The best way to wrap up the year ✨
Hi Reader, How’s December treating you? Are you fretting about the new year already, wondering what goals you’re going to set or what you might do differently next year? If so, this is your reminder to pause for a moment. (This newsletter is called The Moment, after all.) Just take a second to breathe. Before we even get to thinking about 2024, let’s be here right now. For the past few years, I haven’t set goals at the beginning of the year. I used to think I had to plan out my entire year in advance, figuring out every single goal before January in order to ‘get ahead’. Now I realize that I can’t predict the future, and I can’t even know what I'll want to do in a few month’s time. If I try to plan my year in advance and say, “I’m going to accomplish XYZ in November 2024," who knows if future Catherine will have the energy, capacity, or desire to take that on? I used to feel shame around this, for not sticking to things I’d planned for myself, or for changing my mind about something that I thought I wanted. Now I experience life more as a big ebb and flow; or rather, I am trying to accept it as that. That’s not to say I’m the kind of person who feels comfortable doing everything on a whim, as that can cause unnecessary stress. But rushing to plan something when it doesn’t need to be rushed can have the same effect. There’s so much pressure to start the new year off with a bang, but from a seasonal standpoint, winter is all about hibernation and recuperation. Spring is when the real action takes place. So right now, I encourage you to reflect and let yourself be. My favorite resource for annual reflection is Susannah Conway’s Unravel Your Year workbook. Though I could take the time to create my own workbook, why reinvent the wheel when someone else has already made the perfect tool? I've done this for years now and always look forward to filling it out. If you'd like, reply to this email and let me know how 2023 went for you. As a final note, I don’t want to ignore the tragic things that are happening in the world right now. It’s hard to feel content and joyful when people are being attacked. Tragedy seems to have been our shared reality for years now. And it is a shared reality, even if it’s not directly affecting you. The older I get, the more I realize how everything is connected. When we are cruel to one person, that person is more likely to be cruel to another. When we are kind to someone, that person may be more inclined to be kind to another. Imagine that happening on a grand scale all around the world, every moment of every day. Those little tiny actions and attitudes cause a ripple effect. All of this is to say that it’s easy to feel insignificant or that nothing you do matters, but it can. There are options: taking the time to learn about the history of what’s happening between Palestine and Israel, donating to humanitarian organizations, calling your representatives to demand a ceasefire (5calls makes this easy), researching the companies where you spend your money and what they support, and talking to others about it There’s a quote by Resmaa Menakem that shows the importance of mindfulness during these times: “Few skills are more essential than the ability to settle your body. If you can settle your body, you are more likely to be calm, alert, and fully present, no matter what is going on around you. A calm settled body is the foundation for health, for healing, for helping others, and for changing the world.” Thank you for reading, and I’ll talk to you in 2024. a moment of bliss.A moment of bliss is something in your day that you’re savoring or grateful for, no matter how small it might seem. |
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The Moment
by The Blissful Mind
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