Here at the beginning of a new year, a new cycle, I always take some time to review how I want to live the year.  I don’t do this in terms of New Year’s resolutions.  Rather, I do it as a way to reconnect with the values and ways of being I want to bring into the world and to deepen my practice.

For example, I have an ongoing practice of compassion and kindness, and do my best – although certainly not always successfully – to bring these qualities into my interactions with others.  Each year, I review how things have gone and what I might want to add to my intention for “being in the world” for this new cycle.  Each year becomes a way to deepen my practice and try out expressing new qualities in my life.

And so, for this week’s experiment, I invite you to take some time to review the ways in which you moved through your world in 2008.  Notice what you like about how you were and what you did.  For the things you feel good about, take time to experience the sensations that arise in your body when you are in touch with these positive qualities and actions.  Spend some time hanging out with these sensations, as they will serve to support your capacity to express the things you want to express.  Then, when you notice things you would have liked to do differently, notice your experience of these.  Your body will tell you what feels good and what doesn’t.

You might choose to explore any aspect of your daily experience.  For example, you might explore your habits of mind – the quality of thoughts you carry in your head, the kind of self-hypnosis you give to yourself throughout the day.  You may decide you want to add a thought that offers reassurance or support when you discover you’re caught up in negative or self-defeating thinking.  Or, you might decide you want to bring a particular quality to your interactions with others.  For example, you might explore this year how it affects the quality of your life if you were to express gratitude more often than you have in the past.  Or, you might decide that you want more delight in your life and so decide to notice what happens when you engage in activities and forms of recreation that bring fun and laughter more often than you did last year.

Whatever may occur in the external world – most of which we can’t control – what we can do something about is how we respond to what moves into our experience.  This means that, while we can’t control most of what comes our way from the outside, we can have a say in what we contribute as we engage the external world in our daily activities and interactions.

The good news is that there’s no right answer to the experiment.  The invitation is to have one more opportunity to practice living consciously, to make choices, and deepen your awareness of how you choose to move through your world.