New Year, New Offerings

And soft launching my newest endeavor!

• Membership price for the newsletter will increase on February 1, so if you’ve wanted to join the community, 2x Zoom community discussions, upcoming book club, and get the monthly guided meditation, full essays, reflections, and content, do so now! You can lock in the price you have even when the price increases! I have so many exciting things in store here in the new year!

• Mark your calendars for the upcoming paid subscriber community conversations over Zoom: January 7th, January 21st, Feb 4th, Feb 18th — all at 6pm ET (we are trying a new time slot for the first couple of months).

Happy New Year! Anddddd happy birthday to me :) If you want to learn a bit about me, check out my recent Instagram post.

browngirltherapy

A post shared by @browngirltherapy

This time of year always feels doubly overwhelming for me. In general, I think that many of us use birthdays and the new year as motivational milestones. These are days where we feel especially motivated to change our behavior, and this has actually been researched to be known as the Fresh Start Effect. These new beginnings can feel like a new page. For me, I literally buy a new journal and planner, and the feeling of having a blank slate allows me to feel like the past is the past, and I have more control over what I want for my future.

Temporal landmarks, or these significant dates that we use to structure time, allow us to breathe a sigh of relief and let go of whatever happened in the past — what we didn’t do, what we didn’t finish (or even start), and what we didn’t say. They encourage us to have self-compassion. It’s okay, you can try again. You can change your mind. You can move forward from this.

In short, this time of year reminds us that we can psychologically separate between what has been and what can be.

Of course, this is not the case for everyone (as the research I linked to above also suggests). Since my birthday and new year’s day are one and the same, I often feel a lot of pressure to get it just right and sometimes this is paralyzing and overwhelming more than anything.

This year, though, something was different. I treated New Year’s Day/my birthday like any other day — and I think lowering my expectations and giving myself grace to just be a person, helped me take the pressure off.

There isn’t just one day out of the year we can be, do, change, pivot, pause, start over. There are always going to be endeavors and relationships and situations that can't be tied nicely with a bow and packaged away to indicate a clear end. This isn't an indication of failure or falling behind. Progress is not linear, nor should we hold ourselves within the confines of this idea that growth is solely an upward trajectory. Allow yourself to grow out. Allow yourself to grow in. Allow yourself to root.

These calendar markers can be the reset many of us need, but for some it can feel like a reminder that we didn’t finish what we wanted to.

The most important part of every day is that you keep on keeping on. You’re doing great.

You can make a change anytime, but you have to be honest with yourself about if you’re ready

Here are some clues that you may need to make a change in your life:

• You feel stuck and trapped — in a relationship, in a job, in a place

• Increasingly getting irritable or resentful (which is the key indicator that boundaries need to be put in place)

• You find yourself daydreaming about other paths/opportunities or fantasizing about living a completely different life.

• You may even find yourself being increasingly jealous or envious of others who are doing things you want/would like to do

• You may be experiencing a life transition or loss that catalyzes you into having to make a change but you’re not sure how or what to do

• You’re experiencing cognitive dissonance or a misalignment between your values and your behaviors, relationships, career, etc

• You may be experiencing burnout, or physical symptoms like lethargy or headaches

This month, we will talk about preparing to make a change, the stages of change, how to know if you are really ready (and what that even means), and how you can actually make the changes you want.

New Offerings!

Instead of creating an endless list of New Year's resolutions that I will naturally not complete, I always choose one word that will be my word, my way of life, for the year to come. This year, my word is TRUST. This feels the most apt for me right now as I figure out what life looks like after publishing my first book.

I have some exciting new things I am deciding to lean into that I have been brainstorming and working on behind the scenes. These include really nurturing this Substack community space with a quarterly book club, private chats, more ways to connect with me and each other, and….. paid subscribers will get exclusive access to bonus content for my upcoming podcast!!!

About my upcoming podcast