Resolutions are promises we make to ourselves. My New Year started with shock therapy to cure me forever from making promises I can’t keep.

 

Thought I’d share the story with you to cheer you up in case all your resolutions are already in shards around your ankles.

 

What happened?

 

My 9 yr old son was really looking forward to setting off all his fire crackers with his friends.

I suggested he sleep a few hours and promised to wake him at midnight. He absolutely refused. Then 30 min before count down he crept away and quietly curled up in a corner in deep hibernate mode. Come midnight I tried everything to wake him but he was out cold. Eventually I gave up and just let him be. Wrong! I’d forgotten something really important. I’d forgotten I’d promised to wake him. Doing your best just isn’t good enough in this instance. After all, a promise is a promise.

 

When Jules eventually woke up he was furious and I was in serious pooh. Even worse, I totally deserved it. I hadn’t thought this through at all. I felt like I’d betrayed him deeply. That I was untrustworthy; the worst mother in the whole world. How could I have been so thoughtless? If I knew what I know now I would have poured a bucket of cold water over his head. Anything, to keep my word.

 

But the deed was done. I couldn’t turn back the clock.

 

So, how to make amends?

I told him he was right. I had made a terrible mistake and because of this we would change our plans and spend the day doing anything he liked.

 

Result?

 

We spent the morning at Alpemari, an outrageously expensive water world about half an hour from Zürich.

There are all these really scary slides, with names like cobra, thriller and tornado and Jules’s all time favourite, the Balla Balla. This one sends you hurtling down a pitch dark tube, with flashes of lightening and then it takes you out into the freezing outdoors to get snowed on before dropping you again down another terrifying twister.

 

Licence to scream as much as you like. Scream out all your frustrations of the past year. A healing, purifying, cleansing process. Better than confession any day.

Finally your limp body gets spat out into a tepid pool at the foot of a zillion steps so you can climb back up again and do it all again.

 

So, now I have made my confession to you too. (Took me 5 days to own up!) This is how I did my penance. 10 slides, at least 2 times each with step training in between. It was a bit like counting beads on a rosary. Bless me for I have sinned!

 

Fortunately there was also a hot saline external bath and the end to sooth the weary muscles and bruised bones of this recovering sinner.

 

Moral of the story?

Don’t make promises to your kid unless you can keep them.

 

You don’t have a kid?

 

Sure you do. Everyone has an inner kid. And rumour has it that this is the most neglected kid on the block.

 

Have you made promises to yourself, esp your inner kid, that you can’t (or don’t really intend to) keep?

This is my new year resolution:
To give myself a break and not make any promises unless they align with my own well being and I absolutely can keep them.

If I absolutely had to chose a religion I would choose hinduism because it is one of the few that isn't imperialistically inspired. (used to justify the theft of someone else's stuff, usually land). Also with so many different gods to choose from it reflects the muliplicity of our personality. I rather like that.  I think right now we are being asked to withdraw our spirits from organised religion so that we can grow quicker/ to survive the shift.

You can only grow as fast as all the groups you've invested your spirit in. So, amybe time to let go of some...

About our multiplicicty. I think this is the way to have fun and heal at the same time. Hug all your subpersonalities. Like Penelope for example. Who's Penelope? She's an essential survival persona who resists computers and the internet.

absolutely, because everything is just interpretation

Cool president!!

I was going to start making excuses for all the things not working

But then a friend sent me this video:
http://www.maniacworld.com/are-you-going-to-finish-strong.html

So?

I won't bore you with the details.

Basically I've decided to stop trying to reinvent absolutely everything

(another friend offered some ideas with a round shape.

but in my experience round things tend to roll away!)

What's your excuse today?

 

Too old? Too young? Too fat? Too thin?

Your mother won’t let you?

No arms? No legs?

Here’s the video again.

http://www.maniacworld.com/are-you-going-to-finish-strong.html


Okay, what was your excuse again?
;-)

hey! I don't want to play alone tonight!

aren't you just a little bit curious,
adventurous, daring, fun and always willing
to try some thing new
and exciting?

you are?

then please offer yourself up right now
as an experimental guineapig
for tonight's workshop!

you can't??

ok, then offer your wife!

you haven't got one?

ok, how about an ex-husband
or just one of your many friends?

surely you can sacrifice at least one of
them to science?

science!!?

the science of figuring out just why
they're on this planet.

if they survive you can come next time.


: ))

if they come back with a strange hairdo
hopefully they will have captured it on canvas!

http://handanalysisonline.com/paint.pdf

please forward this mail to all your
friends in zürich.

you haven't got any friends in zürich?

ok. how about switzerland?

no friends there either?
just me!

oh my gosh. you mean we'll have to make
this brilliant new workshop happen online!

come play. come find out why you're on this planet.

passion + purpose = payed to play
(do you notice most people leave the 'l' out of play?)

why? because they haven't figured out how yet.

so, how?
the solution's in your hands


http://handanalysisonline.com/paint.pdf

wishing you a playful friday eve,
(with me!!! hopefully) ; )

jena

ps: please forward this to anyone and everyone
you know in zürich

you don't know anyone?
let's not start that again!