Happy (belated) New Year to you & your family.
Tools for Intentions, traditions & reflections.
Hi friends, it's been a moment!
Happy New year to year to you and your sweet family. How was your winter break? Tell me, what did I miss?!
Oh gosh, we have all been sick for the whole of our winter break. We had full on flu and took to our beds and sofa for Christmas and New Year. We did nothing! Somehow we managed to claw our way through Christmas day to return to our beds by 7pm. We were all feeling very sorry for ourselves but at least we had two weeks with no commitments to rest and recoup together, which was exactly what our bodies needed. I guess the universe took control and hit the pause button for us all!
We tentatively returned to work, Embers Learning Community and Forest School early January, easing ourselves back to reality. The kids were very happy to catch up with friends and discuss plans for the term ahead. The community took some time to discuss the rights of the child (thank you
for the wonderful resources) and how that provides the foundation of our community at Embers.I took Barney on a group trip to do Axe throwing, crate stacking and Laser tag in the forest which was so much fun! He's also tried out Chasing Driftwood Creative Writing Group and loved it so he's looking forward to getting stuck into that this year. The girls have kept themselves busy with slime, Lego and crafting.
We have just returned from five days away at Centre Parcs with our friends, we had so much fun, and it was so needed after a miserable Christmas! I now feel ready to begin our year.
With that in mind, today I wanted to share some of my new year traditions, intentions and reflections along with some tools I find useful for this process as I gently step into a fresh new year.
So, here are a few things I like to dip into or that inspire my thoughts and plans for the year ahead. I don't use them all each year but I have found each really useful over the years.
Firstly, I like to make a vision board using Pinterest. I gather images that I'm drawn to and reflect the areas of my life I want to send energy to in the coming months. I also like to look back on the previous year's vision board to see if things came into fruition or took a completely different turn!
I like Gretchen Rubin's idea of 24 for 2024; a list of 24 things you would like to achieve for 2024. I did this as a quick exercise for my morning pages to see what came out without much thought.
I have loved having a word for the year or a word for the season, providing a theme or backdrop to my intentions. I haven't been pulled to choose a word so far this year, I feel open to see what happens….so maybe Open is my word!
I absolutely love reflecting on the year gone by and two amazing tools for that are: A Year In Review: The Goodlife Podcast & How To Make 2024 Your Best Year: Mel Robbins.
Each January I look forward to the most generous offering from Adriene Mishler and her 30 days of yoga. This year the theme is Flow, it is the perfect way to welcome January. I use Adriene's free videos as part of my morning rhythm, I just love her style, authenticity and warmth.
Another tradition we have is to sit down as a family and schedule our travels and trips in the caravan. We discuss where we would like to explore and favourite places we want to return too. It means the time is set aside and we can look forward to lots of adventures together. We aim for a short trip every month and at least one long trip a year, taking our learning on the road. We're also planning to travel some of Europe next year which is very exciting!
This year I have felt no real hurry to make plans or set intentions. I'm open to see what happens, take things slowly and see what takes shape over the coming months. How about you? Do you like to have goals and intentions for your coming year? Tell me about them, I would love to hear.
Ah, it's good to be back writing to you guys! My usual offerings will be returning to your inbox on Tuesdays and Saturdays and I'm mulling over some ideas for my offerings in-person and online so make sure you’re subscribed to have those updates too.
I’ve set aside some time tomorrow to dive into all your gorgeous offerings…..it's a long list of saved bits to catch up on! Please do share with me anything you've read over the past month that I must read!
Warmest wishes,
P.S
Here are a few journal prompts for the new year:
What will you leave behind in the old year?
What will you bring with you into the new year?
What did you discover about yourself over the last year?
What are you most grateful for from the last year?
P.P.S
Check out my latest read, it's perfection!
We are in the grip of one of those "polar vortexes" that seem to happen at least once a year now in the central US. But that gives me an opportunity to catch up on some internetting. Thanks for your post and welcome back! We are excited for 2024.
Welcome back and happy new year to you! So sorry to hear you were all so unwell over Christmas, glad you are much better. Thank you for these lovely resources, I didn’t have the space I imagined over the festive period and am still very much feeling into the year so hope to carve out more time for reflecting and ‘intentioning’ soon, I will certainly use the resources you suggest and prompts! xx