The Beauty in a New Year
Beyond Resolutions & Goals
Photo Credit: Evie Shaffer
At the start of the new year, we often immediately declare resolutions and goals. In this haste, we miss the time marvel over the true beauty in a new day, week, month, and year.
Perhaps one vehicle that can lead us down the road of seeing the beauty in a new year is self-care. With the new year comes more opportunity to indulge in self. In this process, there can be much accomplished in the areas of loving yourself deeper, having more time to heal, and having the chance to paint on a fresh canvas of the new year. If you will join me on this textual journey, i'd like to share a few ways that I feel we can find beauty in a new year.
Photo Credit: Loe Moshkovska
The Chance to Love Yourself Deeper
POV: The clock strikes midnight of a new year and before the year even gets into a full minute you have already outlined the resolutions and the goals that you would like to implement.
Rarely during this minute by minute exchange into the new year is there time spent exploring deeper love for yourself. The beauty of a new year is that we have a chance to love ourselves deeper than ever. A new opportunity for beyond surface level, true, and deep love. Now, this may not look like a #SelfCare or #SelfCareSunday ad on TV or social media. However, actual self love may encompass healing, building self trust/worthiness, and overall comfort in being who you are. It is not to say that resolutions and goals are not important. They certainly are. However, what fuel do you use to reach those goals and resolutions? I believe that deeper self-love is one of the most beautiful ways and forms of fuel you can use to propel the vehicle of self-care towards your goals and resolutions.
Examples of Ways to Love Yourself Deeper: Romanticize your life, make more space to treat yourself to experiences you love, take baths and expand your decadent self-care routines, spend more time with people you love, create a schedule for a work-life balance that brings more joy, and/or decorate your living space to reflect an environment that nourishes your soul.
Photo Credit: Lalezarfa
More Time to Heal
POV: You have a clear idea of how you'd like to achieve your goals in 2024 but no clear understanding of how unhealed wounds may impede your success.
The process of healing may not always look or feel beautiful, but the beauty is in the journey itself. In a new year there are possibilities for you to ignite healing in ways that you have not in the previous year. Life is a continually evolving journey, and although socially, we are more accepting of healing, self work, shadow work and self-care--there’s always opportunities to take it one step further. Even further, you might not consciously understand how a lack of healing serves as a road block for reaching those resolutions and goals. The beauty of a new year is such that it’s another opportunity to really go within and allow yourself healing for things that have happened throughout your life that perhaps you diverted healing or self-medicated to survive. It’s not about bashing yourself on missed opportunities to heal, it is about allowing grace and using this new opportunity for going deeper in your soul and life to heal those wounds as best you can. Although healing shouldn’t be initiated just for the sake of achieving goals and resolutions, the process of healing might help you achieve them sooner than later. It should be noted that healing is not a race--it doesn’t have to happen in January or within 2024. In fact, the process and impact of healing may span over the course of the next few years. Trust me, your inner self will have much gratitude for you taking steps in the present toward the future of healing.
Examples of Ways to Initiate Healing: Initiate or continue with therapy, make space to feel your emotions and/or cry about past experiences, provide yourself a safe space within to examine your coping methods and how you'd like to evolve, write your thoughts on paper so that you can clear space in your mind, and/or spend time resting and in nature to allow for truly processing your emotions in a gentle environment.
Photo Credit: Andrea Piacquadio
A Fresh Canvas to Paint
POV: You're delighted about the new year but approaching this new space with old mindsets and visions that don't serve you.
Our minds have been trained to look at a new year as a fresh start. As a visual artist, it always helps me to visualize this new time as a blank canvas that is waiting for me to paint and structure. In this period of renewal, there’s a chance for you to reset some of your mind frames and thought processes. In doing so, you can truly paint the new picture of life that you want on the fresh canvas of the new year. Mindset is very critical to how you see yourself and your future. I do believe that loving yourself deeper and allowing deeper healing are two ways that flow right into your mindset and how you go about conquering or achieving your goals and resolutions. I want to reiterate that I don’t suggest rushing to make growth and development happen immediately at the start of a new year. However, allow time for these methodologies to unfold in your life in such a way that the energy is deep, refreshing, and impactful. This way you can carefully choose and decide how to paint your new year and life.
Examples of Ways to Embrace Your Fresh Canvas: Dream of the life or type of work you'd like to do, use the those feelings and dreams to outline steps toward that life/work, allow freedom to imagine your life's painting beyond the constraints of society, create affirmations that help you achieve your dreams, and/or cultivate an environment that nourishes the dreams you have for you fresh canvas (including people, environments, and experiences).
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There are many ways in which you can use all of these examples, both in outward and inward expression. Outwardly, for instance, you can hire a therapist or continue therapy, exercise, go on hikes, and/or spend more time with friends and family. Inward expression could be practiced moments of solitude, meditation, journaling, and of course, self-care. At OMandP self-care includes the use of decadent products that promote healing for your skin and also ignite vibrations of healing in your moments of cleansing and solitude.
Coconut Mimosa Wooden Wick Candle
Remember 2024 has not been experienced by any of us before, this year, time, and space is completely new to all of us. We are all on a journey of growth and self expiration at many levels and varying degrees together. Allow yourself grace and room to evolve without judgment, so that you can witness the beauty in a new year. We hope that you achieve deeper self love, true healing, and a brilliant mindset so that you can paint your life as we move into this new time territory in the way that you best see it.
Cheers to the beauty in a New Year! Cheers to 2024! 🎊
About the Author
Candace Parrish, Ph.D. is the founder of Odelia, Marie, & Patrice–a vegan and sustainable self-care brand–and a Visiting Assistant Professor of Public Relations at the University of North Carolina–Wilmington.
Contact Information
Email: Candace@OMandPatrice.com