good Intentions.

Five, four, three, two, one, Happy New Year!

I look around me at everyone celebrating, at the clinks of champagne flutes as they come together, and the gaiety of celebration as it fills the room. At least some are excited for the new year.

Me? I feel the same.

If anything, I’m a little tired. It’s not that often that I’m up at midnight, and in all honesty, I’ve never been a fan of this particular holiday.

While everyone else in the world happily partakes in customary drinking, partying, and celebrating, I’m usually in reflective mode, internalizing the year and thinking about the next.

Naturally.

*also. why it become fashionable to get trashed on NYE and spend the first day of the new year hung-over is beyond me

If I am at a NYE party, you’ll either find getting low on the dance floor, shaking what my momma gave me, or off to the side of the room, observing and forming sentences in my head, and tonight, it was the latter.

I hadn’t been in the best headspace to begin with. I had been stifling the urge to cry nearly all day, battling with this unexplainable anxiety, and it was honestly taking all of my strength to put on a brave, grateful, and “I’m okay” face in front of my friends and family.

In situations like these, I always feel like the villain, the Debbie Downer. It hurts me, not being able to be present and celebrate with those I love most, especially during the holidays. And though I’m working on overcoming these difficult to explain feelings of insecurity and anxiousness, I also know it’s not going to fix itself overnight.

So during this particular party, I embraced my stance as the wallflower. And I started thinking about that damned question asked every year:

“What are your New Year’s resolutions?”

Ugh.

I loathe this question.

I get it. It’s common during the holidays to set these so called resolutions. I think it’s healthy and smart to note habits we’d like to change, or areas in which we’d like to grow, and for the most part, they all come from a place of good intention.

But for me, it’s such an ineffective strategy, and it comes from an “all or nothing”, do or die mentality. I’ve always felt this unnecessary pressure to achieve my goal and when I falter, stumble, or trip, I feel as if I’ve failed, and then in comes the shame and guilt. Like, really Elan? You couldn’t make it one month?

And that is not something I enjoy feeling.

I already feel that way. A lot.

So yeah, I’ve never been a front row fan of New Year’s resolutions.

But, I am a fan of setting intentions.

Notice the difference between the two:

Resolution- a firm decision to do or not to do something

Intention- a thing intended; an aim or plan

The approachability, the compassionate energy, and the friendliness of setting intentions over resolutions is clear, and it works miracles for someone like me, who’s more interested in the process over the end goal.

Intentions are achievable, and it doesn’t tie me to an outcome. Setting intentions encourages me to be mindful of my effort, that if/when I do fail, it doesn’t mean it’s the end. It teaches me to embrace my imperfections and rises me to the challenge of beginning again, without self-judgment.

And it focuses my energy not on “fixing”, but on “creating.”

See the difference?

Now I’m not like most people, so this strategy may not work for everyone. But for me, in my current state, it’s what I need: forgiveness, grace, and compassion.

So yes, there are a great deal of good intentions I’ve set for myself for the New Year. And I work on them with the knowledge that they will take time, and likely involve more emotional breakdowns.

Like, many more.

But it’s with this perspective, this alternate “resolution” that I am taught that through this work, I’m not “fixing” the life I have, but “creating” the one I want and can thrive in.

One step at a time.

sometimes, i’m the mess.

sometimes, i’m the broom.

on the hardest days,

I have to be both.

-Rudy Franciso

That absolutely sums up how I’ve been living the past few months.

Being a woman with a tender heart and a profoundly deep longing to love who she is, I have grappled with the necessary but oftentimes painful growth during my journey of self-acceptance.

Having recently found out that my over-analyzing, over-thinking, and over-reacting tendencies are all actually byproducts of living with anxiety: well, it hit me kind of hard.

But it also put a face to a name. It opened the door to some honest conversation and I’m learning to understand how I can cope with it and overcome those self-harming proclivities. And that’s progress, regardless of how sore it’s left me at times.

When I found that quote, I felt that it perfectly encapsulated how living with anxiety feels like. How it’s not just about being the mess (cause that’s hard enough), but the strength required to clean up, emotionally, and often as an army of one.

It’s weird, but I almost feel relief at being able to identify what I thought had no name. I mean, for years I truly believed that I was this anomaly that had these disproportionate levels of hormones or something, for how else does one explain my vehement reaction to seemingly inconsequential things?

I’m finding that during this expedition towards embracing my imperfect self, I sometimes forget to mention and celebrate the good that occurs during the days that I think are completely clouded by bad. I have this tendency to wholly focus on the lows, altogether forgetting about the highs.

Don’t get me wrong- my writing comes from a place of vulnerability and the desire to share how I feel (and this girl feeeeeeels). And while I live with anxiety on a day to day basis, sometimes feeling like a fraud in a mask trying to keep it all together on the inside, I’ve experienced many a moment where I feel good. Whole. Complete and calm, like my emotions are balanced and I am left wondering why I let these little nuances ruin what a loving life I have.

So I think it’s important to remember and share all the positivity, since we’re on the subject of balance.

I was recently blessed with a most memorable Monday, where I felt joy, peace, and harmony within me.

I was out hiking with my close friends in the midst of Mother Nature, following the Kenai River and hiking along the ridgeline of the upper canyon. Along the way, we witnessed proud eagles perch, stately sandhill cranes soar over the glacial blue, and the hypnotizing flow of the river as it wound its way through the gorge.

It was gorges.

(I simply had to throw a pun in there to lighten things up a bit)

And I thought to myself, there’s no place in the world I’d rather be.

Yeah… I was feeling pretty damn magical.

That’s honestly how I felt: like magic was happening inside me, because for the last few months I have been riding the struggle bus. Constantly riddled with anxiety and nerves, this break from all the negativity felt like actual magic.

I felt stillness. My heart beat normally, my mind wasn’t wandering, and I was living, breathing, and being in the moment.

And when my mind did try and wander down a wicked path, I focused on the steps I was taking. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

Cause that’s what this is all about, taking things one step at a time.