New Year 2025 Into 2026

 

After 27 pages of journal writing, this is what I got to for the year :)

I did some of the usual stuff (like skimming all my personal writing from the year), some new stuff (considering how I interacted with the five anchor points above), and a whole lot of reflecting on whatever came up for me as I considered the past year, in all it's personal and professional glory. And gory.

When considering big defining happenings from the year, I realized that I often tend to focus in on and share only the ones that seem obviously positive. I didn't do that last year - last year had plenty of gory alongside the glory. But outside of that, I had a many year pattern of really only logging the 'good stuff.' I'm surprisingly fulfilled to say that this year, my cursory list includes plenty of gore next to the glor(y), because it actually felt so clear to me that the gore was what instigated a great deal of my growth. The cursory list of these definers:

• The Birth of JOVI GIRL!!!
• Adventure #2/2 in Breastfeeding
• Turning 40
• Unwanted Break-up with One of My Closest Friends
• Learning to Juggle Two Littles Day to Day
• Sustaining a Major Injury (Labral Tear in My Hip)
• Training in the Gym to Rehab from Birth, Said Injury and to Keep My Body Movin'
• My Work Being Shown Internationally (on Rooted Dance Projects in Halifax, NS Canada)
• Being Hired as a COMPAS Teaching Artist
• Rhythmically Speaking's 17th Annual Summer Show
• Being Inducted into my High School Hall of Fame
• Starting a New Dance Film
• Taking the Train to Chicago to Visit with a Dear Friend

Many other things happened this year, and the aggregate of that minutiae alongside and within all the above is where the growth really happened. Mostly, I felt it in my progress regarding my central New Year Intention idea from last year - Adaptability. It has been a joy to consider all the ways I successfully built my ability to be Adaptable over the course of the last year, much of it having to do with that 'Learning to Juggle Two Littles Day to Day' entry from above, and so much of what I've learned from that has spilled into other areas of my life in beautiful ways.

All of this said, I still feel there is plenty of room for growth where all of this is concerned. Specifically, I've decided to focus in on:

Ease . . .

Not a thing that comes 'easily' to me, per se. I've actually entertained focusing on this concept several times before, but didn't want it to seem tethered to one of it's three meanings (at least according to the Oxford English Dictionary): "the absence of difficulty or effort." Far from this, I am most interested in the other two: "to allow something to be less serious or severe" and "to move carefully or gradually." 

In previous years, I've included the word 'Levity' within these musings, and at those times, it was useful to get the lightness I needed out of that idea. Even so, selection of that word felt, in part, due to an unwillingness to lean into the word 'Ease,' due to its connotations with the first definition I offered. I didn't want to seem or feel 'soft' or 'lazy.' But is it soft (which, honestly, is that even bad?) or lazy to desire more ease within the way you operate in the world and treat yourself and others? Specifically, I desire ease around the importance I tend to assign to damn near everything in life. I say this not out of desire to not have to try hard - I really don't think I'm in danger of that! - but to encourage my understanding that I am but a speck in this universe. I think I feel motivated to keep doing my own best because I believe that my own actions reflect back out and we are all connected, but when I let that side of this coin become heavier than the other - the one that knows I'm but a speck - unnecessary stress and discomfort follows. 

I want my discomfort to come from necessary growth, not from unnecessary stress, and this is where Ease is coming in for me.

I recognize that Buddha and subsequent Buddhists have beaten me to all of this, but lessons like these seem to be ones I need to learn in my own way :)

I also love the third definition of Ease: "to move carefully or gradually." I recently listened to a really inspiring podcast (watch out, I'm a walking 2010 millennial clique, but seriously!) that featured Krista Tippett, who used to host 'On Being' for MPR, a radio show and spirituality and living a good life. One of the big takeaways I had from it was the idea of asking 'New Years Questions' rather than building 'New Years Resolutions.' While I've shifted over the years from using the word 'Resolutions,' as it became too rigid to be truly helpful to me, to the word 'Intention/s,' I found the concept of asking a question instead to be really intriguing. In the way Krista Tippett presented this, it feels like an opportunity to sit with a query rather than try to find an answer as quickly as possible. It seems humans - myself included - tend toward the path of least resistance on most things, including this: we like having clear-cut answers, despite reality being that there are very few things in life that are that easy to navigate. 

Instead, learning to sit with curiosity and questions feels to me like a way to move through life with a little more Ease, despite it also feeling more challenging in ways. To move carefully or gradually. 

I'd kind of hoped after listening to that podcast that I'd end up with a 'New Years Question' after all my reflection, but I did not and that's ok. The ideas I came across through listening have found their way in. 

I'm looking forward to a 2026 in which I do my best to find Ease in Adaptability while I move through what I Prepare for, my Habits and my Rituals, be it in Connecting, Moving, Creating, Reflecting and/ or Resting. 

I wish this sense of Ease to all who may be searching for it like me, and peace, love and hope for whatever is next to all. 

Ok 2026, let's go :)