A Gentle New Year
The New Year is here which marks a new beginning and fresh start. At the beginning of the New Year people set new goals, resolutions, and create plans for making the new year better than the last year. New diet challenges emerge, financial goals and new routines are set with the intent to create a fresh start. It can be a refreshing time of the year for some people and an anxiety producing, depression triggering nightmare for others.
The last two years have been a couple of the most heart wrenching, fear producing, unstable, unpredictable, relentless years myself and countless others have ever experienced. Some of the most charismatic social individuals have turned into socially awkward ill-equipped adults. Storms and natural disasters have placed us all on high alert. Families have been torn apart through violence and illness; relationships have ended due to dysfunction and poor communication. Today, it is hard for businesses to get employees to come to work and hard for employees to want to go to work. These experiences are not something that you can make up. It has been real!
Most of us are still recovering from this past year, some of us have not fully processed all that has transpired over the last year and some of us are just simply thankful to be here. As a result, it is very important for us to be gentle with ourselves, allowing ourselves to gently reset and regroup. Being gentle with yourself in the New Year does not mean that we sit around and let life just happen. On the contrary, it means that we intentionally speak kindly to ourselves and others, we rest when we are tired, we stop when we need a break, we eat when we are hungry, and we move our bodies in a way that feels good. Being gentle means that we return to the basics of life and re-engage with what we feel, see, hear, smell, and taste. Through meditation and stillness we increase our self-awareness so that we can give ourselves exactly what we need. What we need may be a flavorful homecooked meal or a hug from someone that we care about. What we may need is to step outside and feel the sun on our face or hear the wind rush through the trees. What we may need is to put on our favorite music and dance like no one is watching. Being gentle with ourselves means that we do not rush to hop on the bandwagon of fast paced productivity culture, but we move with the belief that everything will happen when the time is right, without force or chasing.
-Danielle