After the drama, isolation, and challenges of 2021, I am seeing a lot of cartoons and memes questioning whether a new year is welcome or not. The year 2020 collapsed around us and, when we looked forward to 2021, the New Year didn’t embrace us with a clean slate, but rather held us in unease, isolation, and, for many, illness. When light finally flickered in the distance, it was inconsistent. And it still is.
But we will flip our calendars, and they will say “2022.” How do we step, or tip-toe, into the new year in a way that supports how we want to be and what we dream of doing? A new year is always a bit uncertain, but 2022 seems to be asserting that one can’t actually know anything.
Is this really true? As some of you are beginning to appreciate, I am currently called to a place of “just being” and “not doing.” This is perhaps not the best place from which to offer unsought advice about planning — although it does allow for dreaming. Indeed, in other years, my suggestion on entering the new year has been to name one’s dreams.
I’m still sure that resolutions are a recipe for New Year’s failure. As I sit here I find myself trying to remember what I really wanted for 2021 as I watch others explore their hopes for 2022.
So I just reread my introduction to 2021. There it is. My underlying place, dream, or feeling was for “expansiveness,” which sounds appropriately vague. However, in looking back through my posts my place of not doing, but rather simply being, has allowed my 2016 dream of moving to the West Coast to dramatically materialize. Plus, at least intellectually, the move relates to the yearning I wrote about in that 2021 introduction for Spirit Moxie to expand its influence. How will this continue to unfold? I don’t know yet.
For 2022, I have been honored to watch my friend Cindy wrestle with her plan for the new year. Unlike me, but perhaps like you, she likes lists, but knows if she is too specific in her list of goals they will run her rather than support her. Plus she has reminded me about claiming a word for the New Year. In 2016, I offered “dream” as a word – and while the dream’s mentioned didn’t all happen in that year, they pretty much have all happened since then. Cindy’s word for 2021 was “patience,” perhaps essential for many as we addressed or didn’t address COVID. For 2022, she is considering “balance” as her word. As an all or nothing kind of person, balance, for her sounds challenging, comforting, and supportive.
I’ve been living with the word “dream” for a long time. But this year, having given up concrete goals, my word is “curious.” I’m curious about how things are for you, what my new life will look like, what’s next for Sprit Moxie. I’m curious about my next breathe. I’m sprinkling this curiosity with “joy” and “delight,” words which offer me comfort and challenge as I continue to claim gratitude and positivity.* These are intentions rather than goals and feel supportive.
Take some time for yourself. What supports you? Lists? Dreams? Intentions? Plans? Goals? Responsibilities? A combination? Remember, this is something that nurtures you, not what you think you should be doing. What challenges and comforts you? What helps you feel freer? It will be different for you. Unique. Not Cindy’s or mine.
Now claim what you see. Give thanks for who and what you are. Know that 2022 is yours.
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*I’m including a link here to a very short video on ‘pronoia” that was the introduction to December 2021’s Corner of Calm. Pronoia is the belief everything is working in your favor.
Images from the top:
2022 Meme — adapted by Spirit Moxie
B’s new view of Mt. Hood, Oregon, USA — Spirit Moxie
Happy 2022 — Canva
Love this one, B. Thank you!