This entry was posted on Dec 31, 2025 by Charlotte Bell.
It’s that point once more—time to set our intentions for the brand new 12 months. Some 30 to 40 % of People make resolutions annually. Judging by the ebb and movement of yoga class attendance, that appears about proper. I all the time anticipate an inflow on the first of the 12 months. This normally ranges out because the months move, however yoga resolutions are definitely a factor.
New 12 months’s Resolutions Have a Historical past
In line with a narrative on NPR’s web site, New 12 months’s resolutions might have originated way back to yoga itself. Right here’s an excerpt:
“One of many first appearances of the phrase “new 12 months resolutions” was in a Boston newspaper in 1813, in response to Merriam-Webster:
“And but, I imagine there are multitudes of individuals, accustomed to obtain injunctions of latest 12 months resolutions, who will sin all of the month of December, with a critical dedication of starting the brand new 12 months with new resolutions and new behaviour, and with the complete perception that they shall thus expiate and wipe away all their former faults — Unknown, 1813
“However diary entries present that folks had been training the idea effectively earlier than then — like English author Anne Halkett, who wrote a listing of Bible-inspired pledges on Jan. 2, 1671, titled “Resolutions.”
“Historians hint the phenomenon even farther again: to 2000 B.C., when Babylonians celebrated the brand new 12 months with a 12-day springtime competition referred to as Akitu. They marked the arrival of the farming season by crowning a brand new king, thanking deities for a bountiful harvest and, in response to The Outdated Farmer’s Almanac, resolving to return neighbors’ borrowed agricultural gear.”
Why Resolutions Are Generally Difficult to Preserve
Maybe we keep away from making yoga resolutions as a result of we’re too busy and preoccupied to ponder our objectives. Or possibly it’s as a result of we’ve realized that these resolutions are fairly arduous to maintain after the preliminary bloom has worn off. The identical ballot says that whereas roughly 30 % of People make resolutions, solely half of these declare to maintain them. Not nice odds.
Nonetheless, the brand new 12 months looks like an acceptable time to evaluate the place you’ve been and the way you’d prefer to steer your life. I feel the trick is to make resolutions that you’ve an opportunity of conserving. You’ll have a greater probability of conserving your resolutions in the event you first determine how one can match them into your life. Preserve it easy. Begin with one, the one that almost all evokes you. See the place that goes earlier than you try any extra. Working towards one heartfelt decision is really rather a lot!
I like to consider yoga apply—together with meditation—as my time to verify in and apply who I wish to be in the remainder of my life. It’s the time once I give myself permission not solely to replenish my energies, however to see the place my physique and thoughts are in integrity and the place they don’t seem to be. Listed here are just a few of the intentions I’ve practiced with for years which have remodeled my life on many ranges:
4 Yoga Resolutions to Nourish Your Apply
Cease Judging Your Apply
I’m not saying this will probably be simple. I feel the best problem in Western yoga apply is to recover from the deeply ingrained concept that asana apply is about reaching “excellent” or fancy poses. Even when our intellects understand it’s not about competitors, the roots of evaluating bore deep into our beings. Usually we don’t have a clue that we’re competing and evaluating; it simply occurs robotically. Right here’s the factor: our our bodies are genetically distinctive. As soon as we make our entrances into the world, the numerous inputs we expertise each second contribute to shaping who we’re. How will you probably examine your apply to anybody else’s? Please give your self a break. That is real-world ahimsa apply. It begins with you.
Resolve to Respect Your Physique
Asana shouldn’t be about conquering your physique or forcing it into fancy poses it’s not designed to do. And even when you may make your physique can carry out Eka Pada Rajakapotasana or a number of the different fancy poses, you would possibly discover as time passes that it wasn’t such an incredible thought. Simply because you are able to do one thing doesn’t imply you must. Right here’s one other real-life ahimsa apply: Consider your apply as a partnership together with your physique, one thing that thoughts and physique discover collectively in friendship.
Meet Your Physique The place it’s Every Day
Take a second at the start of every apply to sit down, stand or lie down and verify in. What’s the character of your vitality? Is it fast, sluggish, heavy, gentle, agitated, calm, sizzling, chilly or one thing else? Twenty-some years in the past I had the privilege of learning for about six months with Richard Freeman, a instructor I respect implicitly. However I discovered that if I used to be trustworthy with myself, and respectful of my physique, I simply couldn’t do Ashtanga apply day-after-day. In actual fact, most days my physique craved one thing slower, quieter, much less agitating. If I felt sluggish or heavy, I’d do Ashtanga to lift my vata a bit. If I felt agitated already, Ashtanga would solely worsen it. So I realized to satisfy my physique, and accomplice with it so that every day’s apply produced sattvic outcomes. If you apply this fashion, you might be additionally training satya.
Keep in mind the Surprise
Acknowledge that each apply, each pose, each second is a brand new second. Irrespective of what number of occasions you’ve carried out canine pose, at the moment is the primary time you’ve carried out this specific canine pose on this second. It’s going to by no means be the identical as that killer one you probably did two weeks in the past. That one is gone. This one, right here on this second, is admittedly the one one which exists. Wishing for the previous or hoping for a “higher” pose someplace sooner or later solely serves to obscure the expertise of the pose you’re in. We miss a complete lot of on a regular basis magic after we suppose that the place we’re shouldn’t be adequate.
These are just some of the intentions I’ve set for apply which have reaped the richest rewards for me, not solely in my asana apply however in the remainder of my life. If one in all these resolutions resonates for you, take it and run with it. If not, take into consideration what yoga resolutions you would possibly wish to make.
What are your resolutions for yoga apply this 12 months?
About Charlotte Bell
Charlotte Bell found yoga in 1982 and commenced educating in 1986. Charlotte is the writer of Aware Yoga, Aware Life: A Information for On a regular basis Apply and Yoga for Meditators, each printed by Rodmell Press. Her third ebook is titled Hip-Wholesome Asana: The Yoga Practitioner’s Information to Defending the Hips and Avoiding SI Joint Ache (Shambhala Publications). She writes a month-to-month column for CATALYST Journal and serves as editor for Yoga U On-line. Charlotte is a founding board member for GreenTREE Yoga, a non-profit that brings yoga to underserved populations. A lifelong musician, Charlotte performs oboe and English horn within the Salt Lake Symphony and people sextet Purple Rock Rondo, whose DVD received two Emmy awards.
