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I will not start my year with toxic positivity.

I will not start my year with ignoring every feeling of sadness, numbness, despair, incapacity, and whatnot.

I will not say the past year has been the best, nor the easiest, but I will say that I have learned so damn much in the past couple of years—like handling whatever comes my way and slaps me in the face, and whatever breaks my feet and lays me down on the ground.

You have been hard, 2020/2021. You have been challenging, nerve-racking, and most of all, character defying.

I will not thank you for happening, but I will thank you for the healthy resilience that I acquired and that I will carry for my entire life.

With everything going on recently, especially the nearly apocalyptic atmosphere we are living in, the only thing I’ve actually learned and experienced is that nothing goes as planned—absolutely freaking nothing.

Plans I carried on my back for more than 10 years shattered to the ground, but despite the excessive change that I could not handle well at all in the past, I’ve now absorbed everything, and life is opening up new opportunities that are absolutely better for me—that I never thought were possible or even an option.

I have learned to be devastated, sad, frustrated, to not fight those feelings, states, situations—because through them, I met people, went places, and was in situations that opened up new, shiny doors for me that I could have never accepted or embraced had I been the old, rigid, noncompliant me.

Sometimes it is hard to accept change—a change of pace, a change of place, a change of people, a change of a setting and whatever we are currently comfortable with and think is best for us.

So, today, in the setting of starting a new year, 2022, I can say I accept change more, scary as it is, with more open arms, more acceptance, more sadness and happiness, more excitement, and more belief that things will eventually work out for my better interest, even if I don’t see it now.

So, dear friends, I invite you to embrace every feeling, old or new, good or bad, and to accept that things not going our way may actually be part of our process to become who we want and need to be in this life.

To do that, here are a few steps that I found helpful during the past tough couple of years:

1. Do not smile through it all. Sometimes we need to cry, be angry, process every emotion we encounter to be able to move on and learn from the situation.

Burying all our emotions will create passive-aggressive behaviors in us that could destroy us and be an obstacle that might prevent us from progressing and finding better days and opportunities.

2. Try to open up more to the idea of change—no matter how comfortable our current situation may be, for life is constantly moving and changing, and we don’t want to miss the next train in our journey just because we were too afraid or thought we were too comfortable where we were.

Stagnant water can carry germs and infections whereas running water will always self-clean and self-regenerate.

3. Try new things and explore more. Life has so much to offer us, and we may never know exactly who we are and what we like unless we try, and sometimes we may hate some stuff, people, places, food, or whatever life throws in front of us, but it is beneficial for us to go with the flow.

4. Last but not least, appreciate the progress you made. With everything going on, you are growing, you are becoming. And that by itself is a beautiful thing to admire and be proud of.

Give yourself that pat on the back—that self-reassurance. Daily self-motivation is like a checkpoint for us to keep going and make sure we are on the right path, no matter how hard or unfamiliar that path might be.

With those following steps, I will continue my journey and start my 2022, not falsely happy but genuinely reassured that everything will be okay and that I will reach better places and become a better person day by day.

So I will wish you a successful new year no matter how each and everyone defines it and sees it!

 

 

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