My first New Year Resolution
Receiving the Nine of cups as a clarification card to go with the Ace of Pentacles for the start of the year tarot reading got me thinking….
Look how satisfied he is by life!
Initially it seemed to be speaking directly to the feeling of Christmas, when we eat drink be merry and generally over indulge and have a good time. It’s the holidays! But at lunch on Christmas Day we started the inevitable conversation about New Year Resolutions. To get strong was first on the list, all of us of a certain age and conscious that being strong physically comes before any vanity about being ‘fit’.
The second came from me initially, quickly taken up by others, that we are tired of constantly feeling dissatisfied with where we are in life. We are constantly criticising ourselves for not achieving more. We wished we ended each day with a feeling of satisfaction, or pleasure being had, of feeling it was a day well spent. And were frustrated by the amount of days we ended feeling a bit disgruntled and completely missed enjoying most of experience. What a waste of a day, or a life, or years of slight dissatisfaction.
Admittedly this has been a theme of mine for a while hence it being so urgent to ‘correct’ for want of a better word in 2026.
Which is when I realised the power of the Nine of Pentacles. The card wasn’t just referring to being relaxed and happy over Christmas, to the slight aspect of ‘faking it to make it’….so many of us do over Christmas as not all of us have happy families and some of us don’t have families at all…and so faking merriment is essential to be part of the world on Christmas Day.
But what if the nine of cups is actually reminding us of the purpose of life?! To enjoy it! To have fun.
You just have to look at the tarot card to see how satisfied he looks with life, often referred to as the bon viveur, the energy of this card at its best is all about enjoying the pleasures of life and being happy. The song ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ is the nine of cups perfect tune. Lighten up and enjoy life is what the nine of cups is saying. I’m not going into the ‘negative’ right now, which talks of over indulgence and superficiality….now is the moment to look at the positive!
And there is no question when we are in a happy mood, we are naturally grateful, we feel naturally appreciative, we feel relaxed, we smile at strangers on the street. Our energy shifts and connects with happy vibrations. And happy vibrations, joy, radiance, delight, fun, laughing is what I am after, and when you stop to think, so easy to feel, when we stop doing the opposite (moaning about life and our own shortcomings!)
I’m not saying relax, be lazy, because adopting this attitude is going to take conscious work. I’m going to have to journal gratitude at the end of the day, and at the beginning, I’m going to have to make sure I walk in the park and say hi to the trees, and notice the colour of the sky. I’m going to have to notice when I am rushing to slow down and breathe and relax. The list goes on. This is my new year’s resolution. What is yours?
Appreciating my life and life in general has got to be no 1 choice!