How to align your resolutions with your heart, so you get the results you crave…

Happy new year, gorgeous.

If you’ve been a reader or subscriber for a while, you may remember my annual rant about resolutions. They start off so powerfully, don’t they?, in the Capricorn energy of the New Year (more about that below, in the section about the upcoming New Moon, the time when we are naturally drawn to our vision work, to our goals and intentions. Have you noticed how resolutions—commitments to wellness, more money, deeper love, more satisfying work—start off strong and evaporate over time? Is your gym more crowded this month than last? Check again in March and you will probably see that the attendance has returned to normal levels.

What happens to your beautiful resolutions, your powerful visions?

Say you had a powerful vision over the holidays, something you really want (I hope you did!). Maybe it’s a new deep loving long-term relationship. Or maybe it’s developing and launching a new product line for your business that will be of service to your tribe. Or maybe it’s having more financial abundance.

We’ll use increased financial abundance as an example. You had this beautiful vision over the holidays, and you know what you have to do to get there (some combination of raising your rates, growing your practice, or developing some new products to sell). And you get started. Just as in the past, you start taking actions toward that goal, but soon your actions begin to lessen, to the point where you eventually forget the vision altogether. What’s your relationship with the resolution?

Feel into your heart.

• Do you have abundance in your heart, in your soul, right now?
• Do you know you are taken care of, that your needs are met, that you have access to nourishing food, friends, and love?
• Do you know in your heart that you are sheltered and clothed safely and beautifully?

When you believe that abundance is only available to you in the future—once you’ve attained your goal or manifested your vision—then an unresolvable dilemma arises, and your relationship to the resolution weakens. It gets to be too painful to hold onto, and eventually becomes forgotten.

But when you bring the possibility of the resolution into your heart right now, when you take hold of abundance as an inner state of being, then you’re opening the door that will allow that inner abundance to move you forward in a powerful and consistent way to the bigger more expanded abundance of your vision.

Be a Yes to your resolutions, dear one, but from your heart, not from your head. As they say, When you’re alone with your mind, you’re in a bad f’ing neighborhood.

A word for the year

This year, my vision and goal for 2013 came down to a single word—Heal. And the prayer that came with the word is
May I be healed in my body
May I be healed in my heart
May I be healed in my spirit
May I be a force for healing in every action that I take
May my work deliver healing to my tribe

What is your word for 2013? Please let me know in the comments.

New Moon in Capricorn 11:44 a.m. PST Friday January 11th

New Moons are great for setting intentions. But it’s helpful if the intentions match the energy of the sign. Because we’re dealing with Capricorn, this energy is about discipline, ambition, structure and responsibility. It’s purposeful and quiet.

This New Moon window (Thursday–Saturday) is the highlight of the Capricorn season—the time of year when we are drawn to prepare for the future, make commitments and recognize responsibilities, and call forth our dreams and visions. It’s also a good time to focus on the practical and attainable, putting on your big-girl panties, developing maturity and common sense.

One of the perhaps unexpected gifts of the grounded, earthy Capricorn energy is the chance to drop into a new relationship with order and structure in our lives and work. Capricorn teaches us that reasonable boundaries and rules actually offer us freedom. It’s incredibly liberating to find out that the tools and structures we put in place free us to be more present to the moment, to be creative, loving, and responsive (amazing what can happen when we’re not spending our time trying to remember what we are meant to do next!).

Three suggestions for your New Moon working, for your business, for your body, for your soul:

Take some time, as close to the actual New Moon as you can (but any time in the three-day-window is fine) to do this work. You can work at your altar, or be outside, or any place you feel connected to Spirit. As always, pick the one issue that rises to the top, that feels most important, and take some time meditating on it. I find that in New Moon workings, dealing as we are with internal energies, it’s more useful to concentrate on one idea rather than many.

• How are you dropping into your heart (and out of your head) as you make your amazing plans for 2013?
• What is the powerful self-loving vision you have for your love, ease, fitness and health?
• What do you need (re-do your altar space, make an altar space, get some support or mentorship) to support your most audacious goals, the ones that are whispered to you in the darkness?

How are you dropping into the energy of the Capricorn Full Moon? Please let me know in the comments.