Researchers have determined that by this time in the month of January well over 90% of people who have set resolutions-intentions for the coming year have already abandoned those intentions.
January gets its name from the two faced god Janus that is both looking into the past and into the future. Sound familiar? Janus is a powerful representation of the ego-thought dynamic. It is the nature of the ego thought structure to constantly be looking back and projecting forward from that past focus. This is a hard wired reptilian dynamic that is designed to keep us safe. What it actually does is keep us from experiencing and accessing the only point of power we have at our disposal: the present moment.
Perhaps some of you are reading these words and determining that the solution to this dilemma is to not remain a Janus. By some act of mind-control the decision would be to not look back and to not project forward. Perhaps. May I offer what for me has been an easier and less stressful proposal?
Recognizing and remembering what the dynamic of the ego-mind is and how it operates is transformative in and of itself. Now that I know there is a Janus dynamic that I am plugged into I can choose to simply become friendly with it. If I give resistance to the tendency to look back and forward that resistant energy then feeds into and strengthens the dynamic that keeps me from the present moment power. Finding the middle point within my awareness allows me to recognize when in fact I am staring back in time. It offers me the ability to realize when I am projecting out into an imagined future that is based entirely on a past that I am either avoiding or seeking to recreate. When I know I am looking back, from the point of the present moment, I am more anchored in the now than I am in the past. I can feel the energy of the focus and work directly with the vibration from a present moment perspective. The same is true of projecting into the future. When I know I am doing it that awareness provides me with the possibility of choice. And choice is what staying spiritually awake is all about.
I believe that a key reason for the abandonment of so many New Years intentions this early in the year is that they are made almost exclusively from this Janus Dynamic. We look back at what we perceive is not working or is unavailable and then project a solution from that perception of lack. Often the inquiry is steeped in what is missing and how I can get it. This only serves to energize the lack. If we are not awake to the underpinnings of this dynamic we are stuck in the Janus mode. When we know it is happening the awakened relationship to it expands the potentiality of true change happening. When I am no longer defined by my past the possibility of something new opens within and before me. When I question my projections they no longer have the power to imprison me. I can take a breath and realize that I am not the memory or the projection. I am the one that is focusing my awareness. I am the one that is looking. Seeing the dynamic as a dynamic gives me dominion over it. In the friendly awareness of what is happening I am free. The Janus dynamic will either have me or my awareness will use it.
So if you have already ditched the intentions that you had for 2016, take heart. Be friendly with the Janus within you. Reclaim your year from a place of friendly, awakened, caring relationship. Give a wink to the part of your mind that tends to look back. Blow a kiss to the tendency to project the past into the future. It is not a problem. You are not a problem. You are an opportunity. The past is precious. Even the parts that weren’t preferred. And just because there has been a habitual way of showing up does not mean that the habit cannot be changed. Just be aware. From that awareness accept what has been. And know that awareness is everything. It is potential and it is power.
What you are choosing to experience in this moment is in reality the quality of your 2016. Right here and now. This. Yes, you will look back. You will project forward. It is just what the mind does. And you will always be doing it in and from the spaciousness of the present moment.
