Rest and Restoration

As we have just ended a year and are about to embark on our new adventures for whatever 2023 has in store for us, it can feel like a bit of a whirlwind. Making that shift from one year to the next with all the festive celebrations in between can leave us exhausted, while wanting to contemplate our plans for the coming year. Shifting gears too quickly can cause us to feel overwhelmed if we don’t give ourselves time to rest so we can restore our energy.

However, when we give ourselves time to just rest and enjoy our time of relaxation by doing whatever our heart desires, we are providing the opportunity for restoration. We live in a busy world with a lot of demands on our time and energy so having a break from from it all is not really a luxury. It is essential! And it is up to us to make sure it happens for ourselves.

My own year was a little chaotic and had some massive changes. I retired from my private practice as a clinical psychologist and had my first book published. These two changes were not simple and uneventful, but were mammoth events that both came with many challenges. As you can imagine, there was an incredible amount of work that took time and energy to complete those two commitments. Interestingly and without planning it this way, I submitted my final manuscript and retired on the same day!

The rest of the year was busy with preparations for Christmas and distributing some books that arrived the week before Christmas. Now 2023 is here and the first week in I’m already thinking about my book promotion, including the book launch, plans for advertising, developing my social media profile and all the little extras that come along with becoming an author. Whew! I feel a little overwhelmed right now.

This is what brought me to thinking about this time of the year and how important it is to give ourselves the time we need so we can think clearly enough to plan our goals before we set them into action. I don’t really go along with the whole New Year resolution idea. When you think about it, this comes at a time when everyone is exhausted and hyped from the previous year. That’s not a good time to plan. A better time is after we are rested and our balance is restored for us to rise up to our potential again for the coming year.

With this in mind, a considerable amount of time of reflection is needed when we have sufficiently recovered from the previous year. Making informed decisions based on what we have learned in previous years and considering what is reasonable and achievable, makes more sense to me. Sometimes when we think we lack motivation, instead we may have not given ourselves what we’ve needed to restore our energy. That is, taking some time out to relax and enjoy life.

Our motivation to kick start the new year needs energy behind it. We want to approach the year with a fresh enthusiasm rather than feeling wrung out from the busyness of the previous year. We want to be able to plan reasonable goals we’re able to achieve. With this in mind, let’s not get ahead of ourselves and take whatever time we need to recharge our batteries.

I wish you a wonderful year for 2023, filled with abundant love, joy and peace, and most of all, lovingkindness and compassion toward yourself.

Sending love and blessings, Wendy J 💜