Consider a Gentle New Year

My daughter “goes hard” on the dance floor.

After every high school dance, she would come home slightly disheveled with a hoarse voice, looking like she had a great time. Her friends teased her about how she never left the dance floor (and she insisted they keep up with her).  I got to watch this in action at a family wedding this year, and let me tell you, it’s a sight to behold!

As moms, we can be a little bit like this during the holidays.

Who am I kidding, we do this all year long!

The holidays put our regular activity level on overdrive.

We roll up into the New Year often exhausted, but we muster the energy to take the tree down.

We hunker down with our list of resolutions, already making plans to go even harder the next year.

We beat ourselves up for the stuff we didn’t do and resolve to be better.

As a therapist, I am all for self-improvement, but might I suggest there is a gentler way to live?

I had a supervisor once who signed all of his emails, “live gently.”

If you knew him, you would love this even more, because he embodied this sentiment.

I learned so much from him, and not just about the art and science of counseling.

He challenged me to re-think some of the ways I interacted with the world. Let me just say, I was learning a lot of lessons about not catastrophizing my mistakes and walking back my perfectionist tendencies.

I had to learn how to not be so hard on myself, and the more I do this work I am learning that many women need to learn this lesson.

This world is hard on us.

(I am not saying this in a feminist way; the world is hard on men, too. But my practice is geared towards women, so that’s where my focus is.)

Many of us have personal life experiences that leave us struggling with people-pleasing and perfectionism.

I have written about how some of these mindsets create extra problems during the holidays.

They also leave us exhausted once the holidays are over, but there is no rest for the weary.

We often feel like we need to launch into perfecting our New Year’s Resolutions and immediately we immerse ourselves into intense striving to become the best version of ourselves.

It’s not a bad thing to be the best version of ourselves. 

It’s just that when we say this, we usually really mean we want to be “perfect” or “someone that nobody can criticize” or “someone who does all the things and does them well” and that comes with excessive effort, as well as harsh self-talk and often self-loathing.

Sometimes we may trade the rushing and striving of holiday busyness for the earnest endeavor of planning and goal-setting because we don’t know how to

just

be.

It may, in fact, feel unsafe to slow down.

If we have put our worth in what other people think of us, or in our own impossibly high standards, we don’t feel good enough if we are not constantly in motion, trying to be better.

It can be an unfamiliar feeling to rest, and we usually hate anything unfamiliar.

However, slowing down can often be the fastest way forward, and definitely a good way to practice being present in our lives with our loved ones.

What might it look like to be gentle with yourself this next year?

Maybe it looks like being realistic with the New Year’s Resolutions, for starters.

• Some people will come up with a word to guide their resolutions as a way to stay out of rigid expectations for themselves.

• You can also write out your goals and then go back and take a look at them through extremely realistic eyes and determine which ones are actually feasible. Maybe even invite a trusted friend to weigh in on this.

• Check out this past blog post for help in setting goals for the New Year.

It could look like giving yourself permission to do what you need to do to transition into the New Year.

• What needs do you have for your time? Energy? Emotions? Relationships?

  This might be a good time to consider self-care , especially if the holiday season left you feeling a little breathless.

  If you have complicated dynamics in your relationships (grief, estrangement, addiction, loss, etc.) you may have heightened needs for self-care during and after the holidays.

• Practically speaking, you may have extra needs related to the transition out of holiday-mode.

  Do you want to go ahead and un-decorate or leave the tree up for a while?

  Will you feel better if you get it all put away and back to “normal”?

  Maybe you want to get it all put away but just don’t have the energy to do it yet. Can you give yourself some time to just let it be so you can rest a little bit?

• Remember that self-care needs vary from person to person, and can vary with circumstances/seasons of life

  Does goal-setting actually help you or overwhelm you? Just because everyone seems to be doing it, doesn’t mean it will be effective for you. Same with weight loss and exercise programs and to-do lists, etc. Sometimes these things add pressure at a time when you are looking to relieve pressure.

  There is no one right way to slide into the New Year. You can ease into it or hit the ground running. You get to set the pace for your life.

Perhaps you might take some time to reflect on the ways you have grown in the past year.

Yeah, maybe you made some mistakes, could have handled some things better. 

Resist the urge to beat yourself up for past mistakes.

Instead, reflect on what you learned from that situation.

Mistakes are a way we learn and grow. They often show us what areas we may still want to work on to grow more.

If you need to take action to reconcile with someone or apologize, of course, do that, but allow yourself to move on.

Consider creating a gratitude list

It is easy to take the good things in our lives for granted, because it is so hard to slow ourselves down to really think about them.

• When thinking over the past year of life, let your mind rest on those things you can be thankful for.

  You may need to go back through your calendar month by month to remember what went on in your life.

  Look around your home, consider your relationships, any changes at work.

  Challenge yourself to find objects of gratitude, maybe in unexpected places.

• You may even want to jot a note to someone to express your gratitude.

Resist the urge to compare yourself to other people

What you need for this transition to the New Year is unique to you.

I know, it’s hard because people will be posting their #goals and fabulous photos of the amazing holidays they had. It is human nature to size ourselves up based on what we see in others.

But other people have different struggles, needs, resources, strengths, and weaknesses. There is never an actual equal comparison with anyone.

(And I am a counselor… I don’t use the word “never” lightly!)

Stay. In. Your. Lane.

This might look like:

• Taking a break from social media

• Taking time out of your day to remind yourself that you only see parts of someone else’s reality. They have struggles, too.

• Look at any goals or expectations you have set up for yourself like a detective trying to sniff out comparison. Did you choose any of those goals because you admire the way someone else has done something? Are you sure you really want to do that thing? Or do you just think you have to? Did you set that goal to try to measure up to someone else? Challenge yourself to really consider why you want to pursue that goal.

I am hoping this article finds you living gently as you welcome 2025.

As always, reach out if you need some help with this.

Jennie Sheffe is a National Certified Counselor ™ who helps women find freedom from anxiety and peace in their chaos. She sees clients virtually in the state of Pennsylvania, or in her Carlisle, PA office. She offers Christian counseling and EMDR Therapy.