenge can help you grow.
Eating and thinking are two of the most common things we do. Try combining them.
Instead of just gobbling down your food in front of the TV, watch yourself eat. Just the simple act: "I am now raising the fork to my mouth. Now I am chewing. The food smells like this; it tastes like that; its texture is like this. I am now swallowing."
If you eat mindfully, says Suttie, you will "tend to eat slower and get more satisfaction out of your meal. This can lead to eating less and eating better quality foods. . . . You will also likely chew your food longer, which will improve digestion and help your body extract more nutrients from your food."
In addition to recognizing our new souls, G.K. Chesterton also recognized the goodness of doing nothing. He called it “the most precious, the most-consoling, the most pure and holy, the noble habit of doing nothing at all.”
The modern world pulls us apart: activities, aspirations, aims, and ambitions. We furiously pedal the bike and further instill the frenzy in our souls.
Stick a stick in the spokes of that bike. Bring it to a sudden halt and make your left hemisphere flip over the handlebars.
"With practice," says Suttie, you’ll begin to enjoy a peace and tranquility you may not have experienced in a while."
And while you're doing nothing, try breathing correctly.
Through your nose. Calmly. Slowly.
Notice how it differs from your regular breathing. As a culture, our "normal" breathing increasingly comes through the mouth, races, and is punctuated by sighs (which is our lungs' way of telling us we're doing everything wrong).
Stop breathing like that. Practice correct breathing.
"My experience is what I agree to attend to." William James
Our mental world is full of non-reality: laments about the past; worries about the future and things that almost certainly won't happen.
Try jettisoning the non-reality for what is real. What is happening right now? That, after all, is the only thing that is real. Everything else is memory and anticipation: it's all mental.
Just focus on what is now. By doing that, you'll focus on what "is."
Suttie says it will bring to us the insight of the Tao. She quotes the ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu:
“Be content with what you have; rejoice in the way things are. When you realize there is nothing lacking, the whole world belongs to you.”
Eric Scheske is a freelance writer whose works have appeared in dozens of publications, including Our Sunday Visitor, Touchstone, Columbia, and the Detroit Free Press. He was formerly a columnist for National Catholic Register, Busted Halo, and Catholic Exchange. He owns and operates The Daily Eudemon, which is one of the Internet's oldest continuously running blogs (est. 2004).
