New Year Thoughts

The Pandemic paradox: People are working more than ever before, being told, at the same time, that we’re not being productive enough. The dawn of a fresh start presented a challenge: When you’re supposed to be crushing it, what do you do when life’s crushing you?

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Strength and Vitality in Hard Times

By Michelle Rodriguez

I cheered “Happy New Year” to every single person I came across for the week preceding the arrival of 2022. This is a habit of mine, being (as my daughter describes me) a happy-go-lucky bunny. It was a customary habit for me, but most people were thrown off by this greeting as their minds were elsewhere. The post-lady, the cashier, the AA repairman, neighbours, passerbyers, and good old strangers.

Now this new 2022 birth, and a new freedom. As the crises started piling up—a pandemic, political turmoil, one wildfire after another, how do we find strength, vitality, and pragmatism. After road works and crippling fuel prices as well as shortages and personal loss – are we the same as usual, eager for the New Year?

By being told when to shop, work, and exercise as well as when to see other humans, you could easily have feet that you were in Alcatraz, a high security prison for the most dangerous of criminals. You can’t think your way to positivity, or put your blinders on, pretending you can’t see anything but love and light. But the world around you shouldn’t define your wellness.

Vitality is the feeling of aliveness and energy that lies at the core of well-being. Living with vitality means you’re able to greet the day with energy and feel that you can manage the unpredictable hassles and micro stressors that may come your way. This is a basic human need that defines our values, our relationships, and the things that give us pleasure, rather than guilt, shame, or productivity. We all deserve to be happy and comfortable no matter what.

Traumatic experiences we’ve had in our lives, be they emotional, physical, or spiritual are what create and dictate our habits to us. The global trauma of the the last two years caused stress to rise to an overwhelming level. We all said “Happy New Year” on January 1st 2020 with sincerity and innocent meaning without anticipating words like lockdown and isolation to wound the nation. But now, we decide how we want to see this year, how we want to operate and how we construct the comfort zone that we live in.

In my profession I witness death and bereavement sometimes multiple times a day. It’s heavy, but not everyone can process change healthily. If you’re at a breaking point or if you haven’t quite broken yet – hold on. Our actions often emerge out of that, you’ll often know that you need to make some change but don’t keep rejecting the opportunities for change because you’re not ready yet.

Something within us recognizes that the pattern we hold on to and perpetuate every day is so gloomy or nauseating that we can’t bear to continue. You may even imagine that making changes sounds harder than it is, but they’re quite simple. Figure out point A (where you are), figure point B (where you wanna be), and figure out the steps in between. But commit to doing them because you want to, which is totally different from just holding the idea in your mind.

This new year 2022,  gently pose questions—for example, “What are your assumptions about this year as a whole?” and “What are some events, or memories you’d like to make this year?” You can journal on pages where you fill in a blank, sketch or make a list. All that matters is that you’re open to seeing yourself honestly and without judgment—and there is no wrong way to do it.