Have you ever heard of the film The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension? It’s a 1984 movie starring Peter Weller, Ellen Barkin, Jeff Goldblum and Carl Lumbly — among others — about this band of dudes who try to save the world from interdimensional aliens. It’s quirky, weird, bizarre and existential with a hint of superhero to it. I love it.
At one point in the film, Peter Weller’s “Buckaroo” — who is not only a physicist, neurosurgeon, and pilot but a rock star — is onstage and to get his audience to stop harassing a sobbing Ellen Barkin sitting among them, he intones these words, “Hey, hey, hey, now. Don’t be mean. We don’t have to be mean, ‘cuz remember, no matter where you go, there you are.” My mind was blown by those 8 simple words: “No matter where you go, there you are.” Holy shit.
Over the years, I’ve changed it to “Wherever you go, there you are” for myself as I face each step on my personal journey. We go with ourselves everywhere, we are truly the only constant. Death, taxes, and pain may be unavoidable truths, but the body, mind, and soul that make up who we are simply react to them; they do not define us. How we live our lives, what steps we take, the way we eat, sleep, and even breathe are what make us “us.” As we come to the end of a year, the majority of us take a look back to reevaluate the choices we made just as we give ourselves something to think about looking forward to the next path in our journey.
The Sleep Club crew believes that remembering the fundamental truth of “Wherever you go, there you are,” is a bit like a superpower as you embrace the possibilities tomorrow holds. In our experience, these five steps infuse entering the new year with hope and promise: Give Into Your Vision/Dreams, Slow and Steady, Embrace the Hurdles, Give Yourself a Break, and above all, Love Yourself.
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
— George Eliot
Give Into Your Vision/Dreams
We all have them: dreams, visions, wishes for ourselves for the future. Too often, we set them aside to get things done in our life, to be responsible, to create stability. Dreams don’t have to be lofty or huge; they don’t have to include an exceptional stretch beyond our day-to-day. These are wishes our hearts make for our lives, the roads we believe will bring us joy and fulfillment.
As you look toward the new year, don’t think so much about what you have not done — that tends to shame us rather than empower us — but what you look forward to achieving, your goals. Grab one of them and make it your north star for the year. Creating a vision board is great for this, if that’s the kind of thing that helps you — tangibly putting together a visual manifestation of what you hope to see for yourself. These can be literal images on paper that you post on your wall or something you bring to life digitally that you can call on when you need.
Whatever you choose to do, give it thought, take your time with it, create it in a calming, supportive environment. Interact with it daily, even making it part of your routine, and let it inspire you to give into that goal you have set. Create as many as you want. Once you have attained your vision, your aspiration, take it down and make another for your next one. Don’t overwhelm yourself with too much at once because you may find you’re setting yourself up to not succeed. Just as making to do lists help you tangibly check things off, so does having an accessible and attainable vision board make you see how you are moving ahead in the new year, step by step. Which, of course, brings us to our next.
“Whatever you are doing, love yourself for doing it. Whatever you are feeling, love yourself for feeling it.”
— Thaddeus Golas
Slow and Steady
We have this tendency to make such giant resolutions for the new year, we’ll never attain them or we put so many “to dos” in front of us that we can’t possibly get them all done. This is where the New Year resolution gets us in trouble with ourselves. Beating ourselves up because of what we don’t get done when the calendar switches over is legendary and one of the reasons that idea of “resolution” is notoriously presented with the caveat of being an exercise in futility.
Just as pulling your dreams out and looking at them doesn’t have to be every single one at once or giant, world changing goals, pursuing any of them or shifting to a different outlook in the new year doesn’t have to happen all at once. That whole idea of “baby steps” and “slow and steady wins the race” is kind of life changing. Sure, you want it and you want it now. We live in a time when instant gratification is seen as the only way to truly be satisfied and to prove you’re accomplishing anything. BUT, resolutions are about creating a new behavior, or changing something you have been doing for a long time in a marked, sustainable way. Research tells us it takes two months — 66 days, actually — to create a new habit, which means it takes time. Sooo… give yourself the gift of that time, allow yourself to do what you are doing and give yourself props for doing it.
Keep going. You’ve got this. Really.
“In order to love who you are, you cannot hate the experiences that shaped you.”
—Andrea Dykstra
Embrace the Hurdles
Shit happens. It’s just how it is. Things come at us and we get derailed. We learn from our mistakes, from our mishaps, from our hurdles. After all, we all went to some sort of school, right? We learned how to read, write, walk, all that stuff. To become proficient, we sounded out the words we couldn’t figure out, erased and rewrote letters that didn’t fit together, fell on our ass and pulled ourselves up — you get the drift. You cannot learn to go ahead if you are never pushed back. It’s just not possible.
Adversity is our friend, difficulty is our teacher. They show us our challenges so that we discover what not to do or do more of in the future, research we need, experiences we go after, help we ask for, things like that. Understand, we’re not talking about experiencing hardcore trauma, by the way. Life-altering, tragic situations can devastate anyone and seeking professional help to overcome them is heavily encouraged. If that is something you or someone you love faced in 2022 then, please, find that ear and support you need to get to the other side.
Simple failure (if you will), however, is not a recipe for disaster. It is an opportunity and our ally in growing.
“Make peace with your broken pieces.”
— r. h. Sin
Give Yourself a Break
Okay, so you’ve created your vision board, started your 66 day journey to change your habit, accepted those times when something doesn’t go quite the way you hoped and picked yourself back up, and one day you look up, discover you’ve stumbled a bit on that path you’ve set for yourself and you get really mad at yourself. Maybe you call yourself a few names, throw something around your house, basically get on your back because you’re not living up to the standard you set for yourself on this new journey. It’s common, it’s normal, and you don’t deserve it.
No one beats us up better than we do. We know every single personal button to push more than anyone and we will definitely push them if given the chance. It’s why the term “New Year’s Resolution” is viewed with such massive disdain: the idea that we set goals for ourselves in the new year that we will never achieve has been perpetuated and joked about to such an extent, it’s a given that we’ll be irritated with ourselves and even beat ourselves up about it as if that’s okay.
We are all works in progress and as we move forward, we will stumble, fall, and get distracted. Humans are fragile beings, no matter how strong our resolve may be, and there will be times we have to just stop and take a deep breath and remember that. Take those moments from time to time to acknowledge you are taking those steps, these things take time, and you are actually giving yourself the gift of that time to do what matters to you. Allow yourself to feel good about the progress you have made and that this temporary setback is just that: temporary.
And guess what? Even if it isn’t, even if in the midst of all you decide, “Yep. I’m done for now. Gotta turn to something else,” that’s okay, too. Now may not be the time to do certain things, to make certain changes, to go after certain goals. If that’s the case, let it go and understand whatever comes to fruition does so in its own time.
“Love yourself first and everything else falls into line.”
— Lucille Ball
Love Yourself
This, well, is self-explanatory and possibly hardest of all for some. As you begin your journey in the new year, remember this is for you. Since you take yourself with you wherever you go, please enjoy this vessel that is your own. The more you truly care about yourself, the more it not only shows on the outside to others but positively colors everything else you do in your life.
The choices we make start with us and embracing ourselves, truly appreciating this person we are doing it for makes even the hardest path that much easier.
“You are not a drop in the ocean. You are the entire ocean in a drop.”
— Rumi
The poem “i carry your heart with me” by e.e. cummings starts, “i carry your heart with me, (i carry it in my heart)”. It is one of the most beautiful love poems ever written, in our humble opinion, and one we have shared before. Well, as you enter 2023, we share it here with you again in hopes you can embrace it as the ultimate reminder that “Wherever you go, there you are.”
Yes, the actual poem is about a love shared with someone outside yourself, but this year, today, right now, make it about you. You are miraculous and marvelous, you are all and you are everything. Not just this year, not just today, but always.
And so we end with this little poem about love carried wherever and forever. Let it guide your days ahead and remind you how much you mean to you.
Happy New Year.
