Three New Year Wishes for YOU (and me)

I’ve said it before, how New Year’s Eve is my least favorite holiday. I suppose it is the vibe where folks feel obligated to look back on their year and also make new promises to themselves for the new year as if it’s some magical day of the year. I get the impression that people fake happiness for this day more than any other. Have you ever seen those countdown programs on TV?! Those smiling, dancing people freak me out.

If this holiday DOES work for you, that’s wonderful! Absolutely keep on loving it, reflect and resolve away! It IS fun to dance and celebrate, I get that. I just feel too forced to do it on New Year’s personally, but respect that other people absolutely resonate with this time of new starts. I mean no offense to New Year connoisseurs; different strokes are a beautiful thing!

But if you get the heebie jeebies about this time of year too, please know you’re not alone. Sometimes nostalgia can be uncomfortable! Maybe that’s what it is…that this one day is the epitome of both looking back and looking ahead. Those things overwhelm me, and it can be easy to lose the present time in that.

I’ve also just seen so many people wake up on New Year’s definitely feeling anything but brand new after the night before (and have been that person myself). I think that can be a defeating way to start this supposed ‘new’ personal era.

So my wish #1 for you is to please remember that fresh starts and new chances happen every single day. Any new morning, or any new minute can be a time of beginning again. This is very important so as to not put so much pressure on any one thing, or day, or person, or anything. Nothing depends on the season or the surroundings. Life depends on YOU, fully. And you have incredible power.

You are a human being which is pretty fantastic if you get all existential and over-thinky. Don’t. Just think for a moment in awe that your body is running on breathe and blood, and a brain. Of course, there’s more to it than that, but this system is breath-taking and we get to carry it anywhere we go. Take a deep inhale and exhale right now and feel that force of life inside of you. Your breath right this minute is perfect the way it is, and so are you. My second wish for you is that you give yourself permission to pause and deeply breathe at any moment. And give yourself permission for anything else while you’re at it. To be happy, to be sad…you’re allowed to feel or be anything.

Change is a healthy goal, if you execute it in healthy steps.  We all wish for things to be different in our lives, and only some changes we can control. Let’s be reasonable and patient, with ourselves and others.

Do you ever want to literally beat up somebody else until they’re somebody whom acts or looks different? How about wanting to starve or deny someone because that’s the only way they’ll learn? I’m counting on the answer of ‘NO WAY” here. Please don’t beat yourself up either. Of course, mentally, not being hard on yourself can be a life-long resolution. I’m actually meaning physically don’t beat yourself up either.

Please don’t SHRED the weight, or BLAST the fat, or get RIPPED. Since when did we make our body an enemy that needs DESTROYED? It doesn’t deserve a BOOT CAMP. Nothing needs BURNED off, or JACKED up. There is no secret, unless perhaps it’s a secret to meet your body with acceptance and love through it’s changes. Listen to it! Give it what it needs, which doesn’t mean ‘PUKE THEN KEEP GOING’. My biggest pet peeve with fitness programs and facilities is this idea that you and your body are working against each other.

Starting from this place of dissatisfaction with ourselves and some compartmentalized view of calories and carbs isn’t really a healthy result to maintain. If you’re not happy out-of-shape, will you really be happy just when you’re SCULPTED and HARD? This really is my last and biggest wish for all of us. Your body is not an enemy; honor and nurture it with goodness on your journey. You can still lovingly sweat and challenge yourself, I promise! This is much different than PUSHING through a NO PAIN, NO GAIN attitude, bleh; that phrase makes me want to give up already!

I would venture to guess that most big changes in people’s lives, or history, did not begin on January 1. There’s probably a better chance they happened on February 27, June 16, or any other month/date combination you want to pick randomly. Many changes likely happened from a rock-bottom place, or from no other choice. We don’t have to wait until then, but no change can happen before one is truly ready. Goals are great, but life may have other suggestions of what really needs tended the most.  The sum of my wishes, I suppose, is for us to not consider any failed resolutions as a personal failure, but rather a chance to see what’s better that is unfolding ahead at the right time.

Of course, these are my wishes for you but also myself.  Here’s to a wonderful new start, whenever we want to make one. <3

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