Small victories — a celebration of the past year, by Rohan Gunatillake

Meditative Story

WaitWhat

Mental Health, Society & Culture, Mindfulness, Spirituality, Meditation, Religion & Spirituality, Personal Stories, Health & Fitness, Storytelling, Society And Culture

4.6 • 3.1K Ratings

🗓️ 29 December 2022

⏱️ 12 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What would it be like to turn your New Year’s resolutions on their head, by resolving to focus our attention in an entirely different way? That’s what Rohan is proposing with this holiday meditation designed to zoom in on the small wins from the year just past. Orienting ourselves toward small victories — whether it's making time to be with those we love, trying something entirely out of our comfort zone, or taking one small step toward a dream we’ve held dear — can help reveal the richness of life as it unfolds, and how full our cups often are. Sourcing from all the ways in which we worked hard, were more than enough, and witnessed the same in others, let’s bring that foundation into a brand new year of possibility and peace.

Each episode of Meditative Story combines the emotional pull of first-person storytelling with immersive music and gentle mindfulness prompts. Read the transcript for this story at: www.meditativestory.com

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Transcript

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0:00.0	I moved to Scotland from London the best part of 12 years ago. This is where I write my
0:16.7	meditations for you every week. It's a land of wild countryside, dramatic hills, epic
0:23.8	coastlines, rather bleak mawes and some pretty great whiskey. There's an endlessly creative
0:31.5	maker spirit here and one of the things I've really loved about my adopted home is its traditions.
0:38.0	Scotland has a really strong sense of itself and a big part of that is how it celebrates and
0:43.4	expresses its traditions and when I think about Scottish traditions I think of the new year
0:49.2	or Hogmanet as it's known over here. But for all of Scotland's local traditions with such fabulous
0:56.6	names as First Fritting, Up Healyar and the Looney Duke, the tradition that is most common across the
1:05.3	world is the New Year's resolution. You know the drill, set a rather big goal based on what you
1:12.3	want to change in yourself. Start fairly well in the first couple of weeks and fall flat
1:18.2	to come February. A company that are power and failure with a good serving of self-criticism.
1:25.1	I Caramba. The thing is this is an entirely sensible time to do something like that.
1:31.3	There's the turning of the calendar from one number to the next. The resetting of the seasons.
1:37.6	There's the lengthening of the days depending on where you are in the world.
1:42.6	There are of course alternatives to New Year's resolutions. One of my favourites is the
1:47.1	practice of writing down and burning memories of a difficult year just gone. But today I want to
1:53.8	invite you to try something different. I have to confess I'm a bit over New Year's resolutions,
1:59.7	so it made me wonder what an anti-new year's resolution might be and what an anti-new year's
2:06.0	resolution meditation for you might be like. There's also something transformative in looking backward
2:13.0	rather than looking forward. There's power in not focusing on what you want to happen in your life
2:19.6	and instead noticing what has happened already. I think there's also something about the small
2:27.1	stuff not a fixation on the big. So I'm calling our special New Year's meditation practice
	...

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