It’s the new year!
Is it just me or anyone started the year feeling anxious of what this year will bring?
2022 has been really tough, new role at work, jumping into the area I know I am not good at, some major failures, realising I have to let go, and trying my hardest to get to know myself. Don’t even get me started about the amount of tears I have shed.
I gotta say I am proud to have managed to push through 2022.
Entering into 2023, I have hopes that this year will bring much better things into life compared to last year, yet I can still feel the anxiety at the back of my head. A friend of mine suggested to create a resolution (read: a thing I have never intentionally done in the past years) to help me to have a better perspective of the anxiety. Anxiety based on fear of failures could be damaging, but anxiety based on curiousity could build positive perspective.
As we discuss about her resolution and how I will shape mine, we talk about her main resolution ie to prioritise herself. I wonder, what has happened in the past years until taking care of ourselves must be a new year resolution? Isn’t that supposed to be our underlying focus to achieve our purpose? Shouldn’t it be normalised? I might be just me, but I see resolution as something we want to achieve within the year rather than something that’s already part of us, part of our design.
I am not judging others resolution here, but rather trying to understand the thinking around it. I am also not saying that we should not make such kind of resolution.
The fact that some (if not most) of us making self-care as a new year resolution, isn’t that a sign of acknowledgment that it is so easy to make ourselves less of a priority throughout the year and how easy it is to lose our sight over ourselves? Worrying…… It makes me look back and think if I have taken care of myself enough in 2022, and how can I make sure to do better in 2023.
On top of that, have you guys seen the percentage of failed resolution every single year? Ugh…terrifying, trust me.
I sit with myself for couple weeks, hence the delays in my journal, just to really know what I can actually do for myself in 2023; to get me a better version of me basically.
I did think about the level of care I have given to myself in the past years, and how I can make sure I don’t lose me (again) throughout 2023, or how I should keep myself as the center focus. There were lots of voices I would say, from eating less carbs, more journaling, getting into meditation, up to go on more dates to find the love of my life, but I could also see that all of these are superficial; it’s all the “cover” I want to have, I want others to see. Yeap, drifted away for the actual spirit of intentional resolution.
The real thing is, for this year, I WANT TO MAKE PEACE with myself.
1. I know that I always some degree of anxiety in me, no matter how good I’m doing, I want to make peace with that part of me.
2. It is a fact that I always feel like something is lacking in me, even when I have everything I need. I want to make peace with that part of me.
3. Sometimes I’d push myself so hard I could not hear my inner child screaming ‘enough’. Instead of punishing me, I will make peace with that fact.
4. I did not have the best stories of my past; all my ups and downs, all things I had to let go to be where I am, the parts of me that I traded to get what I thought I want. Nothing can change those, sometimes I regret those….but this year, I’ll make peace with my past.
5. There is a certain level of anger and resentment arising from my upbringing, from the acknowledged fact that I don’t get along with family, I always feel left behind, and I just don’t think I fit in for whatsoever reason. I do feel sorry that nothing I did work in terms of getting rid of the anger and the resentment which actually frustrates me even more. So, I will make peace with that; to be at peace that the anger and resentment exists, not to use it as reason to hate people around me.
6. Finally, for this 2023, I’ll jump into it head on. I’ll have my downs, failures, frustrations, but I will make sure I don’t torture myself with it. I will make peace with those and get back on.
I’ll let myself fo my hardest and my best this year, and I hope this platform will continue to be part of my journey.
