January 2025 Hook: 
MEANINGFUL CHANGE

We’ve arrived again. The New Year, yet another reminder that there are a bazillion and one ways to be better, healthier, smarter, more present, and obviously more attractive. It feels good doesn't it? To consider the idea that if we followed x, y, z, our world would be measurable and the unknown would be contained.

Oh, to be contained. That feeling gets more desirable the older I get, but also more painful. I’m not as good as bending nowadays or contorting myself into a tight squeeze for some benefit beyond my grasp. But, I want fences around disaster and around the unpredictable more than ever. I’d prefer to avoid all the stuff that can be filed under “Will need a therapist” or “Probably unsolvable” or “Will need a third job” or “If only”. I want to just live a normal messy life, whatever that means.

Which is why it’s always so tempting this time of year to convince myself that despite knowing better, I ought to buy that supplement and try that meditation program and plan for that retreat and take up that hobby and do that trendy exercise and eat that food. It’s the great disguise of the New Year, which has been hijacked by a lot of businesses who know we’re vulnerable. But, it’s only hiding the reality that we’re all struggling to process time and all that gets lost even though we are doing our best every day of the year. 

So much gets lost, doesn't it? I just don’t understand, then, why New Year’s isn’t a really beautiful memorial service of a month. Why don’t we just say some eulogies and cry some big fat tears and feel all the feels and then make some meaning out of it all?

I don’t know about you, but I love to distract myself from this and also simultaneously feel like I am doing something very productive and very important, perhaps even deep. And nothing better than lofty goals and disciplined self-care to do just that. It’s like a group of soldiers in my brain are like, that’s the spirit, keep your chin up, armor up, forward march. But, then the little kid in me is like, waitttttttttt, I don’t wanna. 

The little kid in me. Whew. I wonder what she would say right now, in the New Year? I wonder what she would need? Is she sitting in the mud, with her fingernails dirty from making onion grass pie and knees scraped from climbing up a tree, saying, gosh, I sure do wish my future grown up self would find a way to get more contained and more disciplined and to avoid feeling the mud? 

I just don’t think she would. I am pretty sure my little me would want something else. Something that lights her up and creates a sense of wildness, all of which would need her to feel safe at the same time. She would want someone to hold her hand and help her breathe deeply, deeply enough that her attention could sit with the sunset and the bugs under the log and the music in her house and paint on her brush and the heavy blankets as she sleeps. 

My life is so far away from these things. It just is. And I know that this is a middle aged existence and I am not angsty about this reality’s obligations, but I do wonder sometimes if I am choosing a path that leads me towards or away from little me? And if I am moving away, then perhaps January is a good time of the year to focus on meaningful change.

Meaningful change. This focus demands a willingness to jump off the train of self betterment and just watch it go by. The people on it look so busy and so euphoric, it’s hard to let it go. But, I’m going to do that and then sit on the ground and just take a beat. I’m going to ask myself what can I do to head in the direction of what I know to be true about me, what’s been true all along? 

You can join me on Mon, Jan 6th in avoiding the resolution train, if you’d like. I’ll be here all month in our January 2025 Hook, in which I’ll be showing up every day with you for a 5 minute workout, considering what it means to focus on meaningful change this New Year. During this month, you will also get a weekly podcast focused on one area of what I am learning. And, best of all, there is a community of fellow members that will be active along with you, each day.

All you have to do from here is register and then I will be sending you an email on Sun, Jan 5th with all the goods and how to access the challenge content.

To register for The Jan 2025 Hook: Meaningful Change, you’ll simply go to this post in the community and then click “Join”. If that link is acting grumpy, you can find the January Challenge in the community, it will be on top of the page underneath “pinned posts”. Click on it and then click on “join”.