Inhale the skills, friendships, and beauty of 2025 – hold it with you – exhale and let go of the toxins, unhealthy relationships, and turbulence that were holding you down, pushing you back, and destroying your own sense of self-worth and identity. Personally, there is so much that has happened in 2025 – my health, professionally, interpersonally, just moving! There has been tremendous pride and also feelings of immense loss and grief as I have come to terms with my own physical and emotional limitations, both affected by uncontrolled trauma. Despite the hardships, continued challenges, and almost absurd bad luck (hitting a tree and being rear-ended by a car all in 3 days), this has been a year of letting go, embracing vulnerability, and accepting the pathway I have chosen.
To continue thinking about what if I… was flat-out worthless. The reality is – this holds true for all of us – “What if I had or did?” – Well, I didn’t and I won’t; it’s in the past. I recently gave my 12-year-old son – who is an obsessive worrywart (in a loving way!), the Shel Silverstein Poem, “What if” – well, there are a lot of scenarios that we can run through our heads, and a lot of worry cycling, especially with an active imagination, but the poem does remind us of just how absurd some of our worries are as well as how little control we may have of other scenarios. Mostly it’s a reminder to stop the vicious worry cycle and to take a deep breath: Inhale “What is…” and exhale “What was and what if.” Be present.
The choices we make professionally, personally, and for our own well-being and for the well-being of our families are just that – choices. Choices are direct effects of how we react and handle uncertainty, disappointment, and trauma, as well as the aftereffects of what we cannot control. Resilience is not getting back to the “What if this hadn’t happened, then I would be…” it is about acutely coping with the immediate struggles and challenges and then embracing new limitations while constructing a new, but different, equally fulfilling pathway to work towards in the present. We live for the present.
We make vision boards for the New Year and think about all of our wishes and goals and how we will get from A to Z, but truly well-developed vision boards don’t have just one pathway and one goal, they have many crossroads and pathways that lead to a fulfilling way of life and being.
Take an example of building your dream house. Everything is going wonderfully, but all of a sudden, the land that you bought is now part of a flood zone. You will not have that house with that view on that property – ever. You can’t build on it. The land has been damaged. Does this mean you can’t find new land or make a new dream house? If your answer is yes, then you’re not ready to cope with reality. But, for most of us, it’s a setback, but we can find a new property, develop a new blueprint, and build a new dream house – it just might look different.
Life/Resilience/Being is about adaptability in the moment. And by adapting in the moment, we sometimes end up taking a different pathway in the future. And, we cannot compare these two pathways. That is not fair to ourselves. We can grieve what we lost, but then we must stop comparing it to what we will have and who we are now. Don’t spend all of the present planning your future or rehashing what went wrong in the past. Spend the present in the moment, because at that time you are in control of your breath, your reactions, and your life.
And – just in case you are thinking – “wow, she seems to have it all together and has gone through so much, but seems to have radically accepted the trauma and integrated her life in a healthy way of being.”
YOU’RE WRONG! I’M HUMAN – MY JOURNEY OF HEALING AND TRYING TO PUSH AWAY TRIGGERS AND FLASHBACKS AND BE PRESENT IS A DAILY CHALLENGE. THE GRIEF I HAVE FOR CHILDREN I LOST, A PROFESSION THAT MAY HAVE BEEN – I STILL FEEL IT. THE PAST CANNOT BE ERASED. TRAUMA CANNOT BE ERASED, BUT EVERY DAY I FEEL MORE EMPOWERED AND SAFE IN MY OWN CHOICES. I ENJOY MANY MORE POINTS DURING THE DAY OF BEING IN THE MOMENT (WALKING WITH MY DOGS IN THE WOODS, PLAYING MONOPOLY WITH MY KIDS, BAKING WITH MY KIDS, KNITTING AND PAINTING) THAN I USED TO WHEN I DWELT ON THE PAST AND THE WHAT COULD BE…
I hope that each of you can enjoy just a little bit more each day of just being in the moment without triggers from the past or worries about the future, just surrounded by the warmth and love of the present. Happy New Year!
