You don’t have to review your year on the new year or the solstice.
It’s ok to follow your own instinct. Personally I take in all the new year stuff and sort it for what actually is interesting to me to do. I play around with it a bit. Do what resonates. A lot of the time I really do my new year thinking for my business clients in September. I’m 51 years old with no children and I still have back to school vibes where I want to start something in September. It’s never too late to do something that’s interesting to you or that might be helpful. So whatever it is for you, or isn’t, roll with it. Trust your own judgement about your capacity.
The word of the year stuff was really standing out for me this year, mostly that it is soooooo hard for me to do, to commit to one word. Surely I’ll get it wrong and there will be all these unintended consequences. Adorable. But it kept standing out as it crossed my vision this year. And I realised that maybe I can’t do a word of the year, but I really want to do a principle of the year. One that I can focus on applying and see what change that creates for me.
My principle is to always remember and inhabit “and, also.”
The phrase that allows multiple things to be true at once. A principle that holds space for our complex world and the multiple dimensions of the other people that inhabit it with us. But mostly it applies to giving myself room to have complex sometimes oppositional emotions about things and people in my own life.
Things like:
Your family can be a great source of love and joy and, also be the source of a lot of pain.
That I disagree with you deeply on an issue and, also I know you would be the first person to help me if I needed it.
That I can hate the harms of racism/misogyny/patriarchy/colonialism in our culture and, also understand I still commit them myself.
That I’m devastated something hasn’t worked out the way I want and, also feel confident I can deal with it.
For me it makes more room, more spaciousness less cancel culture vibes in my world.
How about you?