Nurture Your New Beginnings

The new year often brings a bouquet of resolutions for a better life that seem to fade quickly. However, there are ways to nurture new beginnings to enhance their rate of survival, but it involves taking a different perspective with regard to our minds and our existing habits.

Any new pattern or new beginning, however beneficial, must compete for our attention with all of our established habits. Our existing habits do not welcome change, for they regard any change as a threat. As a result, our new habits often are not strong enough to endure the reactions from our established patterns that they are destined to encounter. The failure rate of New Year’s resolutions demonstrates clearly that our established habits often have no difficulty dispatching our new endeavors.

To aid our new endeavors, it is important to nurture them on levels of consciousness where it really counts.

One form of nurturing new beginnings is to make the conscious choice to feel good. No matter how you performed, take a moment to consciously choose to feel good, and express gratitude for being able to act in a way that will bring greater goodness and harmony into your life. Make the conscious effort to feel good before, during, and after you practice your new pattern of behavior.

Often one of our levels of consciousness will desire the change, but other levels do not want that change at all. Since we all have many levels of consciousness, it is not only important to make a conscious effort to direct attention to our new endeavors but it is also important to prepare for the response from our existing habits. Thoughts like, “This is what I’ve always done. I’ve never done that,” are the defenses of existing habits that refuse to step aside for our new endeavors. So when the time arrives for us to make the effort in a new pattern and the thought registers in your mind, “I don’t feel like doing that now,” tell your mind, “You can feel any way you want, but I am doing this because I am the captain of my ship.” At first, it may seem strange to talk with yourself, but to balance out the defenses of existing habits with positive thoughts can only be helpful in your efforts to change. So nurture your new beginnings by encouraging yourself. The Living Light Philosophy teaches to place your attention upon what you want to become and remove it from what you want to overcome.

Begin with small steps. A few minutes each day, preferably at a set time, is more effective than trying to set aside hours at a time, which often never materialize. And a few minutes frequently is less of a threat to our existing patterns. And if our existing habits are less threatened, there’s a better chance that the new pattern will take root and thrive. Gradually increase the amount of time dedicated to your new endeavor.

In the struggle to establish habits that bring greater goodness into our lives, positive affirmations will help dissolve the belief that we are our existing habits. Affirmations are our allies. And the Living Light Philosophy has many beautiful affirmations. But they can only work for us when we make the effort in application.

Think of encouragement and the spoken word as energy and attention. The more energy and attention that we can direct to our new pattern, the more they are nurtured and the stronger and more established they become.

And when you feel you have stumbled and are discouraged in your attempts to make a change, recognize that feeling of discouragement for what it really is: one of the last defense mechanisms of the established patterns or habits. Do not battle with those feelings. Recognize and accept them for what they are, for when you accept anything, you place yourself in consciousness in a position to control it. Remember, when discouragement registers in your mind, you are standing at the very gates of victory.

But make no mistake, it is a battle. Our existing patterns will fight for their continuity, but it is a battle that, regardless of how many times we fail, we will ultimately win. After all, we are not our habits. We are that which sustains our habits.

“Control your mind and your life will be ever the joy that you choose it to be.”