Living a Life that You Love — The Power of Compassionate Intention and How to Build New Habits

It is the end January. This means wet and dreary, at least here in Vancouver. This time of the year is supposedly the saddest time of the year. At the beginning of the month we made resolutions speaking to our hopes for the coming year. Weeks later we may realize we have failed at keeping them. How depressing. Just like last year.

Resolutions can be fantastic. When we conquer them we feel amazing. The only problem is that most of us don’t conquer them. We have high expectations, high aspirations. Which is beautiful. Then when life ‘gets in the way’ we may start focusing on where we fall short. The resolutions become a reminder of how we continue to disappoint ourselves. Therefore they predispose us to wallow in negative beliefs about ourselves. “I’m a loser”, “I don’t belong”, “I’m not lovable”. It is like feeding the wolves. Or if you prefer, our own neuroses.

It is not that we miss the target because we are inept. We miss the target because our brains don’t work that way. Our brains are designed to learn by doing. Slow and steady progress. Look at how babies learn to walk and talk. They focus but don’t break a sweat. Why do we expect our brains to work differently when we are adult? Babies keep their eyes at that goal, watching people around them do it and likely aspiring to the sense of freedom and independence the goal offers. I imagine they allow themselves to long for it, to feel the excitement of being able to do it. When they make small steps toward progress we help them celebrate it.

Watching how babies learn help us understand how our brains work. There is a saying in neurology that ‘neurons that fire together wire together’. Pavlov’s dogs are an example of this. In his experiments the bell and the food arrived at the same time, the food stimulated salivation, and soon the sound of the bell was enough to stimulate appetite. This is how neurological pathways work. When we want to build new habits it is helpful to use this information to our advantage.

In Pavlov’s case the food stimulated the creation of new synaptic connections between salivation and the bell. Instead of using external rewards we can create an internal reward by allowing ourselves to feel grateful. Even if ever so small, authentically felt gratitude stimulates the brain in ways just like when we are rewarded [i]. We can be grateful to ourselves for getting up extra early. For the smell of coffee after that morning run. For the new contacts we made even though networking may have been uncomfortable.

If you have not tried it yet, keeping a gratitude journal really works. Or find a confidant that you trust and text each other daily: 3 simple things that you are grateful for. They say it takes 30 days to build a new habit, and 40 to make it stick.

To copy what babies do: 1. Set an Intention 2. Let go of any pressure to achieve it, because the pressure is going to keep us focused on our shortcomings. 3. Celebrate and/ or be Grateful for the small steps of progress that we make towards those goals.

Religions have had this pat down for eons. When we pray we set an intention. Then we surrender our progress to something beyond ourselves, freeing ourselves from expectations. The focus of the prayer primes our brains to start seeing what we ask for, and how that shows up in our lives. This can be seen as miraculous, and indeed it may be. This is also how our brains work, because when we think of yellow cars we start seeing them all around us. Lastly, when we surrender our intention to something beyond ourselves this gives us permission to celebrate it. Being humble generally feels much better than coming across as boasting.

When I was a tween I used to wish I had grown up in a religious family. Looking back what I wished for was togetherness. Sharing meals with a sense of purpose, having moments when I felt I was important. I wanted to share my curiosity about my existence, my beliefs, my dreams and to speak of what I longed for. I wanted to know that someone believed in me, not because they knew my talents but because they knew my heart. I was in search of my spiritual roots — a place to anchor my soul beyond my physical existence.

I grew up in a post-religious generation in Northern Europe. My grandparents had grown up in strictly Lutheran homes. All the rules they experienced around religion became their reason to turn away from it. Unfortunately, most of them lost their connection with a spiritual practice as well. A practice where we honour not what we do or achieve but our own essence and the longings that give us drive and purpose. A practice where we honour our place and importance in the bigger picture, especially when it may seem insignificant. Such a practice can bring sweet healing and expand how we see ourselves.

I still do not consider myself religious. I struggle with religious terms, like God and Amen. Amen means ‘so be it’, which is a beautiful acknowledgement of surrender. Yet the religious associations of the word get to me. I also struggle with some of the concepts, such as the idea that God would have a gender. And back in my tweens when I asked my camp counsellor if I could be a Christian while not believing that Maria was immaculately conceived, he responded ‘no’. I believe that part of my human endeavor as a spiritual being lies in accepting my choices and the consequences of them, and that perspective doesn’t work when I imagine a higher authority ascribed to punish or reward me.

Spirituality doesn’t have to be woo-woo. There need not be any shamans or feathers, psychedelics or frankincense. My spirituality lies in believing in the power of Love. Love as in kindness, compassion, forgiveness and presence. Love as in unconditional, graceful and powerful beyond measure. To me that is the divine — and I am clearly human. Religious texts start to make sense when I change the word ‘God’ for ‘Love’. When I allow myself to believe in Love the beauty of life flows directly from it.

This fall I was part of a forgiveness circle. We met once a month to share what showed up for us along the path of attempting to forgive one particular person we had chosen. Sometimes what showed up was anger, sometimes it was freedom, and sometimes it was just ‘meh’. We found that our pursuit of forgiveness released grief, and grief does not follow a linear path. The commonality in our experiences over time was precious. Between gatherings we read an assigned forgiveness prayer daily.

Forgiving myself is a goal that came out of this circle. I realized that to forgive another, I first had to forgive myself. I had to forgive my own anger, my ‘pettiness’, my withdrawing from the connection, my hurt and ironically also my unwillingness to forgive. To be clear my intention with forgiveness is not to restore the connection, or to fix the relationship. That is not my job. If someone that has hurt me is not interested in understanding my hurt and restoring the trust, then that is on them.

If someone has been exposed to abuse, such as sexual violence, then attempting to forgive may even be damaging. Restoring the sense of one’s own right to healthy boundaries should always come before any intention to forgive. My intention with my forgiveness practice is to create clarity around what I need in my relationships to feel safe, to trust and to belong. Because I deserve all my close relationships to look like that.

Forgiveness is not about forgetting, nor is it about giving up on ones own power or boundaries. Forgiveness is a lot easier when the other party acknowledges the hurt and any act experienced as a wrongdoing. My 9 year old son recently came home from school and told me “Mom, did you know there are three parts to say I’m sorry?” “No tell me, what are the parts?” “I’m sorry. It was my fault. What can I do to make it better?” I was astonished, and quietly thanked his teacher for this message making it all the way home.

I have rewritten that forgiveness prayer to what I see as a poem inviting forgiveness — even if just as a distant possibility. Most days a new phrase pops out as relevant, and when it does I linger on that phrase and feel into it. That helps me explore what resonates so deeply that day. Often I cry when I realize how hard it can be for me to accept that I am loved and wanted and important to the people that I cherish. Some days instead of reading I speak my current longings directly from my heart.

Setting a spiritual intention was one of my new habits that developed over 2019. For this I am deeply grateful. Below I am sharing my Poem Inviting Forgiveness with you. I hope it will be as rewarding for you as it has been for me. Please enjoy.

Photo by Zac Durant on Unsplash

My Love,

I sit here with an open heart. I invite trust and a sense of magic to fill me. Please grant me the power to be the kind, gentle and loving person I want to be. Help me focus on the things that make me feel energized. Help me remember that my personal power is safe, for me and for everyone around me. I have faith that we are always connected, that this connection is safe and that I am loved. Remind me to love myself.

I surrender my struggles and hardship to you. I lay them at the feet of your love. I see you pick them up and hold them gently in your arms, as you hold me. Help me to walk through this day with grace, without judgement, and to forgive myself in every moment and every mistake I make. I am here with good intentions.

Help me to see any anger that I may experience, as a guide to understand my own needs. Help me release resentments that I have held onto around my own being. Help me forgive any self-harming thoughts, words or actions. Help me forgive myself when I let myself down by not making space for who I am. I accept that my struggles help to guide me home, to love, and into alignment with my purpose.

Allow me to be helpful to others. Let me be a beacon of kindness, creativity and curiosity. Remind me that I am an important part of the lives of those around me, and that a loving smile or thought from me makes a difference. Show me that I deserve to live in loving and generous communities with meaningful relationships, and give me the courage to create those.

Give me the courage to belong, and to believe that I am an appreciated and welcome part of this world. Generously allow playfulness, awe and magic in my relationships. Help me show my kids and those I love how important and precious they are to me, always with me in my heart.

Help me believe in myself. Encourage me to explore my dreams and longings, for I want to be alive and live as fully as I can. Bring me joy, celebration, passion and excitement. Yes, please bring me dance, poetry, laughter and music!

I love you, as I love me, for I am a fragment of you, perfect and sinless as my highest self.

Namaste (I bow to the Divine in you)

[i] This reference is an article written by a neuroscientist that discusses the impact of gratitude on our brains and links to primary data on the subject: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/new-thoughts-about-gratitude-charity-and-our-brains/2018/12/21/238986e6-f808-11e8-8d64-4e79db33382f_story.html