Happy New Year!
I hope you had a good end to your year.
I started my year with a short fast to clear my mind, long walks in the park and meditation with a baby strapped to my chest.
There are no big plans, no big goals or resolutions. No overarching vision or game plan.
And it feels…just right.
For years I was obsessed with journaling and writing out a plan. But I came to see journaling as another form of procrastination, hijacked by my monkey-mind and never-enough mentality.
The so-called “self-reflection” time was just me jumping around and thinking of all the things I wanted to do, instead of just taking a pause to ask the deeper questions.
Today is different. Today I am not making a list. Today I ask the question: what can I let go of?
Overextended and Unfulfilled
Most of us are already doing way too much. Adding more stuff to our plate rarely leads to happiness...and more likely leads to burnout.
An article in the Economist summed up the reason we get burnout: we don’t know how to just do nothing.
Those moments where we idly stare out the window, read a 500-page book by the beach, or go for a long stroll seem to be long gone. They’ve been replaced by a constant need to be productive or plugged in.
There are a million things you could be doing. Most of the things won’t make you any happier. The illusion is that achieving the next thing will bring us satisfaction, but we know that it only does so momentarily.
The most valuable skill I’ve learned is how to calm my mind and let go of this FOMO that is so prevalent. Changing my baseline happiness means stopping and not chasing. In turn, the feeling of ‘time pressure’ has receded to the background.
An Alternative Approach
What if this New Year you stopped adding more goals and to-do lists, and instead asked what you could let go of?
What would you let go of? Bad habits? Emotional baggage? The need to control everything? Perfectionism? Ego? Procrastination? Reactivity? Toxic relationships? Stuff you don't need? Stories that no longer serve you?
Imagine if you did and the freedom that would open. Letting go of things we don't need can give us the breathing room and energy to do the things we really want to do.
Funny enough, when you let go of things, this space opens up naturally. The things you really wanted to do unfold before you and become effortless.
That doesn’t mean you never set goals. It means that you focus on the internal process of letting go and simplifying your life. The less stuff you have clogging your pipes, the more freely you flow.
This year I let go of trying to be right. Not only that, but the idea that there is a right or wrong. There are only different perspectives. In turn, this has reduced my need to be involved in other people’s lives unnecessarily.
If you haven’t already, take a moment to think about what is no longer serving you. What can you let go of?
Let the Fire Breathe
I leave you with a poem by Judy Brown called Fire on the value of allowing this breathing space - this oxygen - in our lives.
"What makes a fire burn
is space between the logs,
a breathing space.
Too much of a good thing,
too many logs
packed in too tight
can douse the flames
almost as surely
as a pail of water would.
So building fires
requires attention
to the spaces in between,
as much as to the wood.
When we are able to build
open spaces
in the same way
we have learned
to pile on the logs,
then we can come to see how
it is fuel, and absence of fuel
together, that make fire possible.
We only need lay a log
lightly from time to time.
A fire grows
simply because the space is there,
with openings
in which the flame
that knows just how it wants to burn
can find its way."
Fire - Judy Brown
Thanks for reading! Feel free to comment below. :)
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