ROHAN GUNATILLAKE: 2024 is going to be a lot of new for me and my family. After a few years of false starts, we’re finally moving into a new house — which with any luck, will be the one our children spend the majority of their childhood in. There’ll be new bedrooms, new couches to buy, new neighbors to get to know, and a new garden, where I can make a reality of the endless vegetable growing YouTube videos I’ve been recently watching. 

Like I said, a whole load of new. And it’s super exciting. But, as we roll into the new year, what doesn’t excite me so much is all the inevitable talk of new year’s resolutions. If you’ve heard me speak on the topic before, you’ll know I’m a bit over new year’s resolutions.

I know it makes sense for some people. Using the convention of the calendar to set a big intention for the year ahead. But it’s the downside that always turns me off. The self-judgment, the ‘I knew I could never do it’-ness of it all.

Besides, resolutions often find us looking backwards. Thinking of how we’ve gone wrong and how we could have done better. This year, I’m more interested in exploring the “New” bit.  New is interesting. New is inviting. New is energizing. New brings insight.

So, in this, our New Year’s meditation together, we’re going to orient ourselves to the new. It’s an ideal refresh for crossing this threshold at the end of the calendar, and also one you can revisit throughout the year. When we’re tired and feeling stuck in a rut of repetition, noticing the new, knowing that it can be just what we need to reset. And what we’re going to do is use different dimensions of experience, different sensations, to recognize the new. We’ll learn to really know it. 

The breath is a classic place to start, so why not.

It’s a common instruction in mindfulness to become aware of the breath.

But what’s different today, is that I’d like you to prioritize the newness of the breath.

Making the moment when a new breath starts, the most important thing to pay attention to.

Making how we know the newness of each breath the most important thing in the world.

For me, right now, I know the new breath as a kind of birth. There is a pregnant pause at the end of the outbreath, which leads to a kind of tension, an anticipation, and then woah, that tension is relieved by the arrival of the new breath.

I’m getting into it. Really noticing it. Feeling refreshed already.

See how into the appearance of the new breath you can get.

Letting everything go, apart from the sensations, of how you know this new breath, how you know the start of each new cycle.

Now, I love meditations based on hearing.

I once spent two years only doing sound-based techniques. That’s how much I was getting out of them. 

And one of the great things about using sounds as the objects of our awareness, is that we can’t really get all grabby about them. We have to receive them. And, when we are receiving sounds, our minds are by default, receptive. They’re open.

And again, we’re going to focus on the new.

With our mind and our awareness relaxed.

Every time a new sound appears, AH!, we turn to it.

Then, when another sound is received, AH!, we turn to that.

As we do this, we’re not making a big deal of what the sound is, or whatever story we might have about it. Instead, we’re catching newness. 

Whether near or far, no matter. As long as it’s new.

Do join me.

How about we do the same to sensations?

Physical sensations.

Noticing when a new one pops up in our consciousness.

Not concerned with where it is in the body.

Not concerned with whether it’s pleasant or unpleasant.

Just that it’s new.

If it helps, and in my experience it does, when you notice a new sensation, you can say the word “New” to yourself, quietly or just internally to yourself.

New.

New.

New.

Now, to thoughts.

Again, noting new thoughts as they arise, like popcorn in the mind.

New.

New.

New.

Not a thought about this or that.

Not a plan.

Not a worry.

Just a new.

Browse your social feed or website of choice for too long at this time of the year, and you’ll undoubtedly see the phrase ‘new year, new you,’ pop up.

Part of the whole ‘new year new you’ narrative is a rejection of part of ourselves. Hey, ditch that part of you that you don’t like — or more accurately, parts of yourself that the dominant cultural and social norms have made you not like. Reinvent yourself, at a cost.

Again, I get it. But it doesn’t mean I have to love it.

So here is my alternative invitation.

Don’t reinvent yourself. Love yourself.

And love the new. They’re not mutually exclusive.

In today’s meditation, all we’ve done is start to orient to the new.

In doing so, we’re not rejecting the old or the existing.

By turning to the new, we’re embracing the newness that exists throughout the fabric of the universe around us and the universe within us. We’re giving it the chance to open us up, to refresh us, to shake an internal cobweb or two. 

The existence of that new means that change exists. And if change exists, then growth exists. And if growth exists then that-which-does-not-yet-exist, can exist. In the future, there is so much room for possibility. For love. For new.

So happy new year to you and yours from all of us here at Meditative Story.

Thank you for being part of our year just gone. And we’re excited to be part of your year ahead.

And for you to be part of ours.

Be well.