As we approach the first day of a new year, many of us think about making resolutions: to eat smarter, to exercise more or to break negative habits.    The ease with which we transition to more “high vibration” living has largely to do with our levels of self-trust and self-love.  Spiritual empowerment is enhanced by making and keeping our resolutions.

Resolutions are  basically agreements one makes with oneself, a resolving to do something differently so as to be more happy, prosperous, confident or giving.    For many, resolutions are set-ups: we set an ambitious resolution and then find that when we do not keep it, we feel even less confident and empowered than before.  When this happens, many tend to lose interest in even making more resolutions, rather than to recommit to something envisioned.

Individually and collectively, given what is happening right in front of us during this time in our history, we are challenged to see more clearly what is in front of us to do and and what we are challenged to be.  It is time to wake up and realize the value of keeping our word.  If keeping our word—either to our own self or to another---is not seen as important, then our word means nothing and we find that we are not trusted by our own selves or by others.

Many invest more energy in finding excuses for breaking their word than they expend in honoring their word.  There always seems to be a reason to either put off making the resolution or to break one that has already been made.

As New Years Resolution season approaches, you might consider the resolutions you might make, and then get clear with yourself as to just how important keeping that resolution is to you.  Making small, gradual changes over time---setting a gradual plan---for an eventual goal realization makes much more sense than going from couch potato to someone who is spending 5 days per week in at the health club.

“If you try to do too much”, warned the Russian mystic, Gurdjieff, “you will do nothing.”

One of the true foundations of spiritual empowerment is trust.  As we learn to trust our own selves, we find that we experience more interaction with trustworthy people in our lives.  The less we trust ourselves, the more we seem to draw to us untrustworthy people.

Let’s take a look at the concept of agreement and how we use it in our world.  The following is an excerpt from my new book, “The Wake Up Book”, a guide to inner exploration.  The last sentence of this excerpt is one I suggest that you contemplate, asking yourself if this is something that you can truly say is important to you.

Agreement

Agreement is the acknowledgment of a unity.  It means little if the parties to it do not feel compelled to honor it.  This applies to agreements that we make with ourselves also.  As this book is being completed, leaders of the larger of the so called “developed” nations of our world created an “agreement” designed to help curb global warming.  In the eyes of many, the time is late for such an agreement.  If we would prefer, for example, not to find the city of Miami to be an island sometime down the road, the time is truly at hand to create agreements among nations to do what is in our power to prevent such things.

Waiting as long as we have to truly attend to this challenge is much like it might have been if Noah had waited until 10 minutes before the flood to start building an ark.

The “agreement” to deal with global warming was called a “non-binding agreement”.  Such a term is oxymoronic.  This late in the game, it is maybe just moronic, ignorant.

Likewise, what positive outcome does one have when a promise is made to oneself when there is no commitment to honoring that promise?

As a culture, we are still getting lessons from the Universe that creating and honoring agreements with ourselves and each other is a key to our individual and collective expansion.  This is an integral part of the foundation upon which a more harmonious world will emerge.

We are in the middle of the 11^th hour, not just in terms of global warming, but in realizing what is in front of us with money, with laws, with our leadership and with the general well-being of our world.  We are all challenged to feel compelled by our heart to get more and more consistent with making and keeping wise agreements, with ourselves and others.

Can you say this with feeling and truly mean it?:

I look for opportunities to make and keep heart-centered agreements with myself and others.

Please pause here and contemplate the importance you now place on keeping your word.