It’s that time of year again! The time of year where everyone puts their best foot forward sets new goals or resolutions that they want to achieve and sets forth with aggressive enthusiasm.
I think it’s wonderful that so many people use the renewal and birth of the new year to reset their intentions and work towards creating a better, healthier, and more balanced life. However, way too often these new year resolutions fall by the wayside earlier than we would like.
On average, most people were only able to keep a new resolution for 36 days in 2020, according to a recent poll by OnePoll, data that seems to disagree with the common understanding that most habits can be created or broken within a month. (This common understanding has been debunked many times, even though it is still perpetuated across society)
Why does this happen?
There are many reasons why we do not reach a goal, some of them include:
- Unrealistic goals
- In one 2014 study, 35% of participants who failed their New Year’s Resolutions said they had unrealistic goals.
- Lack of a plan
- over half of the respondents (58 percent) said figuring out how to make new positive habits stick during this time was “next to impossible.”
- Negative Connotations
- Psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert told Business Insider People often don’t make their resolutions specific enough, they’re worded too negatively, and they’re not relevant to the individual, he said. (New Year’s Resolution Statistics (2021 Updated) – Discover Happy Habits)
These are all valid and correct, but in my years of research, I can now conclude that all of these reasons are secondary to the main reason we struggle to attain our visions – because they do not fit with our personal Rhythm.
Defining Rhythm
Each of us has a unique frequency that vibrates out into the Universe and our life is created by the reverberations of those frequencies. The harmony (or disharmony) of these reverberations create our Rhythm. Essentially our Rhythm is our personal connection to the world.
External issues such as trouble manifesting your vision, awkward or unfulfilling relationships, stress, overexertion, and many of our mental ills come from not understanding our rhythm or how to flow with it.
Defining our Rhythm helps us to see what fits in our world and what doesn’t. Finding our Rhythm helps us understand ourselves – who we really are, our capacities, our triggers, our emotions – and then rid ourselves of the harmful pieces that do not serve us or allow us to live at our highest and best.
A Rose by any other name…
This concept I call Rhythm has been discussed before in different terms and from different perspectives. Rhythm, Flow, Balance, Harmony, Chi – these similar concepts all run parallel to the idea of being in tune with your environment and working with the energy instead of against it.
- Harmony – defined as the quality of forming a pleasing and consistent whole.
- Chi – (also spelled qi) is defined as the vital life force or energy that runs through all living beings. It is the essence of existence that flows through each of us, uniting the body, mind, and spirit.
- Flow– is defined as a state of mind in which a person becomes fully immersed in an activity. Psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi describes flow as a state of complete immersion in an activity. While in this mental state, people are completely involved and focused on what they are doing.
Harmonious Dissonance
Rhythm is composed of both our energy vibrations and the stillness we allow in between. The stillness is just as important as stillness can quell the aggravation we feel when the objects around us are not working together to create harmony.
When there are multiple vibrations or sounds happening at the same time they can either become harmonious or dissonant. Harmony makes us feel better, it helps us enjoy the beauty of the instruments and we can often get feelings of euphoria, relaxation, and calm when hearing beautiful music.
Dissonances between us and areas of our life can create stress, anxiety, depression, and other emotional issues that can trap us from finding balance and peace. (Once we are more healed we can add some practical Dissonance back, but we first need to heal in order to create a good foundation. While distasteful to many, Dissonance still has beauty, as it creates space for change and growth pushing us to a new level of understanding.)
What we Gain
Clearing out some of the dissonances from our Rhythm can help us:
- Gain focus and live life purposefully
- Find Balance between the Harmony & Dissonance
- Create Peace for ourselves and others
- Feel Better overall
Finding our Rhythm helps us better gauge what is meant for us. Our Rhythm helps us see which goals or resolutions can help us become who we really want to be and it allows us to create a realistic plan that fits within our nature.
What we ALL Gain
When we work on actively understanding our Rhythm we gain much of the benefits of self-care but not in a selfish way. Much of the promotion of self-care over the past years focuses on only what we need within. This is a very necessary first step and correlates greatly with Finding One’s Rhythm, however, it is only half of the equation.
Research has shown that promoting “mindfulness”, a type of self-care, in a population that already is independently minded rather than collectively minded pushes us to hold our own self-worth and view it as unbreakable and whoever tries to reason differently with us is the enemy and should be ignored. That is the exact opposite of what we want in a world that is so severely divided.
Focusing only on ourselves, especially in an already independently-minded population can cause us to retreat back to that comfort zone with no plan to re-enter the world. America is a good example of this as we are extremely independent culturally. Think of all the people who have thin skin today, how one comment can cause us to fly off the handle, the aggression that seems to never dissipate.
Getting to know our Rhythm allows us a space to get in touch with ourselves, but also gives the necessary space that allows other people’s rhythm to grow into harmony with us, rather than working to separate us. This helps us focus on goals and resolutions that serve us and could also serve others in our environment.
Interested in learning more about Rhythm and how to find yours? Please continue to follow this blog.
Ready to start finding your unique Rhythm? Sign up for our new program “Find Balance & Create Peace by finding your Rhythm” starting Spring 2022.
Until next time, take care and live gently.
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