Humans are social animals.  While Introverts might debate this point with me, most people require some type of connection to another person.  You might enjoy being around large groups and being the center of attention.  Or you might be more comfortable with just one or two other people you know very well.  Whichever way you prefer, our spirits receive a special kind of nourishment from our social interactions with others.

While the most popular New Year’s Resolutions have to do with health, finances, or learning new skills, we can’t really ignore our emotional well-being.  Find more happiness.  Spend more time with my loved ones.  Do something for me every day.  Work to let go of my past.  Find a boyfriend/girlfriend.  These are all resolutions that care for the longings of the heart.

Emotional resolutions are also extremely hard to measure and quantify.  If your resolution is to be happier, how do you measure that?  If your resolution is about spending more time with your loved ones, does more time necessarily equate to better relationships?  When you do something for you every day, what did you mean by that — technically, taking a shower could count, but that’s not it, is it?  Letting go of your past is great, but how do you know you’ve succeeded?  And what about finding that elusive someone — that takes two, you know?

The key to success with emotional resolutions is focusing on process, not results.  To be happier, you must choose to be happier, not wait for it to happen to you.  To spend more time with loved ones, you must choose to make that space in your life so the relationships you want will grow.  If your focus is doing things to nurture yourself, you must make yourself an action list of things that renew and reenergize you, then you must take action to do those things.  To let go of the past, you must embrace the now and choose not to participate in those road trips into the What Was.  And there’s no way to find a lover if you aren’t willing to get out there, mingle, and put your heart out there to be loved.

In short, working on emotional goals is a contrary process.  Emotions proceed from our thoughts, both the sudden and the repetitive.  Emotions are passive, reactionary.  To change your emotional landscape, you must be active, aggressive, a doer.  This somewhat goes against the popular (and completely wrong, by the way) notion that happiness is something that happens to us. 

A positive emotional state is something we create.  We create it from within by changing our thought patterns and the actions that follow those thought patterns.  We create it for ourselves by nurturing and loving who we are, both our talents and gifts as well as those areas that are lacking.  We create it with others by sharing of ourselves and allowing others to share with us.  We create it in the world by living in a way that supports both “inner dependency” (self-generated well-being) as well as inter-dependency.

Good questions to ask yourself about your Social/Emotional state:  Do you put the responsibility for your joy onto others?  Do you do things for you that make you smile, make you feel alive, make you want to give your presence and gifts to others?  Do you have relationships in your life that nurture you and make you feel connected to something larger?  Do your relationships drain you, merely sustain you, or help you attain your best?  Do you greet each day passively as a person that life ”happens to” or actively as person that “makes life happen”?  Do you allow your past to vampiricly drain your days of color and beauty and wonder?  Or perhaps you stress over your future, saying you’ll be happy when you’re at your ideal weight, have a certain standard of living, or are successful in a certain career?

Chances are you do one of these things — if you don’t, then congratulations!  But if you’re human and can see yourself in one of these statements above, consider setting a goal that nurtures your heart and then do what it takes to create that new world of joy and good relationships for yourself.  There is nothing quite as powerful as a happy Witch — except a whole coven of them!

Photo by Kevin Eddy (via Flickr).