We tell ourselves that we want a new life; in our minds we see ourselves reclaiming our right to live without limitations. We see ourselves walking away from destructive relationships and letting go of negative thoughts and feelings. And this is the very problem. We talk to ourselves about a fresh start and even plan the path we will take when things get right . . . but that’s it. We think, but rarely act. We dream, but won’t awaken to the one fact we must face if we would make a fresh start: The new beginning we long for is now or never.

All of us know those high hopes we have that a new relationship, or change of career, will give us a new starting place in life. But we also know, at best, that these times and places in our lives are more like the momentary burst of a skyrocket than a permanent star on the horizon. And when the sizzle fizzles, we are right back where we started from, looking to change another set of conditions and calling this a fresh start.

We cannot plan a fresh start in life; if we want a new life we must do something new. We must act in the Now — in that place where life itself is new all the time — beginning with calling upon the light of our new understanding to go before us. Here is what this means to us in practical terms:

The fresh start we seek appears only as our old self disappears — only as we willingly die to who we have been. There are any number of ways to state this venerable wisdom, but the action required remains unchanged: If we wish to start our lives over new, the spiritual price is that we agree to no longer carry over our thoughts about ourselves from moment to moment. To this end, and to help us do what is needed to free ourselves, we need to see that while our habit of revisiting and then reliving past mental and emotional states may lend us welcome and familiar sensations, it also costs us our chance to know the newness of Now where our true self resides in a state of natural peace and power.

As we work to be in the Now and strive to leave the old thought-self behind us, it will cry out something like this, “But you can’t live without me! Who will watch out for you and see to your well-being if not me?” And though it is necessary that you learn to craft your own answer to this trickster nature, this one is the enemy of all that is fresh, uncorrupted, and new. Here is one response worth remembering. Send this message out from your silently seeing heart to this deceptive foe of all fresh starts in life: “What I need, you cannot give me. What I long to see, you cannot show me. And what I hope to be, you cannot make of me. This conversation has reached its end.”

Then, remaining as awake to yourself as you can, just keep walking ahead into the new and unknown Now. You need remember only one thing as you go: if you keep the light of your new understanding before you at all times, those shadows that would keep you from making a new beginning will remain behind you. Let this truth be your guide and watch how easy it becomes to let go of all that was in favor of all that is new, true, and you.