Hellooo 2025!

You know that feeling where you slip into old habits of writing the previous year on things when the new year first kicks in? Like you're subconsciously not ready to settle into the new number, and the new start?

This is maybe the first year that hasn't happened to me. I don't know if it's the numbers themselves and how easily they flow…. But man. 2025 just feels like an energetic shift that I am ready for. 2025 is a 9 year in numerology. I find the power of numbers and numerology to be fascinating, but I'm certainly no expert in it- so I looked into it a little bit to see if the energy of 2025 seemed to align with how I've been feeling about this new year. Check out what I found. Turns out, a 9 year represents conclusion of a cycle. In our case, a cycle that started in 2017. So this year is an opportunity to evaluate what's gone on in our lives since 2017, and the people we have become. It's a final release of what we decide no longer serves us going into the next cycle, which will start in 2026- which will be a 1 year. A new beginning. When I look back at my pictures to refresh my memory on what's gone on between 2017 and now, I'm in shock at how much in my life has changed. In a good way. A ton of growth has happened. I can also look back at those pictures and honestly say- I know where the work still exists. I'm going into this final year of this cycle pretty clear on who I am becoming, and where I want to go.

I'm approaching this new year a little differently as far as the idea of goals and resolutions go. I saw this TikTok recently that really struck me. I'm going to paraphrase what I took from it because I can't find it again, but essentially it was this notion that we don't need to resolve to be different or force ourselves to change this new year. That we don't have to approach resolutions as if we're less than. As if we "need" working on. That instead, we can just be. I really resonated with this idea of honoring who I've already become and who I am. And not approaching resolutions as if there's something wrong, or because society makes you feel like you have to be constantly striving. One thing I think I've become way better at is listening to a lot of different sources of information and ideas, and coming up with my own compilation. What resonates with me. So I'm approaching the new year in exactly that way. I'm taking the ideas that resonate, and the ones that don't, aren't for me. It's one of the things I have learned in this last life cycle since 2017. It doesn't matter what works for anyone else, when it comes to me. I am the only person who can decide what's right for me, and what works for me. This has taken a lot of work. As a recovering people please, recovering "good girl," recovering "fixer," I'm clear now that I'm the expert when it comes to my life. I can try other people's ideas on for size, but ultimately all that matters is how I feel. I have this one life here to create, and if it's not of my own creation, what a loss. So I am starting the new year with some invigoration to move towards some goals, but more than anything, it's more about moving towards a feeling. For example. With the chaos of the holiday season, I was off my normal routines etc. that I keep because those routines make me feel good. They make me feel- well- like ME. So I'm back on them not because I want to lose X lbs, or get X number of steps (all valid if those are important to YOU), but because I know how I want to feel. And there are routines I have in place that make me feel the way I want to feel. So I didn't even wait until Jan 1 to start back on them. Jan 1 is arbitrary. Yes, it can feel motivational, but there are no rules. I saw a lot of memes about people saying that new years resolutions can wait until Monday because it doesn't make sense to start them on any other day than Monday. I laughed because it's funny how we have such ideas about these things.  

I felt called to make a vision board this year. I don't do it every year, but I do it when I feel called to for any reason. The last physical one I did was in 2022. It has stayed next to my bedside table since then. It was funny to look at it and see how differently I approached a new year and goals back then. It's another shift I've made. There are people in life who make 5 year plans, and who like to very specifically outline goals that have numbers and data attached. I have tried to be that person before. I thought it was the "right" way to be. But as I've become more confident in myself and who I am as a person, I know that isn't me. And I know that that isn't even who I want to be. No shade towards you if that's how you are, because that's great. The important lesson I'm learning is to stray true to myself. So my vision board this year for me, was about creating a piece of art that is reflective of what makes me happy, and how I want to feel. It's filled with beautiful images and things that make me feel happy. There are words that resonated that I cut out and added in. The process of making it was fun. It was filled with joy and with hope and optimism. To me, that feels like a win. My 2025 vision board is reflective of how I want to feel this year. Joy. And simple joy. Not the kind of joy that feels impossible to achieve, but rather- real joy. The kind that comes from small things like watching your dogs play, or facing the warm sun in the sky.

I wedged the vision board in the same spot in between the wall and my bedside table. About two inches of the board hang out where I can see them. And right at the top, I had included a headline that says "create the life you want." I didn't consciously place it there thinking that that would be what I see every morning now when I wake up, and when I go to sleep. But it's not lost on me how powerful that is. What I find even more incredible to think about is how that idea of creating the life you want has changed in my mind. I am very guilty of trying to control things. Another part of my recovery. Trying to make everything "nice" trying to "fix" trying to "force." I'm fully aware that I do this, and I understand why I do it. And I understand it doesn't really serve me anymore. So when I think about creating the life I want, some of it is about releasing control or force to allow more of the good stuff in. Allow. It's my 2025 mantra. ALLOW for more joy. ALLOW for more help (something else I've resisted, thinking I need to do it all). ALLOW for more abundance. ALLOW for more peace. ALLOW success. ALLOW failure. ALLOW people to live their own lives, and think whatever they will of yours.

Allow feels really appropriate with what's been on my mind lately. I'm currently listening to Mel Robbins new book, The Let Them Theory. It's been really powerful for me, and I highly recommend. It's put into such clear focus for me how much I've let other people's emotions, their problems, their opinions of me- become a focus of my life. How I've let those things affect me, sometimes consume me. It's the opposite of a life of my creation. It's not my job or my place to try to help everyone with their emotions. It's not my job or my place to try to control how people perceive me. All this attempt at controlling an outcome (a fruitless effort) does not lead me to a life of my creation. A life that is about what brings me joy, peace, abundance, satisfaction. This year is all about giving myself the permission slip that no one else can grant me. Permission to live the life of my dreams. My dreams don't come with numbers. They don't come with exact goals to meet. That's just not me. My dreams come in feelings. In daydreams. In nudges from the universe. In ideas. In curiosities. In art. And to have the best year yet and feel like I've concluded this cycle in my life, I need to follow my intuition and stay true to me. And that's exactly my goal for 2025. And I'll allow it.

XO