New Year’s resolutions

All 43 mango trees in a family orchard in Palo, Leyte have been blown over by the recent typhoon. As the new year comes in thousands of people find themselves in a desperate situation not of their own making nor one that they can control.

As I think about the imminent arrival of 2020 and what the third decade of the 21st century might hold, I realise and am grateful for the sense of some kind of control over my circumstances. For example, I can make a set of resolutions about what I’d like to change in my behaviour or habits for the coming year, but what if I’d lost my home and livelihood, perhaps even family and friends in a disaster? Threats to our existence usually trigger the so-called “fight or flight response,” our body chemistry developed it back in the days when a sabre-toothed tiger might come hunting. But it remains the body’s response to all perceived threats, even though nowadays they are far more likely to be about work or relationship. To make a resolution for the year after great loss or trauma is an act of supreme hope, of the mind and heart winning a battle against biology.

Uncertainty is the enemy of resolution but perhaps not of the more forgiving concept of intention. Before yoga practice some teachers ask students to set their intention or sankalpa, different from a resolution because it doesn’t ask you to change anything about yourself or your circumstances. There’s no need to change because the idea is that you are already good enough and happiness does not depend on changing that or acquiring more; you already are and already have all you need if you manage to channel your mind to access your deepest intentions and the qualities of the Divine within. A sankalpa is a statement that can help you to do this by speaking to the larger arc of our lives.

So instead of a resolution that says: “I will go to the gym once a weak in 2020,” a sankalpa is a statement that you can call upon to remind you of your true nature and guide your choices so it is not abandoned when you miss going to the gym. Instead it is a statement of a deeply held fact and a vow that is true in the present moment, such as “I love my body and with that love I go to the gym.” Even in the depths of despair and loss, such a statement will be meaningful, significant and true.

Different cultures have different starts to the year according to their traditions. In a way every moment can be a kind of new year, in that each moment provides an opportunity to reset and remember who we are, what we are, even why we are and act accordingly.

Resolutions and intentions are a way of planting seeds too, even when disaster strikes as it did once again this week in Leyte. Both Leyte and Capiz remain under a state of calamity. The new year looks very bleak for families having to build new futures from scratch, but I remember very well the way communities come together for the worst off in the Philippines and around the world. When we have lost everything, all we have is each other.

I was in Myanmar a year after it was struck by Cyclone Nargis. There were a few areas where government, aid agencies and others had managed to “build back better” but for the vast majority much, much more help was needed. Still everyone was getting on with life as best as they could.

In particular I remember visiting one of the worst affected villages, where the community had been told the UN would give it $2,000 to be spent as it wished. A woman I met that was part of the group that made the decision spoke about how they felt empowered by being given the responsibility and just as importantly, felt that they were not alone. The group decided to give the money to a couple that had been made utterly destitute and grief- stricken in the disaster. A tree had fallen on the husband and he had had to have his leg amputated. The wife, miscarried and was not able to walk after the disaster. They had absolutely no expectations that they would receive any help and had no idea how they would manage. When they heard they would get a new home the farmer-husband was encouraged to retrain as a barber. They managed to reset their expectations at a time when they had given up hope, with help from their neighbours.

There’s a very simple cartoon I love in which a person asks a friend who is digging in a garden: “What do you think will happen next year?” The friend replies: “Flowers will grow.” “How do you know?” “Because I’m planting the seeds now.” Across Leyte and the Visayas seeds are being planted, expectations and hopes are being reset and a new year is about to start. Flowers and fruit will grow.