We all set New Years resolutions—- but are our resolutions aligned with our true intentions? Do you really want more or maybe this is the year of less? Let’s dive into holding what is true for you in 2019.
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Episode 151 – What’s REALLY Your New Year’s Resolution? With Sahara Rose
By Sahara Rose
Namaste. It’s Sahara Rose and welcome back to the “Highest Self” podcast. A place where we discuss what makes you your soul’s highest evolvement. Want more video content from me? Well head over to my YouTube channel to check out my new show, “Ask Sahara,” where I will be answering your questions each week related to all things spirituality, entrepreneurship, Ayurveda, wellness, self-care, relationships, and everything in between.
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So New Year’s is right around the corner, and naturally we are all fixated on what those new year’s resolutions are going to be. I just posted on my Instagram Story—if you’re not following me there, follow me @iamsahararose. I posted asking you guys what 2019 is about. 2019 is the year of—and I had you fill in the blanks. And I had beautiful responses, it’s the year of abundance, success, getting that dream body of yours, putting yourself first, standing up for yourself, all of these beautiful things.
However, what it’s really got me thinking is this quest to constantly have more, and when that quest will ever be complete. So clearly, I’m someone who is all about abundance, all about success, all about all of these things. But what I’m really feeling for 2019 is less. 2019 is the year of less. Less taking on responsibilities, taking on projects, taking on things that I think I’m supposed to do because that looks like what the next level of success is supposed to be. But really, is it what I want to be doing?
And I think it’s so easy for us on any journey whether it is corporate, or entrepreneurial, or spiritual, or fitness oriented, health oriented, relationship oriented, anything in between that when you start to get success in that thing you want more, and more, and more. What’s the next step? What’s the next course I’m going to sign up for? What’s the next pound I’m going to lift? What’s the next income bracket I’m going to hit?
And really, what you wanted was to get to a comfortable enough space that you feel whole in that division of your life. But sometimes the energy required to get to that next level is actually not where your energy is best spent.
So let’s give an example. So let’s say you are someone who’s doing a lot of one-on-one coaching with people. So for you, the next step that other people would advise you is to go into group coaching. It just makes sense instead of talking to one person you could talk to multiple people, you’ll be able to charge more, and it’s going to help you grow. But maybe you’re not the person who’s supposed to do group coaching. Maybe that doesn’t actually fill you up. Maybe you really love to connect to people on that one-on-one level. You have that kapha energy, that earthy energy, grounded, personal, relatable. You want to be sitting in a chair in front of someone feeling their energy, reading their body language. Like that is actually how you feel alive.
But if you listened to the next logical step it would say that you should do group coaching, and in fact that group coaching should be online, and you should record it all, and have it all automated, and this is actually what success looks like. Don’t you see right here? So you start doing those things and you find yourself in a business that you have webinars running, automated programs running, but maybe that’s not what you really wanted. Maybe what you really wanted was just to connect to people. And that one thing that really made you feel alive you’ve just taken away from yourself. So it’s all too easy in today’s world to look at the guidebook of success and just follow that path instead of asking yourself what does success look like to me?
So this year what I really urge you to do is just to ask yourself what would this year ideally look like? How would I spend my days differently than I am right now? What relationships would I bring into my life and how are they different from those that I have right now? How am I connecting with my body and moving it differently than I am now? How am I eating and nourishing myself in a different way than I am right now?
And you can go on to ask yourself about this in everything. How are my finances different than they are right now? How is my home different than it is right now? How is my self-care practice different than it is right now? And I think it’s important to ask different from now. Because it’s so easy to say, “Well, I’m going to be exercising five times a week, and I’m going to feel amazing, and I’m going to do all the self-care.” But really when you have a point of frame, which is what you’re already doing, you’ll be able to see, “Okay, well if I haven’t gone to the gym once this year, then maybe if I just started going two times a week that would be an amazing success. Or maybe I don’t even really want to go to the gym. Maybe I want to move in a dance class or do something else and really hone in what is that thing you would be doing differently.”
And also, you guys are evolved conscious beings. A lot of the things you’re already doing damn right. Sometimes we’re like, “Okay, the next level of success or health must look like this,” but really, maybe you’re good where you are right now. That does not mean that you’re not going to grow anymore, but it means that, you know, maybe you’re eating the right diet that serves you. Maybe this job is exactly where you want to be. Maybe your relationship doesn’t need a change, maybe you just need to spend more time together. I think it’s so easy for us to assume that everything is broken that we try to fix everything but really don’t realize that so many of the things are already beautiful as they are.
And maybe the thing that would really fill you up is to just do less. Because money is something that you can keep getting more of. I mean I’ve seen this year of my life like rapidly change my financial reality into something I never knew was possible for me. And that was a major goal I had for 2018. And now that I have it and now that I’m comfortable, really what I’m seeing is time is the ultimate currency. Because time is not something that I can, you know, mine bitcoins of. Time is really how we spend the precious moments of our lives. And we often let go of the things that matter to us, we exchange our time for something that may have not actually filled us up.
So how do you want to spend your time? Do you want to go to the park more often, the beach? Do you want to see friends,do you want to have real soul connections? Then how are you going to spend your time? Now time and money for sure have a relationship. If you are trading your time for dollars you are never going to have that true level of abundance where you can leave your work for a week, a month, even a year, and say, “I’m just going to do what fills me up.” That is something that creating the systems around it works. But it doesn’t mean you systemize your life so much that you have all this time that you just end up filling up with other things.
And I see this happen with a lot of people, they create systems, they create systems, and that time that they get they’re actually just spending, doing something else. So that’s why I think it’s really important to decide what you want your time for. You want more time to do what? To see art galleries, to water your plants, to spend time with your animal, to read books, like what do you want more time for?
And realizing that we actually do have way more time, hidden stashes of time in our mattresses that we essentially just ignore on a daily basis. You know, even if you have a 9:00 to 5:00, what are you doing after 5:00? Do you get in your car and you use that hour commute as dead time to like listen to the radio and hear some advertisements, and blah blah blah? Or do you use it to listen to a podcast, listen to an audiobook, learn a new language, meditate, do pranayama. Call someone who you really want to talk to, like even that period where you’re like, “Ugh, I’m on my commute,” that is time gifted to you right there.
So when we start to realize that our time is so precious and we have so much more of it than we were able to ever imagine before we start to realize what do I want to fill my time up with? What are the things that would really create value for me? And a really good place to start if you have no idea is go on Groupon. When I’m like I feel like I need something new in my life, I go on Groupon, and I’m like, “Oh, there’s a painting class, there’s a bead class, there’s a sculpture class,” and it just opens my mind to these things existing.
And sometimes I sign up for them and I love them, and sometimes I sign up for them and I’m like, “That was cool, but it wasn’t really my thing.” But when I go to those places I realize like, “Wow, there are people who come every day after work and watercolor, or create pottery, and do these things,” and who am I to assume that work is going to take up your whole life? And if you’re not working you’re recovering from work, just like vegged out on the couch. When there are other people who are going straight to that pottery or that paint studio, and filling up that time with something, that creates value in their lives.
So for 2019 instead of assuming that everything is broken, you need to fix everything, and then ending up my February going back on all of the resolutions that you set, focus on the time that you have, the things that you can fill that up with. And then the second step is how can you create more time and space? How can you set a system up, or automate something, or do something in bulk so you won’t have to continually be doing it every day?
And there are ways to do this in every career, in every role. Whether you’re a mom, whether you’re entrepreneur, a teacher, a nurse, there are systems you can set up for anything. And this is something you can learn about, I mean there’s so many different modalities of it, I can do podcasts on it too. But just doing things like for example, if you’re spending all of your time on your emails, why don’t you have an auto responder that basically says,” Here are the things that you may be looking for and this is where to go get it.” Or if you are constantly repeating a task, can you outsource that to someone? Or if something keeps coming up, can you create a solution around it so it’s not a continual problem that you have to constantly face?
So when you really think clearly on any sort of issue that keeps showing up for you that’s taking up your time and say, “Okay, what is one way that I could take this off my plate? And where am I going to use this time instead?” And you can use that time on continuing to build your business, but it has to be from a place of integrity, not that being the next logical step. Do you really want to take your business online? Do you really want to do group classes? Do you really want to, you know, become the manager of your company when actually really what you love is to be talking to people on the floor, and that takes self-awareness. And self-awareness takes time and space, and that is why time and space is the ultimate currency because from that time and space you can cultivate the self-awareness so you can use the remaining time you have more efficiently.
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Well it turns out Vahdam is one of the only tea companies that procures directly from plantations and tea-growers within hours of harvest while most companies spend months in that transition time. They package garden-fresh in India and ship it all around the world. They’ve eliminated the middle man so you’re getting the freshest quality tea straight from the farmer. They’re fair trade, pesticide-free, and pay the farmers a higher wage for their produce. They also educate the tea-growers’ children, which is really special to me.
So you can try them out, definitely get their chai sampler, so freaking good, by heading over to vahdamteas.com. V-A-H-D-A-M teas, T-E-A-S.com.Again, vahdamteas, V-A-H-D-A-M T-E-A.com and using coupon code “sahara” for 20% off. Oprah just listed it as one of her favorite things so I take Oprah’s word for it.
And time and space does not necessarily mean that you’re just sitting in a seated meditation, it just means that you have some air room to like think and breathe so your days are not so crowded up with one task to a next that you don’t even have the mental capacity to invite new thoughts in your mind. It’s so saturated that any spare second you have you’re like, “Oh, let me just get to the next thing.” I’m someone that does this to myself all the time. I think most entrepreneurial people do.
But then you get on that pitta cycle, that pitta hamster wheel, and you’re going, going, going, going, going, you’re getting successful at it, but you’re losing the true purpose of why. So when you can get off that hamster wheel, and you can look at things more clearly, and you could ask yourself what is the goal that I really want that serves my highest evolution? That kapha space is where the vata, the idea, comes through. It’s never when you’re saying, “Go, go, go, what am I going to do next? Let me think of the next solution. What am I gonna write for my book about? Blah blah blah blah blah.” That’s never when the download comes through. It’s when you take a walk, it’s when you take a bath, it’s when you do something totally unrelated. It’s gifted to you, it’s effortless. It’s like here it is, this is exactly what you need to be spending your time on. But that idea can only come through with space.
So this holiday season I urge you to just take time for yourself. I know that it can feel like a requirement to spend every waking time with your family, and watching Christmas movies with them, and doing this, and doing that. And take a clear look at is this actual valuable time that we’re spending together? Or is this time that we’re just spending time sitting around each other but not really connecting? From my experience at a lot of my family gatherings at least, a lot of that time is not valuable connecting. It’s just sitting next to each other, but you’re both focused on the TV.
So there’s no real reason for you to be there for that. In fact, there’s no real reason for them to be there for that. Most of the time it’s just there because we don’t know what else to do. We haven’t been trained on how to have meaningful conversations with people. So we turn on the TV, and let that roll, then have a conversation over the TV. “Oh my go, I can’t believe Trump, I can’t believe ABC this show,” but that’s not a valuable connection.
So I would offer to your family, like, “Hey, like, let’s play this game that we ask each other something that we’ve never asked each other before.” Or, “Let’s all go around in a circle and answer this question: if you had a magic wand to change anything, you would change…” and you could all answer that question. Or, “Let’s all tell each other a story that we haven’t shared in years.” Or “Tell me one funny thing that happened to you this month.” Just something that allows you to connect on just a deeper level than you normally are and you’re just like, “Oh, how’s work? How’s school? How are the kids? How’s mom?” just something to get to that deeper level of connection.
And if they are resistant to it and they’re saying, “No, what’s all this hippie shit? I don’t want to do that.” That’s fine, but you don’t have to dumb yourself down just to be around them. You can excuse yourself, you can say, “Look, I really don’t want to watch TV, so I’m actually gonna go write in my room right now or outside. I’m gonna take a walk, I’m gonna go help mom with the food, or whatever it is, and let me know when you guys are done watching TV.” Just to also set the record for them that watching TV is not a way to spend time with your family.
And this could be a whole other podcast episode, but sometimes when you rapidly shift and transform, your family has not, and that can create some dissonance of, you know, being on one vibration and them being on another, and then there can be judgments both ways, they can think that you are now arrogant, and think you’re too cool, and think you’re entitled. And you may think that they’re boring and want nothing to do with them. And this is just a natural thing that happens, and we can do another podcast about how to get to the root of that.
But don’t make yourself go down to their vibration just so you don’t feel guilty about evolving. Because the fact that you don’t want to sit around and watch TV is a really great and beautiful thing. And you refusing to do that, you saying, “My time is valuable and I don’t want to fill it up with bullshit,” is actually planting the seed for them to do the same. Even if they will never tell you, even if that seed may take months to finally germinate. But you respecting yourself and respecting your time is inspiring other people to do the same.
So this holiday season, instead of spending that time as just dead, solid waste, use that time to create the time and space to take a walk, to do something with your hands, to shake up your routine a little bit, to journal, and to really ask yourself what you want from this year. When I did that, I realized what I really want is fun. Like I’ve never made fun a priority, it’s always been like my work, or my spirituality, or my health, or all of these things which are great, but it’s never really just been to have fun. That’s always been something that’s just like, “Oh I assume that’s just going to happen along the way.” But fun, like anything else, if you don’t make it a priority it’s not going to happen. And fun is one of my core values, it’s really one of the reasons why we’re here. I mean kids, all they want is to have fun, to have fun, and then suddenly we teach them that fun is not worthy, being studious is worthy, being disciplined is worthy, so they stop valuing fun.
So really when I looked at my 2019, at first I was like, “Oh, I’m going to create this program ,and do this, and I have this income goal.” And I still want to create things, but I also really want to have fun, and I also want to help other people have fun. Because I think in this world we have a lot of real serious spiritual teachers, real serious business mentors, real serious Ayurveda people, health people. And it’s heavy, it’s not making any of us feel more alive. You know, I go to these conferences that I speak and people are just sitting the whole day, they’re sitting for like eight hours, one speaker after the next, after the next, and your head is spinning. I don’t even think people are taking in the words at that point because it’s just a volume, and really you’re not able to hear anything when your body is not in the right state.
So what I really want for 2019 is to create experiences for people to receive inspiration through the spirit, through the mind, but also be moving the body, helping the three work in tandem while having fun. So I’ll keep you posted on what that looks like that. I have some ideas up my sleeves, but that idea wouldn’t have come to me if I hadn’t really asked myself how do I want to spend my time, and I want to spend my time dancing, I want to spend my time with music, I want to spend my time with art. Like that’s actually what I want. I don’t want to be in the fucking White House or on some high horse with a bunch of money having no fun. Like I want to be on the streets, I want to be dancing, I want to be part of the tribe, like that’s really what makes me feel alive. And that may not look like the next logical step, but we don’t have to follow that.
So Steven, my fiancé, got me some turntables for my birthday, and I’m every excited, I’m going to be learning how to DJ. I’m going to be putting together music, conscious music, cool playlists for you guys with reggaeton, and tribal music, and dance hall, and ‘90s music, and hip hop, and all my favorite things. Like that’s what I want to create, I want to create more fun, more laughter, more high vibrations on this planet. Because there’s a lot of great things to do, but I don’t think that anything triumphs that feeling of bliss, of not knowing but feeling.
I think in this society we’ve gotten so, so, so heady, it’s all this information, and we’re losing touch that we are bodies, we are souls, we are the rhythm, we are the beat, we are the dance, we are the breath. And when we can get back in touch with the soma, the physical, we get back in touch with the pulse of the earth and the connection that we have to source.
So I’d love for you to, after this podcast, don’t listen to another podcast, don’t hit next, just take a few moments to just ask yourself what do you really want 2019 to look like? What is your core value? What will really make you feel alive? If 2019 was the last year that you had, what would you want to create in it? And abundance can totally be a part of it, health totally, spirituality, yes. All these things are also great, but don’t lose sight of the feeling that you want to have through that. You want to be abundant, so what, so you can feel free, so you can travel, so you can be expansive, so you can take care of your family, so you can do these incredible things. But don’t lose sight of the emotion. Don’t make it a goal that you put on a spreadsheet and you feel no connection to. Because guess what? Then it’s never going to happen. But if you can feel your goal as if you are living your goal then you become the goal, and there is no separation between the two. So that’s what we need, to feel, to embody, to remember.
So let me know, comment on the iTunes store, say, “Hey, I listen to this podcast and this is what I want to feel for 2019,” and I’ll share some of them right here on the next episode. So thank you for so much for tuning and have a wonderful transition to 2019. Namaste.
Episode 151 – What’s REALLY Your New Year’s Resolution? With Sahara Rose