How Do You Want to Feel in 2022? An Invitation to Slow Down and Savor

“The way to develop the habit of savoring is to pause when something is beautiful and good and catches our attention — the sound of rain, the look of the night sky — the glow in a child’s eyes, or when we witness some kindness. Pause… then totally immerse in the experience of savoring it.” — Tara Brach

What’s on your heart as this new year dawns? I hope 2022 — or, as I’m currently calling it, 2020.2 🤪 — is being gentle with you so far and that it brings healing to our fractured psyches and the world we make and remake each day in our own image.

It’s the time of year when we think about new beginnings. When we challenge ourselves, setting ambitious goals for how we want to change and what we want to accomplish by the time we complete our next trip around the sun. Goals and ambitions that, despite our best intentions, often peter out and fall by the wayside while the year is still in its infancy.

I make it a practice to consider how I want to FEEL in the year ahead rather than what I want to DO. For me, this simple but powerful question is more effective in producing meaningful and sustainable behavioral change than setting goals and making resolutions.

If you struggle to find the feeling, it’s sometimes helpful to look underneath the goals and resolutions to understand the underlying emotional motivation. As an example, I can resolve to lose 22 pounds in 2022 and commit to a strict diet. Or I can think about the underlying feeling which might be aliveness, lightness of being, energized, etc. With the specific resolution, I’ll either succeed or fail — and in my experience…