The new year is just around the corner and though you’re probably rushing through everything in life right now, you don’t want to rush while working on the ‘new you.’ If you’re in your healing era and want to hold space for yourself to become healthier – mentally and emotionally in the new year, here are steps you can take to be your best self.
When taking on New Year’s resolutions, you can also aspire to set various goals related to your well-being, and not just career goals or what to eat and how much to exercise. You can set your mind on what jives with you for next year – and take time to look inward through journaling or meditation practices. Additionally, you can find ways to center your mind and get in touch with your emotions, while being more active, thus killing two birds with one stone.
Holding Space for Mindfulness
A great place to start is by practicing daily gratitude. Try writing a gratitude list by jotting down 5 things you are grateful for and why when you first wake up each morning. This is a simple and quick way to bring positivity and grace to yourself first thing in the morning and allows you to reflect on your blessings. Alternatively, you could choose this as a meditative prompt or incorporate your daily affirmations into a morning meditation. This is a wonderful way to reset your mind and re-calibrate with your body before the workday. By adding affirmations, you can speak light into your morning to elevate your day. You could even practice morning meditations on your commute or during other daily tasks such as taking your dog for a walk. This way, you are establishing time for yourself during your busy morning routine to recenter.
Journaling Your Emotions
“Dear diary,” if you are working on your healing journey, you can keep a daily log of your emotions in a diary. It might feel silly at first, but it can be helpful as you start to learn about what causes your feelings to fluctuate as you familiarize yourself with your triggers. You can also get to know what things or people present a safe space for you, bringing you light and creating serotonin. Beyond that, the regular practice of journaling about what’s going on in your life whether it’s the everyday mundane things or the exciting or challenging moments, can help you to reflect on what you are learning and navigating through as you grow. This can help you better understand your feelings. Remember, everyone has hard days sometimes. It’s also so important to reflect on your achievements to see how far you’ve come, illustrate your growth journey, and see the accomplishments resulting from your hard work.
Holding Space for and Understanding Your Shadow
Another great journaling exercise is to do your Shadow Work, by getting the Shadow Work Journal by Keila Shaheen, available here on Amazon. Shadow work is visiting your inner emotions through Carl Jung’s psychotherapeutic practices and reaching out to understand your unsettling emotions and deepest feelings, or ‘shadow,’ that you may have felt since you were a child and have kept hidden. Rather than talk therapy, the shadow work journal allows you to confront these emotions and early traumas through self-counseling. The author even notes herself in an interview with The Times, that this can be a great platform in addition to talk therapy with a licensed counselor.
I know some therapists have brought it up, and I deeply respect and understand where they’re coming from, but I think it’s important to see and recognise that the world is changing. I see first hand the gaps in the mental health sector, especially in America. And I’ve spoken with therapists myself who have used The Shadow Work Journal and found it helpful . . . the journal starts the conversation and therapy can continue it.
-Keila Shaheen in an interview with The Time
The journal includes many different helpful sections that walk you through the steps to look within and better understand why certain things make you feel a certain way. It can also be a great tool to help you understand or unlearn some learned behaviors that may exhibit as patterns in your relationships, argumentation style, and coping mechanisms – both healthy and unhealthy. This practice can also help you discover what went wrong in a past relationship or why you resort to certain behaviors when made to feel a certain way. Learning about these triggers and responses could propel your self-realization and accountability as a part of your growth journey in the new year. If you have off work after Christmas or on New Year’s Day, that could be a great time to start.
Get in the Flow (With Your Emotions)
While also having health benefits, yoga can be a great way to do your breathwork and also get your stretching in. Daily stretching has great long-term benefits but is also incredibly important to do before and after activities. Yoga and stretching have their own way of letting you confront your emotions and present a platform for you to do so – through opening up your hips. If you have attended yoga classes before, you may have heard that trauma can be stored in your hips, or even have experienced an emotional release from stretching in a way that enables your body to open up to your mind. Often laying on your stomach with your leg bent out to the side or sitting in a frog pose, ‘Mandukasana,‘ can help achieve this and alleviate pent-up emotions. It might be ideal to do these kinds of poses as home workouts, at least for the first few times to have privacy for any rushing emotions.
Another great reminder about movement in your new year is that working out or increasing exercising in the new year is not just a concept of a “new year, new body” or doing what it takes to slim down but rather setting intentions and making health-conscious choices that are sustainable. By getting your body moving and being more active, you are increasing blood flow and boosting your metabolism. This mental health mindset is more so you can aim to incorporate low-impact workouts into your daily routine rather than pushing yourself beyond your limitations.
Hold Space to Feel
Besides setting intentions in your workouts or daily activities to interact with your inner emotions, it’s also important to fully allow yourself to feel, especially when healing from a big loss, a breakup, or a life change. Your body is recovering and it’s imperative to move through the emotions rather than disregard them. The best advice can be the easiest to accept: take the time to feel, even if that means you have to set aside time in your busy schedule to cry and watch your comfort movie or listen to your favorite album. It can be such a great release for you and you don’t want to keep any sadness or anger stored up just to slip out in the wrong moments. You’re not alone in feeling this way in a hard moment of your life. It’s so important to take time to process.
Holding Space for Your Loved Ones
Another integral aspect of your emotional growth journey is your support system such as your friends and loved ones. When you’re growing through emotions or experiencing a tough time, try not to self-isolate, even if it feels like the natural thing to do. In actuality, it can be so important to lean into friendships during these moments of your life so they can look out for you and have a scope of what you’re going through- and who knows you better than your friends? Friends can offer a respite for you and a break from your inner chaos. They can also offer comfort and understanding if they have been through something similar.
On this same note, boundaries cannot be stressed enough for loved ones that may be causing tension or upheaval in your life. Therefore, holding space for your loved ones in the new year may even look like holding them at arm’s length to disengage if their behavior is a stressor in your life. It’s ok to take little breaks from the negative people in your circles.
When it comes to holding space for youin 2025, think about what that looks like for what you hope to channel into your life and envision this to set these emotional goals. This can be a great way to prioritize your mental health and move on from unprocessed emotions or unresolved trauma. There’s a plethora of self-help books and guidance books you could read to shape your life, but ultimately you have to find what works best for you. It’s your year to feel and you can start your healing process anytime by trying any of these ways to get in touch with your emotions. Don’t forget to pause and put yourself first. Take a deep breath and step into the new year, affirming your desire to grow and never stop learning because you are capable and caring.
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