How to Create a Better 2022 (and more Peace and Happiness)
What I love about each New Year is that it always brings opportunity. This New Year our opportunity is to create our own peace and happiness even in the face of a continuing pandemic.
We all hoped 2021 would bring the end of the pandemic. It didn’t. People are soooooo ready to be done with it and move on, yet here we are facing another COVID variant and a divided country. It’s getting old, isn’t it? And exhausting – mentally and emotionally. The pandemic has brought so much uncertainty, anxiety, change, division, and collective trauma. We all want to to move on…
But HOW you move on is what is most important – not simply that you move on.
It is your positive energy and positive thoughts that will create more peace and happiness for you in 2022, regardless of the details of how the pandemic plays out in 2022.
Beyond “Good Riddance”
Instead of an attitude of “good riddance” toward 2021, let’s spin it positive for peace and happiness in 2022. Energetically you can choose to allow a fresh start: letting go of that which you are ready to release, and opening up for transformation and healing.
This is the ritual I use every year to honor the year that has just passed, and then to consciously create my New Year. Let’s honor ourselves and the year (or two really!) which we have just lived through.
Take Time to Reflect on a 2021
First, I invite you to give yourself the gift of stopping long enough to become aware of all aspects of your past year. The trauma and challenge of the pandemic can cause us to lose a bigger perspective of our other life experiences in the past year. Just STOP for a few minutes and go through these 3 Steps.
Step 1: Reflect
Spend a few minutes reflecting and journaling about your past year.There’s no format here, no right or wrong way to do it. Write whatever comes to your mind about your year, and consider these questions:
- What lessons did I learn?
- What strengths did I find within myself?
- What can I acknowledge myself for?
- How was it for me to adapt to such uncertain and changing times?
- What positive things surprisingly came out of the circumstances imposed on me in 2020?
- How did the pandemic affect my thinking and my feelings?
- How did the pandemic affect my relationships?
- What “blessings in disguise” did I discover?
Step 2: Release
Get some scrap paper. Write down anything you want to let go of from the past year… this the Good Riddance part. What do you want to let go of….challenges, regrets, mistakes, anxiety or worry or upset or overwhelm, limitations, things you wish you had not said or done, pain (physical and emotional) that you want to let go of, old patterns you want to change, activities you no longer want to participate in, negative thoughts you want to stop thinking.
Do not get caught in feeling bad about the past in any way. Make this list without judgement. Instead, make this list with simple, objective clarity about the things that you want to let go of and be done with. Be as detailed as you can. Those things are in the past. Write them down and choose to let them go right now. They do not need to go forward into 2022 with you.
Even though the pandemic will not be over in January 2022, you can still release the things that bring you down and keep you from peace and happiness.
When you’ve identified everything you are ready to let go of….Now rip those pages to shreds as you release those things to the past. Throw those shreds of paper in the garbage. What I mean is, take them outside of your home out the to garbage can and be done with them right now.
Say outloud “Good Bye. I release all this right here and now.” Now turn around and don’t look back as you return to your home, ready to create a truly NEW year.
This represents YOU being in charge of creating your experience of 2022. You can take charge of your inner world (your thoughts and emotions and energy).
Step 3: Re-Focus
Write down your answers to these questions about 2021:
- What are the 3 best things that happened to me?
- What were my 3 biggest challenges?
- What was the single biggest time waster in my life during the past year?
- How did I grow (emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, physically)?
- What worked in my life during the past year? What did not work?
- How much love did I share? With whom were my most valuable relationships?
- What 3 words best describe my past year?
Write down your answers to these questions about this NEW Year 2022:
- If I had 3 wishes for 2022 what would they be?
- What would I do if I knew I could not fail?
- What 3 words would I want my loved ones to use to describe me this year?
- What 3 words do I want to guide my NEW year?