Suddenly Emerging With Grace

  Looking back is something that I do quite frequently, I don't sit and dwell on the past, it's more of a self reflective thing. I do this when I find myself in situations that didn't turn out so well, where it either ended in hurt words or hurt feelings, and this is not limited to my feelings but also the other people that are a part of the situation. And I feel like it being the beginning of the year, there's this universal feeling that everyone shares. You know the one, where everyone sits and reflects upon all that has happened in the year that has just passed. And if you're on any or all of the different types of social media there is, than you are sure to receive that notification "year end review," that shows you literally all of the things it deems as important that you've posted on that social media. Aside from literally seeing all of that, we go to our own metaphorical table of life and lay everything down as good or bad and everything else in between. And once we are done labeling everything, we then take everything apart so that we may break it all down to, "I did this and it turned out great so I need to do things this way more," or "this went terribly wrong so I'm not gonna do that, that way anymore." We try to simplify our lives in those situations saying what we will and won't do the next time this happens. And yeah, sure we may run into the same problems again in the future and we may even feel that we are stuck because we find ourselves in the same situations. And if you just so happen to find yourself waiting for the new year to reflect upon everything and make changes than that's probably a main point of where this stagnation that you're feeling may lie.
  I'm not sure if it's a part of our culture or society in which either one or both of them tell us, "okay, the new year is approaching so you need to make a list of all of the stuff you need to have together in your life because everyone else is doing the same thing and we all need to have our shit together at the same time." Totally disregarding that we all have our own pace in which we achieve certain goals that we set for ourselves, but because of this unwritten rule in which we all seem to follow suit in, there we go, grasping for things because everyone else is doing it. Which leads me to believe that this is a major set up for failure and that is why a lot of new year's resolutions aren't kept. These promises are only made at the beginning of the year because everyone else is doing it. And once the first few months of the year have passed, all of these promises you've made to yourself are thrown out the window and you're back at square one. Then, you start hearing those familiar conversations coming out of everyone's mouths, "oh yeah, I stopped trying because (insert excuse here), I'll do better and try again next year." We just assume that we have another year to start over and do things right the next year. I feel like a lot of us get stuck in this cycle of thinking and when things don't go as we plan them to we completely abandon ship and don't look back until the next year. We all get caught up in this cycle in one form or another, I'm guilty of doing this too. But I think it's time that we all break this continuous cycle of failed and unkept promises to ourselves. I want to be a reminder, to anyone reading this, to give yourself some grace. Life hardly ever goes as we plan it to, I mean, what would life be if it did go exactly as we planned it to?? We all must keep trying and keep striving to do our best, quitting isn't going to get any of us anywhere. Things will not get any easier if all we do is quit at the first sign of trpuble. And so when you allow yourself grace, you allow your narritives to change as well. Now I'm not saying that whatever situation that didn't work out isn't going to hurt. I'm saying that you will be able to see the situation for whatever it is, identify what went wrong and take this new founded knowledge with you so that the next time that you run into a similar situation, you are able to do things differently and not just give up or give in the same way that you did the last time around. Allowing this introspection will give you more acceptance of your faults and less contempt with feeling stuck in whatever situation is at hand.
  Remember, we can change our narritives at anytime or occasion we see fit. When we learn to implement this new way of thinking, we allow healthy growth into our lives, evolving us into better versions of ourselves throughout the year and not just the beginning of it!!!