| Written By Amy Foraker, LPCC Happy New Year! Isn’t that what we are supposed to proclaim at 12 am on January first? However, the proclamation includes the word “New”, which often does not feel “Happy.” Wherever you find yourself this new year, let’s take this moment to experience our feelings as they are and define what “New” might mean for us this year. “New” is uncomfortable. My family just purchased a new home. We are overwhelmed with gratitude and love for our new home, and yet our “new” is uncomfortable. The upstairs/downstairs is a challenge to navigate, we have no backyard and its muddy, we’re constantly cleaning muddy cat paw prints off the flooring, and the list goes on… If I’m perfectly honest in many ways it would have been a lot more comfortable to just stay in the “old” place. Additionally, “new” and grief are partners. Beginning something new also means something else has ended. Furthermore, the ending might have been out of our control. For instance, “new” holiday traditions often come after someone has passed away and its now impossible to continue as it was before. “New” marriages often come after the grief of a death or divorce. “New” jobs are often preceded by the loss of the old. Grief and gratitude, mourning and joy. How do we enter this new year in the tension of saying goodbye to the old, while we step courageously into the new? Let’s look at three different ways together: Acknowledge the endings. Look back at this past year. This could be as simple as going through your camera roll on your phone. Remember the moments you determined to be memorable. Notice the changes you experienced because of the event or notice the change in the people in those pictures from the time you took them to now. These practices keep us in the present moment by noticing and honoring the passage of time. Maybe you want to create a timeline of events. Draw a line horizontally across a blank page. Using this line as a timeline for the past year make the top of the page the positive, fun, or easier events and make the bottom of your page the harder events of the year. You’ve come through it all already so you might as well remember it all. Grieve… or REJOICE from what we are moving away. Maybe this new year has you moving out of a rental into home ownership like me. WOW! Even a simple toast and mention at a family meal will do the trick. Or maybe your oldest son turns 18 at the start of the new year (ok this might just be me), but for this kind of transition: write a poem, go through old pictures, have the family over for dinner and make a favorite meal. These are all rituals that allow grieving and rejoicing to flow. Maybe light a candle for someone you lost this past year, or pull out something that reminds you of them and keep it close by to ease you into a new year without them. See. The prophet Isaiah encourages the Israelites with the Lord’s words saying, “See I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” God tells his people that despite their circumstances, despite what they feel in the flesh as they walk through the wasteland, there is something deeper going on. Look and see, springs and streams are there to care for you. This “new” thing resides only through the lens of the Spirit, not the flesh. In the flesh, wasteland, thirsty, hungry, afraid, but in the Spirit, see the springs of life. See your God caring for you. It’s brave showing up in the present with all this uncomfortable “new.” So, look to your left and right. Grab the hand of the person closest to you and realize that we are in this together. Feel all of this new year just as it is, knowing that Emmanuel is still with us. He didn’t leave when you took the Christmas tree down. He is walking right into this new year with you. _______ (fill in the blank) New Year, from all of us at Bayside Counseling Center. |
Amy Foraker
Staff Therapist & Clinical Supervisor
Amy completed her graduate education at Colorado Christian University in 2017 and completed her training at Bayside Counseling Center. She has a background in Trauma Informed Therapy from the Allender Center and enjoys teaching classes in community mental health outpatient facilities.