Happy New Year! This year a single word is my New Year’s resolution, my intention for 2026, and my word of the year. The word is YES. You could say I came to this resolution the hard way and I'm grateful that I did. After years of challenging, painful, and scary life events, I have learned that these events themselves are not what causes me the most suffering. What sucks the life out of everything is my resistance to what is happening. So, mostly because I have learned the hard way that NO cripples the soul, I am all in as I greet this new year with a resounding YES.
Several months ago, after flipping through an old family photo album, a friend looked at me and asked, "What happened to you?" I won't lie. His joke stung. But do you remember the old story, The Velveteen Rabbit? Like that little toy rabbit, what happened to me is that I became "real" or loved. From that perspective, I hope life keeps showing up on my face for years and years to come.
"It's me. I'm the problem. It's me." Taylor Swift has a point. 99% of the time, fighting what is happening to us causes more suffering than what is happening. If we can stop resisting, rejecting, and refusing whatever we fear, a surprising peacefulness washes over us. We find ourselves free to live our way through it - which is always much less awful than worrying about it was.
Do you remember the Twilight books? I've never forgotten when Bella says, “Without the darkness, we’d never see the stars.” This month when the hours of daylight are outweighed by darkness, it's good to remember to look up and count the metaphorical stars shining in the moments of your day to day life.
Some years it is easy to count my Thanksgiving blessings. Some years it isn't. No matter the struggle, I have found that there are moments that I wouldn't change. Noticing these is the key to a thankful heart.
We all have them - moments that forever demarcate before and after. In these defining moments, we have a choice. We can cling to what was - working desperately to get back to normal. Or we can choose to be curious - wondering about the possibilities of what lies ahead. It is a choice that will make all the difference in the way we experience our lives.
I love laughing and expect you do too. But did you know that laughing is more than just good fun? It can instantly sooth your worries and make you a better learner too.
What happens in your head when you sit or lie down to rest? Are you, like me, making lists? Maybe repeating those lists over and over so you don't forget when you stand up? Are you so busy wondering if you've had enough rest that you're hardly resting at all? Why do so few of us not know how to truly rest? Resting both requires and teaches us to be where our body is. Being fully present like this is a skill that is really hard for us, but that makes us much happier people.
Five years ago, I began to practice a pace of life that Matthew McConaughey calls a saunter. A slower pace and less jam-packed days feel a hundred times better than my whirling dervish of a busy life ever did. Living this way takes work, but it has been well worth the effort.
