Transition to a New Year

As we approach the holiday season, we each view the holidays from our perspective of past experiences. For many, the holidays are a joyous and eagerly anticipated time. For others who have experienced loss or trauma, the holidays can be an endurance obstacle course.  We generally meet after the holidays with the attitude that the new year brings new beginnings. The excitement or the aching that we each experience is replaced with adopting the new year as a fresh start. Decorations are stored, resolutions are made and January brings each of us back to a place where we each ask, “What’s next?”.

The new year is a time for self-assessment. It accentuates our priorities as well as our state-of-being. Are we satisfied with our progress during the past year? Do the losses that we experienced still reside in full force? How do we sort the new year to-do list and our emotions that may have overtones of a continued sadness or dissatisfaction with what the last year yielded? The new year is an annual life transition for which we must make decisions not only about how to make time for tax season preparation, but how to move forward with positivity in our outlook about the fact that we are still here and drawing breath on a planet with over 8 billion fellow human beings.

Most of us launch into the new year with a commitment to develop additional discipline in our routines and with a hope that the new year will provide opportunities for more accomplishments. As the days pass during January, our internal testing begins. We may waiver in our discipline and our previous losses will, in varying degrees, still reside within us. During January, we can assist our internal resolve by naming and clearly stating our core values…those values that provide the nourishment and sustenance for our individual strengths, our outlook on the world around us, our ability to connect with others, and our moral and spiritual convictions. Can we promote within ourselves the discipline to make decisions in the new year that align with our defined core values? Do our defined core values provide direction for our actions that will result in enhancing the “common good” for those with whom we share the planet as well as for ourselves? Can we tap the capacity that each of us have with regard to enabling our internal discipline to provide for clearly understanding our purpose, our plans and our progress during the new year? Each day we must awaken with the purpose of transiting that day with decisions that support our values. In this way, the new year will unfold with our continued development as we move through our lives.

bill@safeharborpathways.com