I’m going easy on myself in the New Year because it will be the first of many in which I have admitted and will responsibly addressed my disorder. So here’s what I’ve decided to focus on:
 
• TIP: Improve my diet by eating the colors of the rainbow. Remember that guy we learned in elementary school…Roy G Biv? It’s the color inside which matters most unless the peel is edible and you actually eat it. 
MY RESOLUTION: Find these colors in the produce aisle, and not inside a bag of Skittles.

• TIP: Purchase and prepare more plant-based foods containing as few ingredients as possible, and that I can pronounce. 
MY RESOLUTION: Admit to self there’s nothing really plant-based in a box of mashed potatoes, excepting of course the plant in which they were made.

• TIP: Be aware of, and take time to focus on my breathing. 
MY RESOLUTION: Try not to do this as a remedy for just having overspent in a manic spree, but as an oxygenating, energizing, calming and focusing exercise that I can do as I walk to the nearest shopping mall exit…with both hands in the air rejoicing that they’re free of GAP shopping bags.

• TIP: Develop and consistently and actively engage my support network.
MY RESOLUTION: To actually maintain contact with this group of people who know and love me, and understand my bipolarity.

• TIP: Stay medically-compliant.
MY RESOLUTION: STAY MEDICALLY-COMPLIANT!

Hope smiles on the threshold of the year to come, whispering that it will be happier. (Alfred Lord Tennyson, English poet, 1809 – 1892)