The other day I read something really interesting about New Year’s Eve, New Year’s Day, and everything in between, that whole blend of things that happens at this time of year, and the social pressure that kicks in so strangely right as one year ends and the next one begins.
If this time of year also leaves you feeling a certain discomfort because of the social pressure to end the year with a big smile on your face, all sorted, and energised to start a new year, as if 2025 had been a walk in the park, this might interest you.
What I read in an Instagram post was this. It made the point that it isn’t true that because the year ends, everything wraps up on 31 December and we draw a line under everything we’ve been living through this year. Nor is it true that everything starts on 1 January, because there are times, phases, and life events that don’t follow, or obey, a calendar.
Sometimes taking a step back, and not celebrating like everyone else, is the most honest way to stay true to what you feel, and where you are, in your own life.
Maybe you’ve lost someone this year, maybe you’ve ended a relationship, maybe you’re still overwhelmed because you’re in a job that drains your soul and energy day after day, or maybe you’re in a moment in life where you don’t know what to do, or which way to go.
So it’s worth asking, what do you do with that pain when the social script, the social pressure, is joy?
What do you do with what hurts, with what’s missing, with what isn’t working, when the world, our culture, demands that you start again?
There are days on the calendar that carry a lot of cultural weight, but that often don’t match what we’ve lived through personally, instead they make us stay quiet and repress what we feel.
Like the post from this psychoanalyst said, “there are days that demand a smile where there is grief”.
And now a new year begins. And with this change of year comes another expectation, another voice that pushes you to celebrate, to be grateful for everything you’ve lived, to take stock of how the year that’s just been has gone.
And it asks you as if time, as if days on a calendar, could neatly make sense of everything we’ve been living through, as if what we’ve lived, whether good or bad, could be summarised in a toast.
That’s why we don’t all feel the same on New Year’s Eve, or in those first days of the new year. Because not all of us have something to celebrate. Because some years don’t just pass, they leave marks, they leave wounds, they leave you in anguish.
Everything you feel is normal, in reality so many people feel it, each person with their own grief, their own pain, or their own joy, even if they don’t share it with other people.
So, wherever you are, I’m sending you a big hug, and I’m acknowledging whatever your experience has been this past year.
A good way to make sense of what we’ve lived through, with love and respect, is to give it space for reflection. That’s why I’m giving you this small annual review template so you can write and reflect on how this last year has been for you, what you’ve learned, what has hurt, what you’ve lost, and give yourself time, through writing, to make room for all these emotions and experiences.
Click here to download your free template.
All is well.
Love,
Noemi
P.S.: Get your annual review, both digital + printable, here.
