Every January, we’re met with a familiar wave of noise:
“New Year, New Me!”
“Start strong!”
“Make this your BEST year yet!”
But every year, the same quiet whisper rises in me — and maybe in you too:
I don’t want to perform transformation because it’s the new year. When transformation comes it will be because I am living and breathing it. And that rarely starts with making a bang and pushing for it at the start of a new year.
Because the new year doesn’t arrive in a vacuum. We enter it in winter in the northern hemisphere, that means nature is still in hibernation. The land is resting. The trees are bare. And our bodies — if we’re listening — are asking us to slow down, not speed up.
This season, I’m more interested in being present than being pushed into productivity.
I am more curious about how I’m feeling than what I am trying to force myself to achieve. I am more committed to softening into my life than pushing to fix it because that’s what we’ve been told we’re “supposed” to be doing right now.
🌱 What I am saying yes to as it’s new year:
– Honouring how far I’ve come
– Celebrating the wins, however quiet or unseen
– Reflecting on what really matters to me now
– Breathing into the possibilities of a new chapter
🔥 What I’m saying no to as it’s new year:
– Reinventing myself on cue
– Forcing energy I don’t feel
– Making myself wrong for needing rest
– Ignoring the very rhythms that help me bloom
🌱 What I am saying yes to as it’s new year:
– Honouring how far I’ve come
– Celebrating the wins, however quiet or unseen
– Reflecting on what really matters to me now
– Breathing into the possibilities of a new chapter
🔥 What I’m saying no to as it’s new year:
– Reinventing myself on cue
– Forcing energy I don’t feel
– Making myself wrong for needing rest
– Ignoring the very rhythms that help me bloomThere is wisdom in the stillness.
There is clarity in the pause.
There is permission in the breath.
If you’ve felt unsure about your direction… if the pressure to “start the year right” has felt heavy… or if your heart is whispering not yet — you are not broken. You are in perfect rhythm.
Your breath is a beginning. Every single time you inhale.
And when we begin from breath —
We begin from truth.
From resource.
From within.
So maybe 2026 goes like this instead:
Come as you are.
Start where you are.
Let your breath meet you there.
Because what if the gentlest way forward… is the most powerful one?