by Virginia Harris, C.S.B.

The beginning of a new year seems to be full of promises and resolutions to do something different to improve one’s life.

Typically these resolutions involve losing weight, exercising more, decreasing debt, eliminating addictions like smoking or drinking, and…the list goes on. Most typical, according to research, is the inability of a majority of people to follow through, starting the third week of the year!

Resolutions to improve one’s life are a good thing, but often the root of a pledge is negative: “If I only had…more money, more time, less weight.” Or, “If I could only…quit smoking or drinking, get organized, reduce my credit card debt.” Perhaps here is a factor in the inability to follow through. It’s a starting point that one needs something, that there is something (or many things) flawed or lacking in life. Credit card debt can be really debilitating for the person going through it, that’s why credit card consolidation loans are here to help people who are in this predicament.

Is this how you or a loved one approaches the new year? I think there is another starting point that can make all the difference in improving life experiences. Begin by seeing yourself – your identity, not your body or your experience – as one with the Holy Spirit.

In this wholly spiritual identity, you can never be separated from your divine nature – never disconnected, divorced, or diminished. The Holy Spirit, God, is not overweight, addicted to smoking or drinking, maxed out on credit cards, disorganized. Since your spirit is one with God, neither are you!

When you stop identifying yourself as flawed or lacking or separated from good, and begin accepting your God-given spiritual nature as all that you are, your actual experience will improve. Addictions will lose their grip, order and organization will be clear, and the limits of time and money will cease to be factors because you are one with abundance in life!

The Psalmist describes the universal Spirit and each one’s inseparability from it:

Is there anyplace I can go to avoid your Spirit?
to be out of your sight?
If I climb to the sky, you’re there!
If I go underground, you’re there!
If I flew on morning’s wings
to the far western horizon,
You’d find me in a minute-
you’re already there waiting!
Then I said to myself, “Oh, he even sees me in the dark!
At night I’m immersed in the light!”
It’s a fact: darkness isn’t dark to you;
night and day, darkness and light, they’re all the same to you.

Begin a new year with a new view of your one and only spiritual being. This is the one resolution to have!

The image above is sunrise on Lake Winnipesaukee, called by Native Americans “The Smile of the Great Spirit.”