Last January I rang in the new year with a very personal post about self-change, Come Home to Yourself in the New Year. It was about self-discovery and positive self-talk and alcohol and demons… well, you get the idea. It was a shameless confession of all the dark corners and crevices in my life that need to be swept clean. I’m happy to report that I spent a lot of 2019 sweeping. And this year is out with the old.
Most importantly, I broke up with alcohol. No, I don’t use a phone app that tallies my days of sobriety, and I don’t post pictures of sunsets with 100 days today captions on social media. In fact, I still have an occasional glass of wine. But my thinking is different. Alcohol has lost importance in my life.
I’ve also given up diet sodas, and I have a love affair with my big-ass water bottle. And (brace yourself for this one) I joined not only one gym but two. One is a yoga studio. I always place my mat in the farthest corner from every other human in the room because I’m not flexible and I breathe heavily and make weird noises and sometimes curse. But I love wearing those cute little yoga pants and keeping a mat in the back of my car like I’m a die-hard fitness guru.
2020, however, still beckons me to face some hard truths, admit some stubborn flaws, and continue this trajectory of growth. In other words, there’s still a lot of shit to fix in my life. But isn’t that what makes life interesting? Challenging ourselves to do better? To be better? So my focus this year is about letting go. You can’t fill your life with tons of new things without throwing out of some of the old. It’s physics, really. And to make room for positive change, I’m learning that it is natural – even necessary – to throw out some of the old. Worry. Negative self-talk. Toxic relationships. (Not gluttonous heaping bowls of ice cream, though. Keeping those.)
I’m constantly reminded of a quote I came across on Pinterest. Embrace wholeness, not perfection. It’s okay to not dust the baseboards weekly. It’s okay to serve only vegetables and call it a meal. It’s okay to turn off the worrying button about your child and rest in the knowledge that he will learn necessary lessons from his own mistakes. And it’s okay to pull back from a friendship that doesn’t inspire you.
resources:
My all-time, life-changing favorite water bottle. (This is an affiliate link; as an Amazon associate I earn from qualifying purchases. See disclosure here.)
Here’s to a wonderful new year!
