Starting off with Positivity

Another year has come and gone. We are all another year older and hopefully a little wiser!

It is at this time of year that we come to reflect on the previous year and plan for the year ahead. It can be a time for negative thinking, but I wish that we can reframe our thinking and believe it is a time of strength and hope.

What do I mean by this? Well at the end of the year many people sit and recall everything they have done and sometimes it’s seems like we try to outdo each other in our accomplishments and how our year was awesome. But let me tell you a secret, no one is perfect and no one has a perfect year! We all struggle, we all have bad days, have bad things happen to us, didn’t do that thing we were hoping to do, and more. And you know what? That’s okay!

So instead if you take the time to reflect on the previous year let’s look at all of our strength. Firstly you get A+ marks in strength for making it through the year. Well done! Give yourself a high five, you deserve it. Now think about everything you have done; getting out of bed, eating, talking with friends and family, attending doctor’s appointments, and more things every day that some people take as “ordinary” but this year we are taking as strength! So give yourself another high five. If this was all you could manage this year then I’m proud of you for doing all that and for listening to your body. You can only do what your body lets you. But if you were able to do more let’s think about that now. Maybe you trained yourself to walk farther, or you can do more stairs, or you started that new hobby, or you went and did that thing you have been wanting to do. All these are strengths and successes you have accomplished! It’s very easy to remember the negative and challenges of the year—don’t worry we all do that—but let’s dig deep and create a list of the positives (even if that list is in your head!). End the year off with positive remembrance and you may be surprised at how much strength you have, how much you have done, and that you feel good remembering it all!

The next part of New Year’s reflection can be a tough one, thinking about the coming year. It’s so easy to be led by fear (ex. but what if it’s as bad or worse than this year?) or to create unrealistic expectations for ourselves (ex. think dieting and exercising resolutions). Now there is nothing wrong with either of these things, we all have fear and we all want to better ourselves. We can easily get sucked into societal trends and choosing resolutions or goals based on what we think people think of us rather than what we want to think about ourselves. So this year let’s really do some inner work and see what we truly need. We can lead the year off with hope, something that can counter the fear and be a reasonable outcome for the year. Let’s hope for more time with friends and family—even texting instead of meeting if that’s more reasonable—or wish for a beautiful spring day that you can spend outside looking at the flowers,

or being able to sit outside once a week and bask in the sun, or reading one more book than you did this year. By thinking about and wishing for things that you know you can achieve you can start the year off on a positive note.

I recently had someone tell me how they spend the last hours of this year and the first hours of the next year surrounded by friends and family in a large community setting with singing and contemplation. They said they like ending the year with community and beginning the New Year with positivity and togetherness. This is such a lovely sentiment. I know we can’t all follow this exactly, but what if we ended this year and started the next positively? Do something you love, speak to someone you love, speak to yourself with love!, and focus on the positives on the year we just had and think with hope on the positives yet to come.

You are stronger than you believe and joy can be found in even the darkest of places if we remember to look for it. I wish for you all a year filled with hope, love for yourself and love in your relationships, joy, and fun.