Put Down What's Heavy
The one before we welcome 2023.
This may come as a surprise to many of you, but I’m not a big “reflect on the past” sort of person. Despite a general tendency to overanalyze and stir about the choices I’m going to make in the future and a love for history and romanticized nostalgia of, well, life overall, I don’t tend to dwell on what came before when it comes to my personal life. With rare exception, I’ve always been pretty good at forgiving and forgetting, of myself and others. I have a short memory for the people and decisions that equaled pain or regret, or that made me feel like a worse version of myself. Instead, I tend to lean pretty easily into the next steps that will help me correct a situation, or the path that will guide me toward the people and things that are more aligned with who I want to see when I look in the mirror. I don’t like change but I love fresh starts. I’m not friends with any exes, and when I mess up, I try to learn my lessons quickly and not repeat them.
So when the new year comes around, I can dig myself into a hole of deep thoughts about where I want to go next. What version of myself I *should* be, which goals I *must* achieve or habits I should break. But sitting down and reflecting on what I did wrong in a sort of retrospective — flipping through the lowlights of the year we’re closing out? Yeah, no thanks. My rear-view mirror is cracked.
I’m not saying that I don’t self-reflect, because I definitely do and I think it’s incredibly valuable (and I think self-awareness and self-study are both key to being a decent, functioning human), but I do so in the moment or shortly there after… and then, well, I don’t want to go digging back through that discomfort or embarrassment again later. I’ve turned the corner already. But this, the squishy week between Christmas and New Year’s Day — that’s prime time for people on the internet to remind you to look back on your past 360 or so days and decide what went well and what didn’t. What you should continue to celebrate or be grateful for, and what you should pile into the trash with your old Christmas tree. And gosh, if you can pull it all into a 60 second video reel — even better!
I don’t know that all of us need to review the last year like it was a big homework assignment we completed. If that’s useful to you, go for it, but if it’s not… meh. Maybe instead, you just think about what you want your next year to look like, or, even better, how you want to feel. And maybe you consider what you’ve been carrying around day after day, perhaps year after year, that’s heavy. Maybe you consider whether that heavy thing is something that you need to keep carrying.
Can you put it down? Is it really your responsibility? Do you need to hang on to it?
Sometimes we get so used to carrying something — pain, trauma, someone else’s opinions or judgements of us/our lives — that we forget it’s not actually a part of us. We forget that we have a choice hidden in there.
Just because you’ve been carrying something for a while, doesn’t mean you’re stuck with it forever. What would it feel like to let it go? How would you feel if you put some distance between you and that heavy thing, or if you reminded yourself that the heavy thing is not YOU? (That anxiety, for example — it’s not you. It’s just this annoying buddy hanging out with you that won’t leave you alone.) Sure, there’s some stuff you can’t necessarily abandon or let go of (like a chronic illness, or a difficult family member), but you can choose how you continue to respond. You can control how you react. [I learned that in yoga ages ago, and it continues to hold true.]
I’m no guru or expert on how to live a happy life; I’m trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing all the same as you, and I know I’m often weighed down by stuff I don’t necessarily need to be handcuffed to. Other people’s opinions, my own anxiety, etc., and that sh*t can get heavy. I’m choosing to drop them off at the curb on the way to 2023. Maybe you will too?
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Happy almost new year, friends! I hope you’re having a peaceful holiday season, celebrating however the heck you choose to celebrate, and most of all, I hope you know you’re loved and not alone. And if you’re looking for something good to listen to this week, I have two new suggestions for ya: the podcast “SmartLess” — I’m newly obsessed, thanks to a rec by two of my girlfriends, and it’s both hilarious and interesting at the same time — and this album by Renee Rapp (and while you’re at it, maybe also give the show “The Sex Lives of College Girls” a watch as well — she’s in it and it’s pretty great).
Thanks for reading,
Joelle