Source: friendscafe.org via Brittany on Pinterest

This month, thousands—perhaps millions—of people are preparing to greet the New Year with a promise.

Some promise more exercise, less sugar, more money, less depression or more happiness, less weight.

Welcome to the New Year’s resolution, a dangerous river rapidly pulling us into the collective belief that we are not enough just as we are. A belief that our deepest yearning for love, for health and for happiness is available at some undetermined point in the future. And that our worthiness for this love, health and happiness is conditional and depends on whether or not we fulfill our future promises.

Ride your New Year’s resolution to its source and see what you find. Those desires for perfection, self-improvement and happiness all go deeper. They touch upon our deepest yearning for total love, total union—God, truth or utter peace.

It is a paradox, the desire to grow and simultaneously to accept ourselves just as we are. We yearn to be more than we are, something greater than the small, limited self we see in the mirror. And yet, we know the voice of perfection lies right here in this moment. The voice of happiness and love cannot be found anywhere but right here in the sweetness of your inhale.

How’s this for a New Year’s resolution: be as you are.

Simply practice whatever it is that reminds you of your wholeness. Remember that you are part of a greater whole that transcends and includes your personality. You belong to all of life, to the very love and wisdom that birthed you into being from a mere sperm and egg.

You are already whole and the New Year is ready to greet you as you are.

Shed your resolutions, illusions and solutions, and birth the clear seeing that knows you have already arrived in love. Feel the all-embracing blanket of air surrounding you, always holding you. Know that you are being kissed by the sun each and every day, rain or shine.

From this place of wholeness, you may proceed to eat less sugar, speak more honestly and honor your body with movement and exercise. But these resolutions come from your wholeness—not in order to prove it. Love does not depend on your resolutions, and so they become trivial, playful details as you live your life connected to the truth of who you are: everything. You are both a thread in the tapestry of life and the tapestry itself. Perfect as you are, yet ever-growing and changing with the turning of the wind and tides.

Dominique Youkhehpaz is the founder of Self-Marriage Ceremonies (www.SelfMarriageCeremonies.com), a pathway for knowing yourself, loving yourself, healing yourself, loving your life, and committing to be the change you wish to see in the world by marrying the love within—and being just as you are. She lives in Nevada City, CA and writes a weekly blog about self-love, called Musings (www.SelfMarriageCeremonies.com/Musings).

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Ed: Lynn Hasselberger

Asst. Ed: Maja Despot