Past? Future? Present.
Happy New Year! For many of us, the new year always brings hope for what’s to come. What lies ahead, what’s the next thing, what can we do differently, or better? This suggests that we the past year didn’t live up to our expectations. I’ve seen a few posts on social media lately suggesting that we pause, take a step back, and be present. I like this. Because if you think about it, it was only 365 short days ago that we reflected and made plans for the year we are now saying goodbye to. Maybe instead of making that list of resolutions for 2024, we should be making a list of things we feel good about in 2023. It doesn’t matter if you accomplished something great (though if you did, good for you!!!), or if you simply survived each day. It’s important to be grateful for what is good RIGHT NOW. And there’s ALWAYS good.
Case in point: I’m writing this from the airport, on the way to a New Year’s trip. Fun, right? In the few hours we spent getting here, things did NOT go smoothly. We Ubered to the train station 40 minutes early, by accident. The station was closed, so we had to spend the 40 minutes sitting outside, wearing light clothes (we’re heading further south). This would be an easy opportunity for me to complain and be miserable (and not fun to be around!). Instead, I chose to focus on the good: It’s not windy and raining. I’d rather be early than late. I was still cold and uncomfortable, but it made the wait a lot better that I wasn’t also angry. Then, we got off the train at the wrong terminal, and had a pretty lengthy outside walk to the correct terminal. Again, I chose to focus on what I was grateful for: It’s not ten degrees out, I have strong legs, and we are still early. Don’t get me wrong, it’s not always this easy for me to be positive- but it sure did make this morning a lot better than it could have been, and I’m grateful for that.
This is a minor example, but a good way of illustrating how to reframe the negative things in our lives. Our mission is to help people focus on the positives- sometimes that means really looking at the negative and intentionally changing the way we see things. Finding a way to focus on the good in a situation. Sometimes it’s REALLY hard to find, but I promise you, it’s there. Even if it is just thinking about how something could be worse.
So what feels good for you, right now? What can you be proud of, in this moment? And how can you build on that, just for today? We’d love to hear how you’re doing that – comment here, or on Facebook and Instagram. Happy New Day!
Energetically yours,
