I don’t believe in New Year’s Resolutions: they
are a resolute way of making one feel bad about one’s self because they set us
up for failure. Picking one day to suddenly change something, usually negative,
in one’s life is like expecting to wave a magic wand to make a wish come true.
A true transformative change occurs when an intention is set and given enough
mental energy to bring a person’s behavioral patterns slowly up and over a new
horizon. It takes concentration, planning and a crescendo of
momentum to build.
My intentions for 2013 were to become more
mindful in my every moment, to stay completely conscious in the present, and to
nurture only authentic connections in my life. Why? Because I am going to turn
40 this year and let’s face it, with age we start to finally pay attention to
the fact of our mortality and we no longer want to waste time. There were a few
small things I could see that would help along my goal if they were erased from
my habits. One of them was accepting social invitations to parties where the
only thing occurring would be small talk and drinking and the other was to stop
drinking coffee every morning and switch over to the poignant ritual of tea.
For fifteen years, I have been a three-cup a day
girl and oh how I loved the smell of fresh roasting beans and the taste of a
cup sweetened with cream and sugar. Oh how addicted I was to instant jolt of
“hello world” a cup of java would bring. Oh how I would sail through the
morning getting work done a plenty only to crash around mid-afternoon into the
much-needed nap of coming off of my drug of caffeine. Oh how I realized that in
my new intent towards mindfulness I no longer wanted to ingest anything into my
body that caused it to operate on rote and then come down into a cloud of funk.
I wanted coffee to be placed back in a proper place of the occasional after
dinner party drink or a quick espresso in a smoky cafe while traveling,
relegated back into the land of a special treat.
So I did it. I packed up the espresso machine,
cleaned the French press for its new life as a steeper of tea, told the Cute
Gardener he could put the pot I use for sleep-overs away in deep storage,
ordered up a bunch of fresh leaves of Earl Grey, Yerba Mate, Chai, Morrocan
Mint, Vainlla Rooibos and Sleepy Time Chamomile from Teavana and started my new
life as a tea girl.
Everyone told me I would experience migraine
headaches from quitting the amount of caffeine I would consume, but strangely
enough because I meditated daily filling my head with white light and
visualization exercises to counteract the potential aches, I miraculously had
NARY A ONE.
What I have come to love deeply about tea is the
way you have to mindfully prepare a cup knowing that each one is different. The
way you treat each one especially for its own identifying properties whether it
be the length of time the water heats or boils to the amount of time it steeps.
The way some cups go better with warmed milk and the way others go better with
honey. The way you hold a hot cup in your hands and breathe in the
life-affirming scents of deep roots, herbs and leaves. The way your belly rises
to meet the stream of liquid diffusing anti-oxidants and other soul-essentials
into your berth.
My body and my mind are my temples and this is
the year I treat them as the powerful vessels they are with respect and a
disciplined ascent into their full powers. I think 40 is going to be my best
year yet …
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