I’m happy you’re here and hopefully you’re also back after the other three parts of my series (New Year, New me (part 1): A healthy look at the past year, New Year, New me (part 2): Figuring out the toughest question – Who am I?, New Year, New me (part 3): Making 2023 happen – Hope Setting)
Over the course of my blogs I’ve given you a few techniques already. Self – Questioning, The Three Circles to Self, Balancing your Masculine and Feminine Energy and Using Negative Emotions to tell you about who you are as well as Hope Setting and The Gratitude Jar. That’s a lot of techniques.
In this final part of my series, I am introducing you to a three more tools to send you off ready to create the 2023 you want.
The Emotion Vocabulary Wheel
This is a favourite of mine. It’s a wheel with as many emotions as possible. It is a tool therapists use to help people explore their emotions and name them when they are unsure of how they are feeling. When you encounter a situation which makes you uncomfortable or you’re not sure why you’re having the reaction you’re having, this tool can help you name the emotions and from there you can think about why you feel those emotions. How it can help with your New Year New Me is that it will provide you with the ability to understand why setbacks, anxiety or fear is stopping your progress or if you’ve experienced something you enjoy, where those happy emotions are coming from and what they might mean.
Exploring Childhood Activities
This one sounds strange doesn’t it? Going back into your past to help your new you is essential as it allows you to search for the things that bring you joy at your core or what are possible causes for how you feel about circumstances now. Revisiting childhood activities is a playful way of exploring the aforementioned. As it is playful, it feels safe and makes it easier to take a walk around in the past.
Some things you can try are:
- Sleeping with a childhood toy.
- Playing childhood games.
- Reading childhood journals.
- Having your favourite childhood dishes and
- Having nostalgic conversations with people from your past.
Self Care
Self Care, we hear that getting thrown around a lot. How can it help with your New Years Resolutions? Self-Care helps prevent burn out. When you have goals you are trying to meet, you will be busy and sometimes stressed. To manage that, showing yourself love, care and rest is one of the best ways to do so.
Self – Care comes in two ways: connection and alone time.
Connection
Socializing and spending time with loved ones is imperative. You will not fail if you take a couple hours out of the week to spend quality time, surrounded by love. It helps to refresh you.
Some ways to stay connected:
- Video call
- Grocery run/ errand run
- Meet up at a place nearby
- Watch a movie online and
- Text for a couple hours
These do not take much out of you, your effort and time. But be sure it is convenient for the person also.
Alone Time
For the extrovert this may be a task but if you want to see your goals come to fruition, spending time alone, connecting with yourself and if you follow a Faith, time with your God is one of the best ways to stay focused.
This can look like journaling, a skin care routine at nights, one day a week dedicated to spending time in your Faith and with your God and taking yourself on dates. There are a lot of ways you can show yourself love, I have a ridiculous hair/skin routine where I pray and speak kind words to myself for 2 hours once a week. Other times, I listen to my favourite playlist and don’t respond to texts.
There you have it, the final blog post for our January: New Year, New Me series. I hope you enjoyed it, I hope of all these amazing tools, one of them works for you. Here’s to 2023!