Welcoming the New Year with Courage and Self-Compassion
Happy New Year! Bringing in a New Year means saying goodbye to old and welcoming the new. During the winter break, our families took the opportunity to step outside the comfort of the familiar- one traveled to a new city, the other back to a place that was once home. Both needed courage- courage to try something new and unknown and courage to face a new reality. The beauty (and fortune) of both was that our journeys and challenges weren’t faced alone. We each shared our experiences with loved ones by our side.
The winter break gave us each time and space to reflect, count our blessings, and consider our hopes for the year ahead. As we anticipate the opportunities and welcome the hopes that come with a new year, we often make resolutions- usually promising to do or not do certain things. If you haven’t yet done so, take time to consider how you want to live, feel, love, and parent in the year ahead. Think about the ways you enjoy being of service to others. Plan who or what you will connect or reconnect with in the coming months. Make time to contemplate what you want to or will attempt, dare, dream or expect to do this coming year.
This year, we are encouraging each other to be mindful of our perspective and how it shapes the life we live. We hope to make more time and space for the things and people we love and things we enjoy. We are thinking about how we want to feel, act or behave, and think. In setting, sharing and working on our intentions, we model for our kids ways to create their lives. We can help them see that we build a life of meaning through the choices we make, the opportunities we seize, the relationships we foster, and the people we work to become.
We’ve learned much and been inspired by many articles in the Greater Good Magazine, and wanted to share "The Top 10 Insights from the “Science of a Meaningful Life” in 2017. We love to learn and work to apply what we’ve been learning into our own lives. As we embrace the new year, we invite you to practice more self-compassion. We, our kids, and our world need more of it as we move forward with our lives. We also can not create a better world without it.
In the year ahead, we will continue to share with you. We’ve now made the resources that have been highlighted in our letters accessible and easy to find (ConnectBeWell.org).
Celebrating being perfectly imperfect,
