New Year’s Resolutions
So we are now in 2019. The New Year is generally a reflective time and also a time when lots of people start making resolutions. Here at Mindful Therapies we decided to do something different – we practised gratitude.
All around us we are bombarded with messages telling us to make changes for the New Year. We are told to join Dry January and Veganuary. We are told to kick-start our new diet and exercise regimes. All of this is often based on a belief that in some way we are not good enough just as we are. Most of us then end of breaking our resolutions by the middle of January. So, we start the year with self recrimination and a sense of failure.
Gratitude versus resolutions
Instead of making resolutions, this New Year we have focused on gratitude. We will all have something to be grateful for when we reflect on 2018. And it is easy to overlook the positives of the year that’s been if we are too busy looking forward and deciding how things should be different in 2019. Of course 2018 may have been a difficult year for some but I hope it doesn’t sound too trite to say no matter how difficult the year may have been, there is always something to appreciate.
2018 started off quite challenging for me, with the difficult decision to end my marriage. However, I am incredibly grateful for the support I have received from family, friends and colleagues. I am grateful for the opportunity to be more authentic and honest with myself about what I want and what will make me happy. This has not always been easy.
Gratitude for 2018
Throughout 2018, Mindful Therapies has been settling into our new home in Newcastle City Centre. We have welcomed Happy Yoga and the centre is increasingly feeling like a mindfulness hub with a real sense of community. We are regularly being told that people who come to the centre feel safe and connected and I really appreciate and value the space that we have created.
Planting the seeds of gratitude for 2019
On New Year’s Eve 2018, Mindful Therapies ran a gratitude workshop in which we made gratitude jars. This is a really simple idea that I would really recommend. Simply decorate an old jar, such as a coffee jar, so that it looks beautiful. Then at the end of each day write down something that you are grateful for on a little piece of paper and place the paper in the jar. By next New Year you should have 365 little pieces of gratitude to read through and celebrate the year that’s gone by.
New Year’s resolutions are not bad in themselves. There’s nothing wrong with making positive changes. But let’s do it from a place of self kindness, self acceptance and self compassion. Let’s see positive changes as an act of self kindness rather than another stick to beat ourselves with. And maybe we will be more likely to stick to them!’
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