As the start of a New Year hits, we are inundated with adverts for a new you, a better you, a different you. Which is all great, but can lead to some high expectations of ourselves and then when we don’t hit those expectations, so follows the guilt, the tears, the negative self talk about how incapable we are. What about if we EMBRACE the old you, the YOU of you and instead decide to HONOUR you. To begin to make changes which ENABLE you to love who you are, to live with who you are, all our ‘imperfections’ included. Because really, who says you are imperfect? ‘They’ do, but what about YOU?
There is something about being a ‘New You’ which doesn’t sit so well with me, I think that it is once we have made peace with the ‘OLD YOU’ that changes can begin to take place. To be happy with where and who we are, to notice what doesn’t work and to decide to change the things we can. But first we need to know where we are AT and then to tackle each change one by one. This brings to mind the Serenity Prayer:
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, And the wisdom to know the difference.
I find as soon as I decide to tackle everything at once, give it a day, a week , a month, but eventually it ALL falls by the wayside because it was too much at once. For me, deciding on one thing, getting that one thing sorted and then moving on to the next works much better than trying to suddenly be PERFECT in everything I do, am and be. We are human, we make mistakes, we are PERFECTLY IMPERFECT (and that took me some time to realise but how freeing to have realised it!) so I find the trick is to make one decision, to STICK WITH IT and from there on the rest falls into place.
We need to constantly pep talk ourselves, we need to believe in our selves and in the changes we want to make. To be positive about why we are making those changes, and to have a valid reason to OURSELVES, it doesn’t really matter what anyone thinks about your decision, your changes, as long as they work for you, that the growth that occurs is for you!
January always used to depress me, because if I looked back, I saw how many things I DID NOT do, all those ideas that were clamouring for attention which I paid little heed to but now, January gets me excited for all the things I CAN DO, even if they didn’t happen over the previous year, Whose to say I can’t do them this year??
For this year, I have decided to break the year up into 3 month blocks and within those 3 months to try something different. Something which takes me out of my comfort zone, something which moves me and something that requires me to use my body. I discovered the joy of movement late in life (that is another blog post all in itself) but now that I have, I want to explore different avenues and to get the most out of what my body and mind can offer me. To often we live little lives because we don’t believe we have the capacity to live anything more than that, with movement I find my life is bigger and to use a cliche – brighter. I just wish I had discovered this earlier!
So, if you are contemplating a New You, start with You as you are now, make small changes, challenge yourself to try new things, be more positive, grateful, to get moving and embody yourself as fully and as presently as you can.
Here’s to YOU in all your wonderful complexity.