My anniversary lands during the holidays, and it usually comes at a good time to take a break from our families, particularly in the first years where we came from out of town and were cooped up with everyone in one house. The two of us were talking about the new year, and about our ambivalence around setting new year’s goals or resolutions. It’s a good moment, with some time away from work and everyone seems to be talking about it at this time of year, but it’s also a complicated moment because we are usually pretty tired, and this time of year tends to lend itself towards more introspection. I think sometimes we, particularly Americans, confuse introspection with motivation to change, but when we talk about these seasons of growing self-awareness in therapy, we are actually more often inviting you to slow down and not rush towards change. Let it simmer. Get comfortable with all of the frustration that comes with a season of learning about yourself. Rushing towards “what needs to be different?” is actually a desire to get out of this uncomfortable place. For real change to happen, though, you need to understand it, and that doesn’t typically come quickly.
Katherine May, who writes poetry in prose, talks about the process of change that happens through the imagery of winter. She notes that change is often about developing a skill of listening to our sadness rather than avoiding it. But it takes time to understand what needs are emerging from that sadness. This is where we can confuse the need to get in shape for the new year with something far deeper, like our relationship with food in coping with our feelings, or the desire to be wanted, or our fear around aging. There’s nothing wrong with making decisions in working out or reading more books or even in setting goals. We just typically burn out quickly because we don’t always know the difference between the change we seek that is within our control and the things we might need to learn to love or care for within ourselves that will not change.
When we are young and looking up at the adults around us, many of us carry this belief (and some of us, for far too long) that when we are grown ups, we will have a sense of clarity around who we are and what we are doing. By most accounts, midlife is a marker of some version of being grown up, and the answers to this version of being grown-up still evade me regularly. I find that sturdiness is a better category over the certainty I imagined I would find in adulthood. Sturdiness isn’t a confidence that you are making the right choices or having everything figured out. It is more about the idea of grounding yourself in reality as it actually is, not as you wish it was. It’s about staying present in the complexity, limitation, and uncertainty and not running to immediately fix or escape them. Trying harder is often a way of avoiding grief rather than creating change. This is why January can feel so disorienting. It’s really normal to feel tired, to be more reflective, but then we exhaust ourselves further in pushing harder, rather than moving slower. Quick change tends to be real brittle - easy to break under any kind of pressure. Studiness, on the other hand, is built through acceptance and compassion. It’s not an acceptance that this is all there is, but one that does appropriately state, “this is where I am actually starting,” really looking inward at what you are carrying.
This isn’t just a pitch for therapy :). Ideally, therapy should offer this, though - a space to slow down and really get honest with yourself. We find that the folks who do come to us and stick with us are folks that are not looking for a quick fix (but most of us would still love that). If it isn’t therapy for you at this time, start with long walks (not runs) in the new year. Take baths. Sit in silence without a book or a screen. Start getting comfortable with yourself in this silence. Don’t write stuff down if you are someone that is always thinking about how you would sound if someone read your words. In the words of a dear friend after he had a near-death experience, “Don’t make this weird.” He knew there was something about the experience that was inviting him to reflect on himself, but he also understood his penchant for wanting to put everything into words on a page, and where this would take him out of the sacred season he was being invited towards. If you find that you are really uncomfortable with silence - take it slow. Try walking without Audible for 10 minutes, or taking a 5 minute bath. Notice what comes up and where your mind goes.
And as always, if you find that you don’t want to do this alone, but don’t have folks in your life that could go there with you, yes, that’s a good moment to consider therapy as one option to find your way through this.
