Starting Over, Resolutions and Know Thyself
January 7, 2023
Hi Friends,
Happy new year! I hope you had a wonderful holiday season. 2023 was our first post-pandemic new year celebration, and this year indeed feels like a fresh start. Did you make resolutions or goals? What are your intentions with this year? I'd love to know.
As I write this, Maya Angelou's poem 'Still I Rise' is singing in my mind. Through a pandemic, loss, births, career changes ... still we rise. With hope, faith, courage and enthusiasm, we rise. I also remember a saying from my great-grandmother relayed to me by my uncle. She used to remind the younger generation to look at their hands and the work they do, and also appreciate that you can wash these hands clean of the past and use them to build a future. You can always wash them and begin again.
The power of each moment and day is that we start again, again and again. There is great virtue in a clean slate. It is the origin point from which the infinite is possible. Where dreams aren’t held back by limiting notions. It is a place where what is or what has been cannot get in the way of what can be. To exist is to partake in the grand process of creation, everyday, every moment at an either subconscious or conscious level. We are the creators, destroyers and preservers.
What our outcome is depends highly on whether we are creating subconsciously or consciously. Previously I've made lists, vision boards and plans, but wasn't aware of the dreamer behind the curtain. In 2022 I learnt that (after we fulfill Maslow's hierarchy of base needs) we don’t get what we want in life, we get what we believe to be true for ourselves. This year, I’m resolving to understand and work on what I believe to be true for myself. I’m resolving to examine the creator behind the curtain. I'm certain I'll still have a treadmill of goals and plans, but I'm aiming to bring greater awareness to what I do and use every event as a growth opportunity.
What insights are you bringing with you this year? What are you letting go of?
Shivika
CEO & Founder, Veneka
Still I Rise
Maya Angelou performs her powerful poem
Follow Your Bliss
Joseph Campbell, the famed mythologist, discusses the idea of bliss, and how it can come to serve as a wellspring in one's life. "Follow your bliss, and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be."
Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs
"Maslow's hierarchy of needs is a motivational theory in psychology comprising a five-tier model of human needs"
'Know Thyself'
The Ancient Greek aphorism is the first of three inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi
About the author
Shivika Sinha is the CEO & Founder of Veneka. She's an award-winning social entrepreneur on a mission to transform business into a force for good. Visit Meet Our Founder & CEO to read her story.
Read more from Shivika:
"The Shared Experience of All Women"
"10 Days of Silence & Meditation: What I Learnt & Why I did Vipassana"