Permission to pause this New Year
Why you might feel flat in January
New Year, New You—right? If you’re thinking and feeling more seize the sofa than seize the day, there is nothing wrong or weird about you.
Every New Year, we are saturated with marketing around what we need to do to change every aspect of ourselves: from our body (usually around having less of it!), mind (hacks and manifestations aplenty), and soul (another course that promises elusive enlightenment).
The festive season can be destabilising
You don’t owe anyone a fresh start. I’m not saying you are allowed to rest; I am saying you need to rest—especially if the festive season was emotionally and physically challenging. When the festive season was something you just “had to get through,” as opposed to the most magical time of the year, of course January feels heavy.
There may be relief that another Christmas is done and dusted. Perhaps this is accompanied by realisations over the Christmas period: I’m not where I expected to be in life; another year where I had to mask and suppress my feelings because I have no one in my life who is able to meet my loneliness, grief, and yearning with the understanding and tenderness I crave.
So, if you’ve spent the holidays alone—physically or emotionally—the pressure to “start strong” can feel like salt in the wound.
Take your time to be rooted so you can rise from an anchored place.
Lessons from Mother Nature
Remember, we are very much still in winter, with Mother Earth sleeping and conserving her precious energy for Spring. The trees are still bare; the flowers are still seeds under the ground, and the animals are hibernating.
In the Celtic Wheel of the Year, the start of the year is Samhain (All Hallows’ Eve or Halloween). Why? The Celts recognised the need for darkness—a time to turn inward and retreat—like a seed planted in the soil or a baby in the womb. This is an essential part of any process; flowers do not suddenly appear in Spring without effort; the roots anchored deep, taking shape and the pushing through the Earth to be seen, to bloom and be visible. The day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit, see the flower…
So, if you are still in a period of wintering and percolating, you are actually in sync with nature. There’s time to spring, time to rest, time to be in limbo, to dream, to desire, to be.
An alternative to resolutions
If you still want to mark the Gregorian shift from 2025 to 2026, here are some questions.
These questions are an invitation, not a checklist.
A way of reflecting without turning on yourself.
Of noticing what shaped you, where your energy went, and what you want to carry forward.
You might notice what happens in your body as you read—
a softening, a tightening, a sense of recognition, or nothing at all.
Sometimes awareness is enough to begin choosing differently.
· With whom did you feel most alive this year? And with whom did you feel yourself shrinking? How might those moments of aliveness have more space in the year ahead?
· In which environments or places did you feel nourished, settled, or your authentic self? And which ones drained you?
· What qualities do you admire in yourself? What are you genuinely proud of?
· Where is there room for development—without judgement, pressure, or punishment?
· How do you want to FEEL in 2026? Do you have a word, spirit animal, ancestor energy, or visual for the year?
Healing happens in connection, not isolation.
So, if you don’t feel like setting New Year’s resolutions, taking out that pricey direct debit for a gym you don’t use, or vision boarding your 2026, you’re not starting the year off wrong. You’re responding to an emotionally demanding season in a connected and authentic way. And honestly, I think that’s the best way to start any year.
If this resonated…
If you’re finding it hard to untangle how you’re feeling after the holidays—you don’t have to figure it out alone.
You don’t need to know exactly what to say—just send a message via the contact form on the contact page or book in for a free 15 minute video call, and we can figure it out together.
Rooted in your healing,
Angela