See ya 👋🏼 2020! And my hope for you in 2021.
New Years Eve 2020 is finally here.
A breath of relief for some who are ready to say BYEEE! to arguably one of the hardest years of many of our lives.
And, for others, just another day, another midnight, another new day to come tomorrow.
Wherever you are on the spectrum, I hope you know that it’s valid as hell to be there.
Reflecting on the past year, I’m personally filled with a lot of feelings. Sadness for what was lost- lives, celebrations, visits, memories, trips, alone time, any sense of organization in my home (lol!). And gratitude for what was- more time than I could have imagined spent with my son and my husband, a sort of forced hard look at my own patterns, my own fears and anxiety, and the opportunity to soften to them and learn, sometimes take a back seat, and sometimes expand in spite of them.
Of course there’s lots of other feelings that I cycle through on the regular. This year was hard, and confusing AF.
This year I’ve had the honor of virtually sitting across from some seriously brave and hardworking people all across the world. The vulnerability of being a therapist, going through similarly triggering and anxiety provoking experiences throughout this pandemic, has been exhausting at times, and in many ways has helped me honor my own humanity, the exact thing I hold sacred in the clients I work with. Whether the badass humans I work with everyday know it or not, I feel like they’ve weathered the storm of 2020 alongside me in many ways. So for that, I’m infinitely grateful.
In the past month a theme that has been coming up quite a bit in sessions is the feeling of wanting to fix. And when the dumpster fire that surrounds us feels unfixable, it’s easy, almost habitual, to turn to the body.
I want you to know that I get it (if it could be helpful, here’s a blog I wrote on wanting to lose weight). Between the onslaught of weight loss ads, meme’s about the covid 15, the general holiday angst and living in a seemingly never-ending state of hypervigilance that COVID19 brings with it, it’s easy to turn to old ways of coping.
I want you to remind you that has 2020 has impacted all of us in so many ways- whether we like it or not. The impact might have showed up in changing our relationships, our jobs, our abilities to cope, and yes, even our bodies.
But I want you to remember that you’re worthy of being taken care of in a wholehearted, compassionate and sustainable way.
Dieting simply doesn’t accomplish this. Yes, it might numb you temporarily. Until your body responds the way that bodies inevitably do- with hunger and a built in desperation to return to a homeostasis.
If you’re feeling uncomfortable in your body, I invite you to take a deep breath and reconnect. To your values, to what your body can offer you and how it already supports you, and consider how you can care for it instead of working against it.
At a training a few years ago one of my mentors shared a mantra of, “no fixing, no fixing, no fixing.” This has helped me in so many ways. And if it resonates, I hope you can call on it to remember that your body, that YOU, don’t need fixing. You aren’t broken. You deserve healing, grace and space.
Thank you for being here, despite my spotty ability to show up in this newsletter. I hope New Years Eve 2020 is whatever you need it to be. A goodbye, a celebration, or just another day.
I hope this next trip around the sun can bring you into deeper connection- with your people, with your needs and with your body.
See you in 2021.
🧡,
Sarah
Here’s a resource that might be helpful: Ways to Cope With Bad Body Image Days