Resolutions

Moving into the depths of winter always catches us off guard.  As much as I’m loving the light fresh powder, crisp mornings, and stellar blue skies, it takes a minute to adapt, physically and psychologically.  Resolutions become one of the rituals we use to mark this transition.  They offer a ubiquitous platform to redefine where we want to go- a new workout, nutrition, sleep rhythm or creative project.  Despite the ubiquity of resolutions, they carry a 9% success rate. 

Conventional goal setting is a socially driven movement tied to dopamine hits, devoid of personal accountability and ownership.  These goals are short lived, packaged with external motivation.  Let’s look at why they fail and how we can create an internal ecosystem where change is intrinsic. 

Your internal ecosystem determines your behavior and that ecosystem is created through nervous system regulation, fascia and connective tissue balance, and interstitial fluid movement.  This internal network shaped by consistent rituals- practices that contour behavior and evolve as the rituals change.  Movement, stillness and creativity expand and contract this network to build an architecture designed for neurogenesis.  Epigenetics is the code that stabilizes the ecosystem, enabling behavior and practice to become identity.

Change is fluid and continuous, healing, when it’s not met with resistance.  We often resist change because permanent change requires collaboration across the entire internal ecosystem.  Sometimes the nervous system isn’t prepared for change.  When the opportunity for change arrives, we may not be structurally able to integrate it and elements may need remodeling before adapting.  By studying precisely when and where we meet resistance, we can familiarize ourselves with change and soften the nervous system’s grip, allowing for fluidity instead of fear and gripping.

In a fluid landscape like this, goals are accessible through dedicated practices.  Three tools can facilitate change:

1)        clarify your intentions through writing,

2)        experiment with consistent creative work, maintaining vulnerability without judgement, and

3)        reshape the way you inhabit and move with your body

Together, these tools build an internal language that reflects your identity and resonance.

These practices establish the homeostasis that enables healing, neurogenesis and new genetic expression. This embodied stability counters the disruptive model of conventional goal setting, which often relies on abrupt confrontation with outdated identities.   Practices that downregulate the nervous system create an environment capable of absorbing change without seizing or retracting.  Stabilizing theses patterns generates new neuropathways and reinforces new networks.

Change emerges from within our ecosystem- through fascia, tissue and interstitial fluid that flows like an electrical network.  When the nervous system is regulated, this fluid moves freely.  Interstitial fluid carries energy, tension, stillness; it mirrors who we are.  We continuously expose this network to change, inviting new dendrites and neuropathways.  Under stress, the fluid is constricted.  In homeostasis, it flows without interruption. 

Neurogenesis emerges as new dendrites grow in previously undeveloped directions.  These practices cultivate the conditions for that growth to stabilize, fostering trust in new behavioral and movement patterns so we can integrate information and evolve without resistance.

This internal shift enables epigenetic change – lasting shifts in DNA expression.  We alter how we respond to food, emotion, stress or fear, scarcity.  The brain and body adjust to the fuel and information we consistently integrate.

The cultures we identify with, the behaviors we adopt, and the rituals we practice- consciously or not- are open to revision.  Our goals become ours to develop, rather than extensions of others. 

With support of a clear strategy, change and new behavioral patterns are more likely to take hold.  Once we embrace the mechanics of change, our intrinsic nature acknowledges the rituals and look for the rituals and practices that enable transformation.