Big Plans – Little Relationship
It’s often talked about this time of year – new year’s resolutions and #goals. We sometimes start the year off following new inspirational influencers, planning to achieve and be things we weren’t the year before… Now before you start to assume I’m going to say “toss it all out! Goals are bad! Plans are stupid!”, let me clarify – I’m not. Goals and plans; dreaming and imagining – it’s healthy and good and natural! But goals and plans – without understanding your actual needs first – are often miss-aligned; plans without self-awareness often set us up for feelings of grief, failure, deeper self-loathing, and deeper estrangement with self. You can sense this not only in relationship with self, but in familial relationships. Let me expand on this with an example.
Now I have a two year old – and let me tell you, I have plans for my two year old! – but if I start to set goals for him, before understanding his needs, I’m going to completely MISS HIM. Relationally, I’m looking PAST him and instead at the desired goals. I’m missing what is MOST IMPORTANT – being present and experiencing love with my two year old as he is RIGHT NOW. It is only when I stay attuned to who he is right now, that I might begin to dream up goals which are aligned to his little personality.
Now let’s bring this around to my relationship with myself, as a grown adult. I have dreams and goals – but many of them are unkind, and nonrelational towards myself; these goals are perfectionistic in nature – all or nothing. They prove that I don’t actually care to know myself right now, or my current needs; that I’m not interested in being patient with myself, or building a trustworthy and tender relationship with myself.
“Exercise more and lose weight! Be more interesting! Know more! Do more! Master cooking! Put more effort into the house! Be more self-sufficient! Stop being so anxious!”
Anything here sound familiar? When we’re motivated to change by self-loathing and disgust – our goals are often uninterested in our present state of being. We disregard what actually IS and we try to push into the facade of “what could be”.
Change, dreaming and growing are natural, beautiful things that require courage and depth of character. But these things go much deeper than the surface changes. Deep life changes require us to FIRST know ourselves, and to accept what is. It’s uncomfortable. It’s time consuming. Sometimes it’s even boring, with no quick ‘before-and-after’ photos. But it’s a true expression of love towards self.
I want to invite you – if you’ve gotten this far into the blog – to check out this emotion wheel. 
Take a step towards acknowledging the emotion you sense in your body and thought patterns right now. What is present, right now? Multiple emotions throughout an hour, or a day? Can you practice sitting in what is real, right now? Set aside grand, impressive change, and pursue a slow relational practice of getting to know yourself. Once you take the time to really understand yourself, and your current needs – you’ll dream big, beautiful, kind and deep things.