Guest Post for New Year's from MSI Press Author, Dr. Frederic Craigie (Weekly Soul)
HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Every time I get the urge to exercise, I lie down until it passes.
Mark Twain
New Years! The Times
Square ball, confetti, Guy Lombardo (for people of my vintage) and… New Year’s
resolutions!
Most of us make some kind of resolution for the New Year.
It’s a good opportunity for a fresh start. Change isn’t easy, though, and
lapsed New Year’s resolutions are certainly part of the common lore of our
culture.
There is no lack of advice out there about how best to
manage the resolutions we set for the year to come. Set clear goals (I prefer
the word, “intentions,” by the way). Write them down. Check in regularly about
how you’re doing. Enlist the caring and support of somebody else.
These are perfectly fine ideas that I’m sure you have heard
before. I want to share with you, though, three ideas that get less press, that
arise from some combination of empirical literature and my own experience
working with people for a long time.
1.
Remember why you want to be different.
I concluded long ago that for most people, “health” and even
longevity don’t really have much inherent value. The status of our health and
the length of our years are important, though, insofar as they allow us
to live our lives in ways that matter to us.
Psychologist David Waters at the University of Virginia
differentiates “health goals” and “life goals.” “Health goals” are the choices
and lifestyle behaviors that people can pursue to address their most important
health issues. Exercising, stopping
smoking, developing a good nutritional plan.
“Life goals” touch on the things that are most important to people in
their lives… the things that they care about the most. Being a better teacher, coaching young
people, being able to work in stained glass.
Waters argues that it is important for all of us (and our
health care practitioners) to recognize the way that life goals energize health
goals. The formula is “What is really important in my life is _______ ;
therefore, my health goals are _______ .”
Before I wrapped up my practice in 2015, I worked with a
woman who had smoked for many years and had recently become involved in
Buddhist tradition and practice. She said,
“Health”
is not enough to motivate me to stop smoking. My reasons for stopping need to
be more important than my reasons to smoke.
I have taken a vow to work toward enlightenment, for me, and to help
other people toward enlightenment.
Smoking obstructs the inner channels where the chakras are… if I am
serious about enlightenment, I have to quit.
You may not think
much about enlightenment or inner chakra channels, but you get the idea. Changes
in health practices (or any personal changes, really) need to be grounded in
life values. Loving your partner. Caring for a needy family member or friend.
Being an agent of disseminating kindness or compassion into the world. Working
on behalf of causes that matter to you… environmental awareness, musical
appreciation and creativity, social justice, or limitless others.
Remembering life
values energizes personal changes.
2.
Recognize
the larger context.
How you’re doing
overall either facilitates or inhibits personal changes.
A 2020 study from
the University of British Columbia explored the relationship between purpose in
life (yes, there are reliable and valid measures of this) and health behaviors
in almost 14,000 people over a span of eight years. Researchers found that
subjects with higher levels of purpose in life were significantly less likely
to become physically inactive, to develop sleep problems, to develop
unfavorable body-mass indexes, and modestly less likely to relapse in smoking
cessation over the study period.
Those are some data
about purpose, but I’d expect to see similar effects from any number of other
global qualities… finding more joy in your life, or laughter, or social
connections, or creative expression… apart from whatever you do to cultivate
specific personal changes.
3.
Be
gentle with yourself with the ups and downs along the road
The journey does
have its ups and downs, doesn’t it? Some days, like Mark Twain, you won’t
exercise. Some days you’ll go for the mega sirloin in the restaurant rather
than the Cobb salad. Sometimes, you will let emotions get the better of you and
be unkind, rather than being an agent of forbearance and understanding.
Setbacks (the
psychological literature calls these “relapses”) are common expressions of our
humanity. In whatever way you may slide in a backwards direction, people have
been there before. Having setbacks really isn’t an issue; the issue is how you
deal with setbacks.
One of the exciting
developments in the behavioral health world in the last few years is the
emergence of research and practice in the arena of self-compassion. Arising
mainly from work by psychologists Kristen Neff (UT, Austin) and Christopher
Germer (Harvard Medical School/Cambridge Health Alliance), self-compassion
takes aim at our cultural tendency toward self-denigration when we don’t find
ourselves behaving or managing our lives as we think we should.
Being gentle and
compassionate with oneself has two benefits. First, it attenuates the health
and emotional costs of unforgiveness, bitterness, and self-judgment. Second,
self-compassion gives us the emotional space to be able to choose how we are
going to react to setbacks. In our
relationships with ourselves, just like our relationships with others, you
forgive so that you can live your life.
Setbacks are
unpleasant, of course, but they are also marvelous opportunities to step back
and explore the conditions that prompted them. When you experience a setback
with any personal change, what were the social circumstances that may have been
involved? What internal experiences…
thoughts, feelings, and images… may have been involved? How might you address these challenges better
going forward?
So… as you find yourself
teetering backwards with some personal change, think about what someone who
knows you well and deeply loves you would say to you. Can you find it in your heart to treat
yourself the same way?
There are many
other lines of research and empirically-based practice that bear on such
things, notably work on gratitude, mindfulness, and on the larger picture of
forgiveness. Stories for another day!
The quotation at
the top, by the way, is a witty comment that has been attributed to a variety
of people… Jimmy Durante, Edna Mae Oliver, Robert M.
Hutchins, and Chauncey Depew among them. I imagine that they all probably said
it at some point, with the original source being long lost. It is most
frequently attributed to Mark Twain (who is likely not to have said it himself;
he died before the quote began making its rounds), so that’s the way I’ve left
it.
Best wishes for a
meaningful, peaceful, and joyful New Year!
Frederic Craigie, PhD
Licensed Psychologist/Emeritus
Faculty, Maine-Dartmouth Family Medicine Residency
Associate Professor, Andrew
Weil Center for Integrative Medicine, University of Arizona
College of Medicine
www.goodnessofheart.com
For more posts by and about Fred Craigie and his award-winning book, Weekly Soul, click HERE.
Sign up for the MSI Press LLC newsletter
Follow MSI Press on Twitter, Face Book, and Instagram.
in exchange for reviewing a current or forthcoming MSI Press LLC book?
Contact editor@msipress.com.
Want an author-signed copy of this book?
Purchase the book at 25% discount (use coupon code FF25)
and concurrently send a written request to orders@msipress.com.
Comments
Post a Comment