New Year’s Resolutions  (NYR) are spilling forth from the lips of all and sundry as 2016 proceeds on its merry path.

I personally don’t do NYR . My last one was several years ago. For some reason, I had the foolish notion I should stop uttering the F Bomb so much. HA HA HA! Took me about three days to say, “Eff this!!!”, flip it the bird, and go on.

So what is prompting me to write about NYR? I was in the weirdest ass mood yesterday–don’t ask!! was odious!!–when I pondered all the changes I had made and sustained over the years. Given I used to be a wild partying fool, and now only consume tiny amounts of vodka a couple times a month, this is amazing. I quit smoking. I dropped 30 pounds of blubber and have kept it off. All the usual fodder of which NYR are constructed–been there and done that. It occurred to me as I plunged the depths of my most morbid, sad thoughts that the best change I have ever, EVER, maintained is to simply give myself permission to feel my emotions. No judging them, no pissing and moaning that they are “stupid”, just plain old notice and feel the buggers. When I do that, they are released. When my emotions are felt, honored and released, I do a lot less of the following:

stress eat**** lie awake at night wondering what in the bollocks is going to help me return to Sleepy Town****complain****suffer atrocious headaches****be a Crabby Appleton bitchface

I typically become a weepy, grief laden sod at holiday time. I miss my Daddy. I miss my grandpas and grandmas, aunts and uncles, dogs, cats, you name them–if they are no longer on this earth plain, then I miss them. Terribly. Heart chakra feels all crunched up, chewed up and spit back out. Ugh. Where is another box of Kleenex???

As I bawled and bawled, about things such as the possibility of my husband dying before me (dude is perfectly healthy, but this had me ALL up in arms), my dog who left her body back in February 2014, etc, so on, and so on, I was grateful to not blow myself any turds about what I was feeling. No labeling it. Just lying like a sack of wet noodles in my messed up bed, clutching Daisy dog’s ashes as if my life depended on it, and wailing into a pillow. After all that, guess who woke up on the bright side of life today, ready to zumba and get to work? Me. I just let it all hang out, and now I am happier.

I urge you to try this because truly, all the other behaviors you want to change, will transform so much easier when the emotional energy behind them is tapped into and released.

Happy releasing!