Happy New Year
what are your self-reflections?
How’s it going? How are you feeling on this dawn of another year?
While I’ve never been a big believer in making New Year’s resolutions, I do love any opportunity for self-reflection.
In a recent workshop I did with Dr. Daya Grant, I learned why self-reflection has always been such a balm for me — it allows us somewhere to “park” all of our rapid-fire thoughts. It’s a respite from the default mode network of the brain that tends to run on autopilot, constantly idling.
(I’ll link to Daya’s excellent Yogaland episodes below; they are great listening and I learn so much from her each time we chat.)
During the workshop, appropriately titled Reflect and Reset, Daya had us reflect on the year quarter by quarter and come up with three highlights, two lowlights, and a learning. I did the highlights verbally with my family over Christmas Eve dinner and it was a lot of fun. Every so often, after the conversation had long passed and we were tucking into our pasta — one of us would say, “Oh! I forgot about Tracy and Emily’s visit!” Or, “We forgot we baked Dad a gluten-free birthday cake!”
All of this is to say, I highly recommend the exercise, on your own or with your loved ones.
Word of the year
Do you come up with a word of the year? I have done this for many years since a friend pressed a tiny post-it note into my palm while I was going through a depression in my mid-twenties. The post-it said, “endure,” in all caps. It was the most beautiful antidote to the despair I’d been feeling and I held it with me (literally and figuratively) all year long.
My word this year is hope. Hope is not something that ever came naturally to me as a younger person. It felt too dreamy when I was all practicality and cynicism and grit. It felt like false optimism, like pasting on a cheesy grin.
But hope feels urgent and vital to me now. An action to push against the troubling events of the world. I have been stuck in despair in the past and I don’t see any use for it except to practice prati paksha bhavana and cultivate the opposite thought — which is hope!
I’ve been thinking of the last two stanzas of this poem by Lisel Mueller (also gifted to me by a friend years ago):
It is the singular gift
we cannot destroy in ourselves,
the argument that refutes death,
the genius that invents the future,
all we know of God.It is the serum which makes us swear
not to betray one another;
it is in this poem, trying to speak.
The poet Andrea Gibson also offers constant reminders to live in joy, which feels like an embodiment of hope:
A lot of letting go
I am wondering — did you let go of anything this year?
I let go of some biggies this year. It felt good and it was quite unintentional.
When I had time off, I slept in and it felt luxurious and right. For the most part, I did not berate myself for the rest of the day wondering why I hadn’t gotten more accomplished.
I also went to acupuncture regularly starting in the summer to help with immune health and menopause — again, it’s felt luxurious to allow myself that time to rest.
When I struggled hard in September, I didn’t isolate. I admitted to people around me — including a therapist — that I needed help. Letting people know that I needed them (including you!) was not as terrifying or awful as I imagined and…it really helped. Your support helped me feel less alone, so thank you.
I stopped worrying (caring?) about updating my Instagram account because, aside from the phenomenal dog/cat/squirrel/hedgehog content plus the aforementioned gorgeous poetry from @andreagibson, I’m unconvinced of its value in our collective lives.
I hit the 9 year mark since my cancer diagnosis and I let go of some demons. This one felt big:
Beginning in 2022, when I started to sense the 10 year mark looming, I began having intense anxiety about my cancer coming back. My oncologist has always told me that making it to 10 years would drastically reduce my risk of recurrence. Something about that 10 year point in the near distance brought on nearly constant background anxiety that I wouldn’t make it.
I went to my yearly check-up in November and breathed an audible sigh of relief as my oncologist told me my mammogram had come back normal. He chuckled at my reaction — “Wow, most people who are as a far along as you don’t worry so much!”
After that appointment, it was like a switch flipped. It’s not that I think I am home-free. But I could finally feel how much I have been torturing myself. I told Jason, “This has to stop. I have to stop worrying that every ache or pain or normal bodily occurrence is cancer lurking around the corner. I have to let this go. “
I will not bore you with the many, many times I have had small health “scares” that have turned into weeks of my life preoccupied with worrisome intrusive thoughts, but I will say that when I looked into his eyes and said this, I felt the pain that I’ve caused him, too. I felt how much he has held this with me, sometimes for me, over the years.
I still have my moments. But for the most part it has felt like the most enormous burden lifted. It has felt amazing.
As you know, I also let go of publishing as regularly here on Substack. I expected the worst — that I would dwindle down to 3 subscribers (all family members) and this little corner of my creativity would die a quiet death.
Thanks to all of you this hasn’t happened. You have allowed me to publish when I have something to say and I appreciate it more than you know. I don’t think I would’ve had the guts to change my publishing schedule on my own. And I wasn’t aware of just how far of course my own self-imposed to-do list was pushing me off course.
But here I am, for the first time in a long while feeling free. As I look into the new year, I’m not hoping to create more or do more. I’m hoping to enjoy more. I’m hoping to get quiet and listen to my intuition more.
That feels big to me.
Here are some of our family highlights from 2023 ❤️
Thanks for being here with me, with us. Please let me know how you’re doing. I love hearing from you.
Andrea
Lots of insight, as usual, thanks so much. So Andrea you chose a typically abysmally corny word (hope) for your key word and made it work. I feel like trying the same thing, so I’m gonna choose “smile”. I’ve always disliked false smiles (I think of my late mother in this regard, bless her), and the false optimism it can promote. I dislike when a yoga teacher tells the class to smile, it seems like forcing a mood on people. I’m comfortable with — no, actually a connoisseur of — the cynical, witty, even the sarcastic if it’s not hurtful. But here’s my argument for my word. First, I’m as vain as the next guy, of course, and from what I understand my face looks best when happy. This is also true of my wife, her face lights up (yes, I realize that’s a corny cliché, my hyper-sophisticated self has to add, but it’s true) with her smile, so I see that transformation in front of me fairly frequently, and that can remind me. Secondly, there’s the (rather yogic) principle that the mental state can be affected by the physical. Who doesn’t want to actually be more cheerful? And sometimes I find I need more outward enthusiasm in social situations, and remembering to conscript the muscles of my face in a smile might help out with that, although at the same time it can’t be entirely false, see above. I remember this past year I was back teaching a class after a few months away due to physical problems, and I was more nervous than usual, and I just told myself to smile more than usual. And that helped me relax, and of course I taught a good class — well, so I thought anyway — and that was probably the last group class I’ll ever teach, for various reasons, but I’m glad it’s a good memory. So there you have it — he said, with a smile.
Happy New Year Andrea. So much of what you shared resonates, especially after just returning this morning from yet another appointment with my wonderful GP. With menopause my health anxiety is through the roof, I imagine every ache, lump and pain to be cancer, and I have no history, so it feels even more irrational. I also shared recently with my family (and myself) that this has to stop. I've found The Work with Byron Katie to be of enormous help — not only with anxiety but relationships and letting them go. Also this posted by a friend:
Let go of people who are not ready to love you.
This is the hardest thing you'll ever have to do in your life and it will also be the most important thing.
Stop having difficult conversations with people who don't want to change.
Stop showing up for people who are not interested in your presence.
I know your instinct is to do everything possible to gain the appreciation of those around you, but it's an impulse that steals your time, energy, mental and physical health.
When you start fighting for a life with joy, interest and commitment, not everyone will be ready to follow you to that place.
It doesn't mean you have to change who you are, it means you have to let go of people who aren't ready to be with you.
If you are excluded, insulted, forgotten or ignored by the people you give your time to, you are not doing yourself a favor by continuing to offer them your energy and your life.
Truth is you ain't for everybody and everybody ain't for you.
This is what makes it so special when you find people you have friendship with or mutual love.
You will know how precious it is because you have experienced what is not.
There are billions of people on this planet and many of them you will find at your level of interest and commitment.
Maybe if you stop showing up, they won't look for you.
Maybe if you stop trying, the relationship ends.
Maybe if you stop texting, your phone will stay dark for weeks.
That doesn't mean you ruined the relationship, it means the only thing sustaining it was the energy you only gave to keep it.
That's not love, that's attachment.
It's giving a chance to those who don't deserve it!
You deserve so much more.
The most valuable thing you have in your life is your time and energy, as both are limited.
The people and things you give your time and energy to, will define your existence.
When you realize this you start to understand why you are so anxious when you spend time with people, activities or spaces that don't suit you and shouldn't be near you.
You will start to realize that the most important thing you can do for yourself and everyone around you is to protect your energy more fiercely than anything else.
Make your life a safe haven, where only people "compatible" with you are allowed.
You are not responsible for saving anyone.
You are not responsible for convincing them to do better.
It's not your job to exist for people and give them your life!
You deserve real friendships, true commitments and a complete love with healthy and prosperous people.
Decision to distance yourself from toxic people, will give you the love, esteem, happiness and protection you deserve.
I'm excited to catch up with both yourself and Jason for the upcoming reset. Boy, do I need it. Take care til then ❤️