New Year’s Resolutions

From the Desk of Lynn Davis - Director, JCRC

“Thoughts become words, words become actions, actions become habits, habits become character, character becomes your destiny.”

- Attributed to Lao Tzu

Did you know that Jewish religious law recognizes four “new” years? You’re likely familiar with Rosh Hashanah, the first day of the month of Tishrei, also known as the head of the year: this “New Year for Years” marks the number of years since creation. But Jews also mark 1 Nisan (the new year for kings and festivals; 1 Elul (the new year for animals); and Tu b’Shevat (the new year for trees). Each represents a new beginning, a chance to start again.

We’ve turned the Gregorian calendar page this week, when January 1st provides yet another invitation to reflect, embrace change, and think about things that we’d like to do differently.

If you’re a person who makes New Year’s resolutions, you might be thinking of joining a gym, cutting back on sweets, or promising to call your mother more often. These are all great avenues to self-improvement, even if they don’t whittle away at the world’s vast problems.

Instead, what changes could we make this year in service of tikkun olam, or making the world a better place? What if we were to look for ways to embrace civility, strengthen our communication strategies, and resolve to find new tools that improve the ways in which we talk with one another?

How would we get there?

One approach is to center empathy in our interactions. Marshall B. Rosenberg, PhD, founder of the Center for Nonviolent Communication writes, “Empathy is a respectful understanding of what others are experiencing. Instead of offering empathy, we often have a strong urge to give advice or reassurance and to explain our own position or feeling. Empathy, however, calls upon us to empty our mind and listen to others with our whole being.”

Oh, that sounds hard. Not just doing it but keeping it up, day after day, interaction after interaction. But keeping a resolution involves building new habits. Change is a process, requiring mindfulness and intention to make it stick. Above all, it takes practice.

In his bestselling book, Atomic Habits, author James Clear outlines many of the ways in which we can break old habits to make room for new ones. One strategy involves nurturing “identity-based” habits: those that focus on who we want to be rather than what it is we want to do. By reframing “I want to stop feeling so angry all the time ” as “I want to be a person who responds from a place of empathy and compassion,” the voice in your head becomes asset-based. You’re no longer giving something up, you’re investing in your happiness and future well-being.

On January 7, Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center welcomes Dov Waxman, Rosalinde and Arthur Gilbert Foundation Professor of Israel Studies at UCLA, to talk about the intersection of antisemitism, anti-Zionism, and anti-Israel sentiment. His lecture is bound to stir up strong emotions and should give us all an opportunity to practice showing up with empathy. We’ve designed the event so that, following his presentation, members of the audience will be invited to join smaller groups to explore both their reactions and others’ viewpoints on this topic. These conversations will be facilitated by table captains who have been coached in these and other communication strategies.

This year, as we grow older and (hopefully) wiser, we will likely meet new people and gain many new experiences. But some things will still remain “old” and stuck: they won’t change, at least not right away. Many of the hurdles that we currently face, both personally and communally, are stickier, and require effort on our part to navigate. At Tucson Jewish Museum & Holocaust Center, we resolve to meet these challenges with a generous spirit and an open mind, as we explore new ways to communicate with one another.

To learn more about James Clear’s work around changing habits, visit https://jamesclear.com/one-sentence-habits.

Sincerely,
Lynn Davis
Director, Jewish Community Relations Council for Tucson & Southern Arizona