Happy New Year! 2020

It’s a new year and we all know what comes with a new year, a slew of new year’s resolutions. Ambitious goals we set for the next year that often leave us feeling somewhat defeated when October rolls around and we realize we haven’t accomplished all we expected to or wanted to. We are left feeling bad about ourselves, beating ourselves up for a various reasons, and left thinking we can motivate ourselves with nasty self talk. 

I’ve been there and I have done that. Last year, I wanted to run three races, thinking it was a gentle and achievable goal. I didn’t even end up running one. I was left with a whole lot of guilt and negative thoughts that yelled “you are lazy!” This isn’t what a new year should be about, it isn’t what any of our goal setting should be about. I have been on a big kick the last few years that involves rewriting the narrative. I am tired of society telling me how things ought to be done, who I ought to be, and how I ought to be. I don’t want to start off the New Year thinking I need to do a complete alteration of the person I already am—the person who lived through, survived, loved, laughed, and occassionaly cried her way through every single day of 2019. That woman, that person, she matters and she is strong. 

I cannot forget that woman. And I cannot dishonor and disrespect her by beating her up because she wasn’t “perfect,” because she didn’t run three races, because she didn’t live flawlessly and always kindly towards herself and others throughout the 365 days of 2019. What I want to do, what I ought to do, and what I am going to do is look at that Margaret who managed to live through 2019 and accomplish some pretty big things, a Margaret who opened her heart a bit more to the life she is living and to the people around her. I can look back and see where I have grown, where I still need a bit of work, and where I have laughed, loved, and lived. I’m tired of ending another year and beginning a new one with negative talk and hateful talk. I want to take all that I have learned and use it to build upon what is an already beautiful life.

I don’t want to drastically change in the next year. I don’t want to get to 2021 and no longer recognize the woman I am. But I do want to work on enhancing the goodness and the love and the kindness. I want to work on becoming a healthier version of the already lovely human being I am. I want to speak kinder to myself and to others and I want to let love in and acknowledge that it’s all around. I want to reorganize the foundation I am building my life upon to reflect the basics of a wholehearted life (language is by Brene Brown). I have decided that these basics for me are: love, laughter, faith, gratitude, peace, relationship and connection, open heartedness. I want to lay these down as the foundation of life and build upon them. 

Will and I have just recently gotten engaged! We have had a beautiful whirlwind of celebration and holidays and are now slowly settling into the rhythm that is the planning year before a wedding. Already, I can tell there is a healthier way for me to live into this exciting but stressful season of life. I am recognizing that immediately jumping to panic is not healthy for me, for Will, and for our relationship. I am recognizing the need for another way to live and react to stressful situations. The pressures of the “new year—new you” mentality that society promotes tells me I should beat myself up for when I let anxiety and panic control me and try to beat myself into submission. But the soft human side of me whispers “give yourself some grace. Take some deep breaths. Step back. It’s not the end of the world. We can reevaluate situations, change our approach so our future reactions are healthier and more peaceful.” Changing the narrative, granting myself grace, and no longer clinging to the lie that “I am awful and this is how I will always be” is what a New Year looks like for me. I am also recognizing that the goals and hopes I have for this next year of life are lifelong processes—ones that I will continue to urge forward and gently nurture. I am slowly letting go of my death grip on perfection and allowing myself to believe that I am in no way, shape or form, required to be perfect. I just want to be gentle, kind, soft, grateful, peaceful and loving. 

Here is to a new year and to the same, beautiful, loving, and wonderful you, you already are. I hope that your new year’s resolutions/themes (if you’ve made them) encourage you to believe that you’re already lovely, invite you to extend grace to yourself, and ask you to live into a narrative of kindness and love that promotes health and wholeness in the ways that are most beneficial for you. Remember, you, exactly as you are, lived and loved your way through 2019 as imperfect and beautiful as you already are and you will live and love your way through 2020 as the wonderfully imperfect person you are.

Grace, peace, and all my love,

Margaret