Welcoming What 2023 Will Be
Gentle questions to ask yourself as you think about the year ahead
Happy New Year, fellow shalomsick wanderers.
A brand new year always seems as if it should begin with energy and gusto, but I’m starting 2023 off at a sloth’s pace. I’m sure that won’t come as a surprise to most of you. If you know me, you know my pace is usually on the slow side.
This winter, however, I’ve been moving even slower than usual.
I took a short break from scrolling and fully engaging on Instagram right before Christmas. I spent my time enjoying wrapping presents, watching movies with my family, playing board games, lounging under thick blankets, drinking hot tea multiple times a day, baking cookies, celebrating another teenage birthday, and sinking into good books. It was full, and it was just right. And lest any of you think it was picture perfect, imagine bouts of sibling rivalry and big feelings (we are a big feelings home) tossed in-between the aforementioned activities. There was a lot of that too.
I’ve been back online in a spotty kind of way since then, and I’m having trouble catching up. Engaging with online friends is valuable and important to me. However, this month and brand-new year, I can’t keep up like I was before, and for now, I’m letting that be okay. My mind and body have been asking for space, and while there’s unavoidable work that needs to be done, I’m going to give it what it’s asking for.
I love this wisdom from Katherine May’s book, Wintering:
“Doing those deeply unfashionable things—slowing down, letting your spare time expand, getting enough sleep, resting—is a radical act now, but it is essential. This is a crossroads we all know, a moment when you need to shed a skin. If you do, you’ll expose all those painful nerve endings and feel so raw that you’ll need to take care of yourself for a while. If you don’t, then that skin will harden around you.”
A word, phrase, goals… something for 2023?
This year, I don’t have a word.
I haven’t landed on a phrase (there are multiple floating around in my thoughts).
I don’t have big goals for this year (though I am launching a book!?). To be honest, my track record with New Years goals is to fail them or forget I made them.
Last year, I felt like all I wanted to do was continue in the things I was already doing - and that was a good feeling, and one I wasn’t so used to.
This year, I’ve asked myself what things make me feel alive in good, and sometimes even uncomfortable, ways.
What makes you feel alive?
It’s been a gentler, more open-handed way to think about a unknown year ahead.
It’s been a gentler way to think about myself and my work, my dreams and doubts, my ever-changing, always-aging body, my limitations and desires, my family and friends, and all the hope I still hold in my shalomsick heart.
So, if this is something you need right now, I want to invite you into this gentle practice alongside of me. You can write down your responses in a journal and put it away for reflection January next year, or this practice can be something you prayerfully and curiously come back to, again and again with time, as the year unfolds.
If it feels helpful to share your responses to those questions in a comment here, your words are welcome here.
What makes you feel alive?
How can you intentionally welcome more of this into 2023?
Taking it a little further: Ask why.
If you have the mental and emotional capacity to dig a little deeper with that New Year’s question, it can be helpful to dig into the why behind your responses.
Here are a few things that make me feel alive, and some of the details behind why they do.
Books
Reading is not a new love for me, but something I have to intentionally make space for. Stories have always deepened my compassion, humility, and tenderness. So, I want to keep reading this year. I’m not holding myself to a number or time frame (but maybe numbers and time frames help you).
I’ve become reacquainted with Goodreads and Copper Books as of late, and would love to connect with you over good books.
Cheers to the librocubicularists among us!
I’ve also been reading the First Nations Version of The New Testament from IVP, and it has been so refreshing for my soul. It’s been stirring me in a way I desperately needed (more on that to come).
Tell Me The Dream Again, my own forthcoming book is on Goodreads and Copper Books app (still so surreal), and one way you can support me as we move one month closer to launching her into the world, is to head on over here and here, and click “want to read.”
Listening to my body + checking in with my feelings
I’ve been struggling to embrace my middle-aged, stiff-feeling body lately, so I’ve signed up for Yoga with Adriene and her free 30-day yoga journey called Center. I’m starting a little late but it’s been wonderful so far. My daughter joins me, stretching with the video and doing her own thing. I’m finding that intentionally carving out space to stretch and move makes me feel alive, a little more grounded, and in tune with my body.
Being aware of my own feelings and talking about feelings and asking others about feelings isn’t hard for me. I am one big feeling most of the time. But I discovered this app How We Feel over break and one of my son’s and I now have it and use it to check in. You can friend others and share how you are feeling or check in with each other. It’s a way to stop and give space for how you feel, but also a way to look back and see patterns with those feelings.
After a week I realized that one particular regular activity brought me a lot of stress and I needed to think through how to approach it differently. There are helpful short videos to watch and learn from too.
The app is free, and it might be a helpful tool for you this year too.
Art + creativity
I bought a yearlong membership pass to our local art museum as a way to make more room for art in 2023.
After a trip to the Art Institute of Chicago last November, and a day date with my husband to our local museum last month, I realized that surrounding myself with artwork and learning from the creative expression of others is something I want and need to intentionally continue this year.
Art is essential and being around it makes me feel alive and full of joy. I hope to spend as much time wandering those halls as I can this year.
This article about how to see the New Year by my friend, Grace P. Cho is so kind and encouraging.
“So, I’m seeing the year ahead as another twelve months of ripening.”
Take a few minutes to read all of it for yourself — her words will give you hope.
A Happy New Year Prayer For The Irreplaceable
However you and yours are
walking in to this year, I pray
it's a year of knowing that
you're loved deep down into
all of your details.
However lost or homesick you
feel, I pray you begin to see
how being #shalomsick is
actually leading you bit by bit,
back home.
However you've rejected and
hidden the imago Dei within, I
pray you will find the
communities and courage that
help you heal and stretched your
wings wide again.
However alone you feel and
however many lonely days still
seem to loom ahead, I pray
that you will come to know
the nearness of Jesus
our Emmanuel of every year,
every season.
You are irreplaceable.
by Tasha JunGrateful and shalomsick,
Resonate with so many things about this - love Yoga with Adriene and our local art museum and Wintering! Hope we are able to connect more in 2023!
sloth pace for me too. glad to know I am not alone.