How has the new year started out for you? Are you excited for the ‘clean slate’, or is it causing some anxiety? Let’s try something new this year. Instead of making more resolutions, adding more things to the massive ‘To Do’ list, let’s focus on what we’re finally ready to free ourselves from. That inner dialogue that tells us that we’re not good enough. Yeah, that needs to go. The places in our inner and outer lives where we struggle to be kind. That too, needs to be cleaned out.
What promises do you need to break? What stories have you told yourself that served you well in the past—or maybe not at all—that you need to rewrite? How are your relationships? It could be time to let go of the people who hurt you. It could be letting go of the lack of boundaries and saying that this year I matter enough to tell others “I love you, but I do not have to listen to unkind words.”
Esther Perel wrote, “The new year is a good time to be forward-thinking about who you want to be; but it’s also a great time to look back at what you’re ready to let go of: the wrong partner or job; the narratives we use to justify our setbacks; the versions of ourselves—past, present, future—that no longer make sense.”
Begin this year believing that you are enough. Live out the love and compassion you’re hoping to provide to yourself. If you need help learning to break the toxic or unhelpful promises, let a therapist help you. Let her or him open your self-view and reframe your self-talk. If you’re ready to let go of anger, maybe it’s time to address some unresolved grief. If fighting in your relationship is causing a vicious-never-ending perpetual wheel, maybe learning how to ask for the affection and love you are desiring will be more beneficial.
Let 2020 be lived with mindfulness, intentionality, kindness, and compassion towards yourself as well as with others.
