Happy New Year! Much blessings, joy, and love to each of you and your families. I have been pondering for days thoughts about a new year, newness, and the traditions of the concept of the New Year. The new year brings with it expectations of resolutions, goals, and pressures of comparisons and fitting in. I am not convinced that they are all that they are cracked up to be. These are some of the integrative thoughts I have been having and I thought, of course, I would share them with you.
Maybe the New Year is about embracing the old. Maybe it is not about trying to change, or become, but about owning the “you”. Maybe it is about accepting the past, accepting you, accepting the things in your life that shaped you, and bringing all that into your current self care.
Maybe the New Year is about letting yourself rest and be; not cramming in your 60-minutes of exercise, your electrolysis, your nail appointment, your child’s music lesson and then swimming lesson, your after hour business meeting (no offense to any of these activities)…but maybe the New Year is about having a family sit down dinner, reading a book because you can, having a Saturday afternoon without an agenda…just being.
Maybe the New Year is about letting go of the attachment to technology every second of your life. Maybe it is about remembering things you appreciated before the instantaneous connectedness: receiving a letter in the mail; making a phone call; having a cup of coffee face to face with a friend; dropping by for a visit; and initiating them with those around you. Maybe it is about having dinner without texting, driving without a cell phone, going for a walk not caring about the duration or intensity, but just to see the beauty around you, and having self honor time throughout your day because you can and because it is ok to think about what you want, need, or what would feel good for you.
Maybe the New Year is about having fun, spontaneity, and challenging routine. It may be as simple as not getting dressed one day, putting your left sock on before your right sock in the morning, eating breakfast for dinner, serving your family banana splits for dinner, buying a pink polka-dotted ironing board cover because it is so not your style, or having a picnic in the living room. Change things up. Alter routine, not as a task to do, but just to have fun.
Here is the risk with these integrative thoughts…that just by putting these thoughts into writing or into contemplation, some ego states in us, hear them as “to do’s” or expectations. Let me officially say to you and your (mine inclusive) “performing” ego states: it is about you now, honoring you, resting with you, being ok being you…and nothing is about doing, performing, becoming, because you are already ok just the way you are…so just think about these things…and if they integrate, fantastic, if they become a project, you may want to read this paragraph again.
If you get nothing more from this little contemplation other than to say “she has way too much time on her hands”, then I hope at least, I brought you a moment of humor…but if it stimulates your integration of thought, it would be great to hear your thoughts too. Happy New Year!!
Integrative Thought 