New Year, New Me? Nah. I’m good.
I haven’t done new years resolutions for a long time since realizing that they pretty much always left me feeling bad about myself.
Has this been your experience, too?
So contrary, isn’t it? You set out to do something good for yourself and you’re left feeling like a failure or ashamed that you can’t take care of yourself.
Talk about feeding fuel to already persistent negative narratives! I don’t know about you, but this is not the kind of energy that I want to invite into my life at the start of a new year.
Many of us get sucked into that tendency to do the “New year, new me” thing that’s pervasive in our culture. But I see a bunch of problems with this tradition.
Here are two of them.
One reason:
It goes against nature.
January in the northern hemisphere is a time when the Earth is in dormancy, creatures are hibernating, storms are raging, and the sunlight is limited. Most of nature is intended to be amidst a time of inward-facing energy or hibernation.
Adopting a rigorous “new me” regime might be going against the natural energetic state of the planet. So, if you’re feeling low on energy, know that the bears do too and they don’t try to resist this. We will naturally energize again when the days get longer. It happens like this every year.
Life can be so much more easeful when we attune to nature. We are creatures of the earth, after all, so why fight it?
Also, when we consciously choose to engage in attuning to natural rhythms, we are quietly opposing the influences of capitalism and colonialism. What a beautiful act of defiance.
One way that I am staying attuned to the earth’s quiet state of being is by spending time in nature and carefully observing how winter dormancy expresses itself. She’s subtle and slow-moving this time of year. I also love watching how the moon cycles change our energies and move the tides, no matter the season.
Another reason it doesn’t work:
It’s often rooted in oppression.
There are powerful influences that benefit from us playing small and not thriving (Hello, patriarchy, capitalism, colonialism, and racism, I’m talking about you).
One way to hold power over people is to limit their access to resources, so making people feel like they’re never good enough is a form of control.
Staying out of this type of never-good-enough thinking is sometimes harder than going with it because it’s embedded in absolutely everything in our society. But finding a way to be ease-full while taking action against this stuff is how we stay in it for the long game. So be gentle with yourself as you defy these harmful systems.
More and more, folks are taking a stand against this externally driven expectation to continually improve themselves. I’m one of them.
Obviously, I’m invested in personal development, I’m a coach, after all. But what I want to disrupt in the wellness space is the expectation of needing to be better than who we are right now as a requirement to become successful, loved, respected, and fulfilled.
You are wonderful just as you are.
You do not need anything outside yourself to be worthy of fulfillment.
Full stop.
Let that soak in.
We all struggle with believing it sometimes.
One way that has helped me find my way with interrupting insidious oppression of the wellness and personal development industry is by surrounding myself with others who are interested in doing the same.
Most recently, Christy Harrison’s book, Anti-Diet helped me spot a bunch of ways that diet culture is woven into North American culture and the sneaky ways that it's harmful. She must be about the same age as me because, in the intro, she described her upbringing and parts of it reflected my experience. So cool when someone puts to words something you haven’t even formed into thoughts yet.
So, if resolutions aren’t working for you, please know it’s not something to beat yourself up over. Making bold changes this time of year in a culture like this can be a legit struggle.
Surround yourself with like-minded folks and allow yourself to grow at whatever pace feels most nourishing for you now.