Having a tough year doesn’t necessarily mean it has to be a traumatic experience. We can take our struggles and use them to cultivate our transformative personal growth.
Finding where you can still hold space for the pain and experiences and the validity of those experiences while also looking for how you can transform or come through or learn from those experiences and potentially adapt and adjust moving forward, that's what makes a huge key difference.
This therapist-guided year-end reflection will help you have a better year that focuses on transformation, not on trauma.
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Step 1
Review your calendar, planner, and/or journal, and list memorable events and experiences.
Don't necessarily categorize them as pleasant or unpleasant, or good or bad. I don't love that for this sort of stuff anyway, but just go ahead and jot down the big highlights or experiences.
So for example, for my year in 2022, I actually moved two separate times, and we'll get to that in a minute. So those were two highlights of my year. When I sit and think of those, definitely have different emotional experiences with that, but we'll go through that in a moment.
So go ahead, just go through your year, and if you don't happen to have an agenda or calendar or something like that where you have tracked these sorts of events already, just go through mentally and go, "Okay, in January, what was I doing in January? Did anything stand out?" Maybe it was somebody's birthday, maybe it was midterms, maybe it was starting a new semester, whatever it was. And just go through each calendar month until you get to December.
Step 2
Observe how you feel NOW when you think of these past experiences.
So not how you were feeling at the time, but how you feel now when you think about that experience.
Let's talk about my two moves as an example. Earlier this year, I moved to a new home that was closer to the beach, which was super exciting. That's always been a dream of mine. I could literally walk to the beach. It was cool. It definitely wasn't like my ideal home situation. As I'm remembering that, I actually don't feel good about that decision. I actually feel a lot of discomfort in my upper chest area, my heart center, I can actually feel my throat getting a little dry.
I have a lot of hurt and angry feelings about it because it turned out not to be an ideal situation. There were lots of problems that were not necessarily anticipated or expected. It caused me to actually move for a second time this year.
And so when I think about moving for a second time this year and I think about that now, I actually feel, you know, I do feel a little upset, because it is tied to that first one, but I feel really calm and hopeful and happy about that decision, especially because I didn't even think that I was in a position to buy a home yet at this point. That negative experience actually helped to propel me to make that positive experience.
So think about how you emotionally, and physically feel in response to thinking about these experiences.
What sort of thoughts pop up, what sort of emotions, what sort of physical feelings, and any other responses?
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I'm sure that that was some emotionally charged work, and so whenever that happens, I want to make sure that you are taking care of your needs at this moment too.
One of my mentors that I follow often says that when we're doing emotional work, this is thirsty work, so make sure to take a sip of water.
So if you haven't already, go ahead and take a sip of water, do some breathing if you need to, maybe massage your hand or do some butterfly hugs, whatever is going to make you feel a little more grounded and regulated at this moment.
Step 3
Wins, Challenges and Questions
Now that you have noted these milestones and your responses to them, I want you to go through and jot down any wins that occurred this past year, any challenges, and any questions that you might have for the upcoming year.
For me, a big win was being able to buy a new home. I think that was pretty cool. It was unexpected. It definitely came with a lot of emotional charges, and it's definitely not something that I was planning on doing.
Another win was leaving that problematic situation. Even though that was definitely challenging, I would definitely throw that under the challenges thing too, of trying to navigate that and making those adjustments and plans throughout the year. I would definitely categorize it as a win too.
Any wins that you had, any challenges that you either are currently experiencing or have overcome, you can put in there.
Then list out any questions that you might have for the next year. One question that I have for myself for the next year is how will I make this new home more personable for me? I also have some ideas and questions about these videos for you guys about how can I be more present and stay more consistent even when life is happening because I definitely think that one of my challenges was going through some of those personal issues with my living situation. It definitely took away from my energy, my focus, and my mindset, and ability to make these videos on a weekly basis like I had been doing for years at this point. And so I appreciate your patience with me through this. Those are some questions that I have for the next year.
So go ahead, take a moment and pause, and jot down your wins, your challenges, and any questions that you may have. And I should note, you don't necessarily have to have the answers yet, they're just questions for reflection.
Step 4
Where do you want to be next year??
You have done a lot of work already today. You should feel especially proud and accomplished. This stuff is tough and to go through a whole year, it can be really challenging sometimes. It can be very rewarding as well.
Now that you have your wins, your challenges, and your questions, I want you to take everything that you've been reflecting on so far, sit, and intuitively focus on where would you like to be next year?
So as I am making this video and as it is being published, this is the end of 2022. You may be watching this in 2024 or some other year. If it’s 2022, you want to think about the next year in 2023. If it is 2024, you want to think about 2025. If you are watching this in the middle of the year, that's great too.
You just want to kind of think about where you want to be a year from now, and what that future you would look like. How would you feel? What would you be doing? What would you need in order to become that person?
How are you feeling??
I know some of you may be feeling really hopeful and excited. Others might be feeling a little overwhelmed or curious about like, how will I get there? And that is what we're going to focus on next. As we do a year-end reflection, it's great to reflect on what we've learned and what we've experienced and to share those. If you haven't already, feel free to share them in the comments on the YouTube video here: https://youtu.be/iDOZWPZCu_Q
It could help or inspire others, and what a cool thing to contribute to.
Step 5
What have you learned??
This is where the transformation part comes in!!
How can these past experiences inform your future choices and decisions and mindset?
If there were challenges that happened, what did you learn about yourself? With your wins that happened, how did those come about? Was it a struggle to accomplish those wins or was it easy peasy? If it's a pleasant experience, we want to think about how can we continue to safeguard and recreate similar experiences for ourselves. And if it was an unpleasant experience, okay, what did we learn and what will we do better next time?
Perhaps there were things that were out of our control and forgiving ourselves or other people or other circumstances may have impacted that as well. Now, forgiving does not mean forgetting. That's a whole other concept. I know people have a lot of feelings about that word, but I just mean it in the sense of, you know, it doesn't really help you to continue to beat yourself up to the point of not being able to learn and grow from those experiences either.
Step 6
What is one thing you can start NOW??
Wow, you have grown and come a long way with a lot of this stuff. You probably have a lot of ideas and inspiration about how you can get to that place by next year or work towards getting to that place by next year.
It might feel a little overwhelming about where to start. And so I want you to just take a moment and just reflect and think about what is one thing that you can start doing today?
You don't have to wait until next year. You don't have to wait for next month. You don't have to wait for Monday. You can create a fresh start at any point, at any time.
You can even do it throughout your day. You know, you can start your day one way, and then like two o'clock runs around and you're like, you know what? Hit the reset on that.
What is one step or one thing, one change that you can start implementing, making, or safeguarding today that will get you one step closer to where you want to be?
All of this stuff is really cumulative, which means that as you make decisions and as you start taking steps, you are always getting one step closer to your destination and your destination may change.
There may be circumstances that have you adjusting your path and those are okay. You're allowed to assess, readjust, and adapt.
One of the things that I would highly, highly recommend is that if you're struggling with this, definitely incorporate some self-care into your journey.
If you have not signed up already, I highly recommend that you get the free self-care bundle that I created just for you for these circumstances. It's got a ton of free videos and workbooks and different ideas on how to incorporate self-care throughout your day and your life.
You can sign up for that for free when you enter your email address here: mallorygrimste.com/selfcarebundle
I really, really appreciate you being part of my journey through 2022, and I hope that you'll be part of the journey for 2023 as well.
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