Balms for New Year’s Anxiety, Wicked Fever & Learning To Love Yourself
& Some Updates :)
Balms for New Year’s Anxiety
Hands up if you’re feeling the New Year Anxiety right now? The confusing Christmas-aftermath and the panicked sense that things must be done. Rest achieved. Productivity achieved. Sorting your life out. Some kind of savouring, reflecting…the need to vision board has never been higher and the sense of panic around it, visceral (I may be exaggerating for effect). Well you’re in good company here. So here are some thoughts to help soothe that anxiety and remind us that there is no need to rush. There is no need to do it all. Or any of it, even. That actually, we can let ourselves be, however we are - no need to ‘achieve’ anything.
Think of the Roman god Janus. There is no rush.
I was relieved when I learnt that the name of the month January comes from Janus, the Roman god of beginnings, endings, duality and transition. He is depicted as having two heads - one looking forward and one looking backwards. So in this betwixtmas-end-of-year period of anticipation, I like to remember that actually there is a whole month (January) dedicated to looking back and looking forwards, and we don’t have to feel pressure to have done so before 1st January rolls around. (We don’t have to feel pressure to do it at all, in fact! But some of it can be nice).
(Image from Wikipedia - By Marie-Lan Nguyen (2009), CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8962565)
Give yourself a break.
The festive period, with all its delights, can bring a whole load of challenging feelings with it. Most of us are likely to need a bit of time just to unwind, process and settle, afterwards. Whether or not you’ve spent time with loved ones, or spent time alone, it’s pretty normal to have had to navigate some challenging emotions and dynamics as you’ve moved through this period of time. Whether it’s about dealing with loss of people no longer with us, or happy or sad memories from festivities past, or dealing with tensions, conflicts and politics around gatherings, it’s a lot. So maybe this period of time is just for landing - for letting ourselves savour the wonderful and process the not-so-wonderful, free from pressures to do anything else. Give yourself permission to - as much as you can - attend to your own needs, and focus on soothing and feeling held.
I’ve caught Wicked fever and I don’t care who knows it. Actually no, I’d like as many people to know as possible, to increase our chances of breaking into song together! And in that clip, starring actor Cynthia Erivo talks movingly about an incredible moment in the film, where her character realises that she has to take the young version of herself along with her in order to heal and connect with her own power. She tells us how, as an actor, she realised that she needed to do that herself in order to be able to do it as the character. And that the 100 people in the room as they filmed it helped her to do that, too. I found that really inspiring, and such a beautiful reminder that we need to take our young selves with us as we develop and grow, and that the communities we surround ourselves with help us to do that too. So I hope you’re getting to connect with loved ones who support that in you as well.
I feel very appreciative of the communities around me that help me to do that, so - thank you!
Updates
Leaflets!
Some of you will have seen my scribbled-down first draft of a leaflet promoting my coaching (under the new heading of Self-Compassion Coaching*). Well, I now have designed, printed and distributed these in various places in South London (photos below). Since coaching is a hard thing to describe, I’m offering a free ‘Confidence & Clarity Session’ as a way to introduce people to this kind of coaching - including you, if you’re interested! I’d love as many people as possible to engage with this, so if you know anyone who might be interested, please send them this booking link.
*A quick explainer of this - I decided recently to title my coaching work ‘self-compassion coaching’ after a long while of recognising that self-compassion is the magic ingredient that enables meaningful change to happen. In coaching, you can let parts of you be seen and expressed that you otherwise feel scared to let out. The beauty of the coaching space means that you have support in being able to create space for those parts to be held and offered compasion. Ultimately, you end up developing new ways of relating to those parts of you that harnesses their strengths without fearing being overwhelmed by them. You end up building compassion for these hurting parts. (Does all of that make sense? I’m not sure if I’m being too jargon-y here.)
In 2023-24 I studied Internal Family Systems (IFS), which similarly recognises that in order to heal and change, we need to be able to attend to all the different parts of ourselves in a compassionate way - recognising that while some of our patterns of thoughts, behaviours and feelings can feel difficult, these ones are usually coming from a place of fear and pain, and therefore need love and care. And curiosity to understand why they’re acting as they are. They need to feel held and supported. Once we do that - allowing ourselves to feel however we feel - we suddenly become free to move forwards, becoming unstuck from the murkiness of the suppressed feelings. It is like Carl Rogers apparently said (he is one of the founders of humanistic psychotherapy, who I also quoted in a recent article for the Life Coach Directory): ‘The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.’
And you can view and share the leaflet in full by clicking here.
Life Coach Directory Article - Why Learning To Love Yourself Can Be Harder Than You Think
Last week, I had an article published on the Life Coach Directory website, on some of the challenges we encounter when trying to develop self-love. In it, I explore three well-intentioned things that get in the way of learning to love ourselves. Please read and share, and I’d love to hear your thoughts!