Lightening Your Load for 2021

A new year is almost upon us and many of us are now focused on what we want for ourselves in the new year.  When I say “what we want” I am referring to the changes we want to make in our lives, the metaphorical load from which we want to let go.  Every December 31st there is a sense of renewal and opportunity to create changes for ourselves, it is a little bit of a ritual, the ending of a cycle and the beginning of something fresh and new.  This new year cycle gives us renewed hope.

I want to talk about creating change, but not in the old fashioned sense where we make repeated resolutions that often fail within the first week, we have all been there.  No, I want to talk about the opportunity to let go of the stuff we carry, the emotional baggage, the material objects that overrun our homes, the extra pounds or kilos on our body and the spiritual void within.  Chances are we can all identify with one of these areas where we could use some help, or maybe as is true in my case, it’s an “all of the above” answer.

This article will highlight examples from each of these categories and ways you might be able to “lighten your load” as we go into the new year.

Break Free from the Chains that Weigh You Down

This is your chance to free yourself of the heavy chains, thank you Jacob Marley for the image of what we don’t want.  We all “forge” the heavy chains we carry and the exciting part about the new year is how we can choose to break free from them.   

Finding Gratitude

Emotionally, life takes it’s toll.  It comes in the form of worries and stress about loved ones, finances, school, career, relationships, children, and parents to name a few.  The stress and anxiety, I would say, is rooted in dissatisfaction and an inability to live in the moment.  It comes from a place where gratitude is absent.  This does not mean that we don’t have it, we just lose sight of it.  If you are reading this, then this is your opportunity to find it, you can read more about the gift of gratitude here.

Taking a page out of the book from Oprah, create a practice of writing 3-5 things that you are grateful for each day.  Keep the notebook by your bed, or if your phone works, use that.  Use whatever medium is going to help you to implement it. And then check back in with yourself in a week or two and see how and where your anxiety and stress levels are at that point.

A Minimizing Strategy

Materially, we live in an era of surplus consumption which yields a surplus amount of useless stuff in our homes.  These things can truly weigh us down and decrease our overall well-being and happiness.  There is nothing more frustrating than needing something, knowing you have it, and not being able to find it.  Many of us will then be forced to buy it again, only to not be able to find it when needed months later.  Sound familiar? It’s a terrible cycle, but with commitment, we can also strive to make small and meaningful changes for ourselves in this department as well.

There are lots of strategies out there around minimizing your home.  One year we took on one of the monthly challenges where we each got rid of objects that corresponded to the day of the month on the calendar.  So for example, on the third of the month we each got rid of 3 objects, on the 15th, 15 objects, and so on.  By the end of the month, we had cleaned out close to 1000 objects from our home.  It was a great exercise and one that we have been replicating for one month in the year, every year since.

Make Room for Good Health

Thinking about the physical burdens we carry, this one doesn’t take much explanation.  It’s the resolution we most often think of when the clock strikes midnight on December 31st.  It doesn’t necessarily mean that we want to lose weight, though many of us do, it might mean changing some of our eating habits or reinstating our physical activity.  Again, the fortune we have, to live in the modern era where many have an abundance of food but not always high-quality food.  The ease of eating food that tastes good but that is not good for our bodies is not difficult to do in today’s world.  We don’t have to work for our food in the same way our ancestors did, and there is a good chance that a lot of the food we eat today, would not be recognized by our ancestors.   

An easy way to simplify your diet and eat more whole foods, is to ask yourself if your grandparents would recognize that food 50 years ago.  We can work towards eating the foods our ancestors ate more of, which would translate into higher quality, whole foods.  If we ask ourselves these questions before eating, it brings us to a place of greater mindfulness.  And mindfulness is the gateway towards peace and fulfillment, a good segue to the next section.

Find Your Connections

No one needs to be reminded of the cultural and social hardships we have experienced this past year.  When we have a difficult time feeling positive about the future, be it our individual future, our national future, or mother earth’s future, this can impact our spiritual outlook and sense of the world.

Not all of this is bad, this past year has shaken up the systems around us and pulled back the curtain on the many injustices that need to be addressed.  I am a firm believer that through conflict betterment will come.  Growing pains can hurt and 2020 has thrust us forward, forcing us to lean into the discomfort.  After all change does not come from a place of comfort.

However, one of the outcomes of this discomfort can be despondency, we are human and we will have these feelings from time to time.  We can combat this by getting involved and building back that sense of purpose and meaning in our lives.  We can do this by volunteering with a local organization, raising money for a cause that you care about, or by simply connecting with your community rather than retreating, as we may have the tendency to do in those moments.  Here are a few words from Deepak Chopra on this subject.

All around us, there are examples of the “spiritual highs”, of the community pulling through and looking out for each other.  Some days will be more grey, but we can be hopeful knowing that brighter days are not far off.

If you found this article helpful please share it with your friends and sign up for my newsletter below.  Thank you!!  Now go forth and be renewed! 😉