New Year: Honor
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If you did take some time to reflect recently, you may have noticed some trends. In your energies, moods, choices, behaviors, habits, perceptions, experiences, communities, activities, etc. Maybe you noticed some habits that need a little tweaking or some people who need a little distancing. Perhaps you noticed what specific things you were most drawn to reminiscing about and would like to incorporate more of into your upcoming year?
While reflecting is mostly focused on the act of noticing, the next step in the process is all about the act of honoring. Honoring our past, current, and future selves is a critical step in making improvements in our lives without feeling like we’re tying ourselves into knots in the process.
We need to begin by honoring the past version of ourselves for showing up in the best way we could, with what we knew, at the time. Honor our past self for making it through another year. For showing up. For not breaking down. For doing that one thing or not doing that other one.
Whatever you have to personally celebrate about your experience. Honor that shit, hard. Honor who you used to be. Honor the person who showed up to get you where you are today. Be sure to give yourself credit for all the shit that didn’t go wrong and give yourself credit for the way you handled all the shit that did. Don’t ever stop giving yourself credit for every single moment you’re alive — simply because you’re DOING IT and that’s enough. The you that did the big thing deserves her flowers, but the you didn’t give up deserves a fuck ton of credit, too.
We also need to be sure to honor our future selves by paying attention to what we’re drawn to. Identifying our current values becomes easier when we’re able to answer: what do we feel excited about? What are we most motivated by? Or most inspired to become? Is there an underlying reason why we feel so drawn to those things? Is there a common thread? By addressing and being able to recognize what steers us, we can begin to align ourselves with the things we really want and not lose ourselves in the countless distractions that always seem to interfere with our becoming.
We also need to be sure to honor our current selves by not jumping too quickly into what we see as our future selves. Real growth and real change takes time. It took us decades to get from the ABC’s to reading magazines. It took us years to get from crawling to walking and I’m in my thirties and still struggle.
Let yourself have the space it actually takes to learn, grow, and become. Be open to challenge but patient with yourself in the process. Resistance is required for building strength, but so is the rest period that follows. Focus on the enjoying the process and the product will simply be a cherry on top of the reality you’ve created.
If we honor our current selves by understanding what we need in the moment without disregarding who we’d like to embody in the future, we make bridging the gap between the two, much simpler. Next steps become more obvious, and we are less likely to exhaust ourselves by misdirecting energy to places we are not or don’t want to be.
I ended yesterday by saying: We can’t change what we don’t see but I wanna add: change isn’t just about seeing, it’s about honoring. Honoring the people we are, the people we were, and the people we are becoming. You’ve done so fucking much, just don’t forget to let yourself feel good about that shit.
