This time of year used to be filled with resolutions, regret, shame, and seeking the right solution, once and for all, to lose weight. That’s how I came to the end of every year. It felt awful, but I didn’t know another way. Year after year, I kept trying to right my wrongs with a variation of the same solution— the diet.
I wish I could get those days back. But I see it as part of my path, to get me here, to see another way, and to have a Begin Again as I built a new relationship with food.
January is pretty much the worst time of year to make big changes related to diet and body.
The fact that these diet resolutions don't work is actually your body’s wisdom! Look, I love a good milestone date to make changes, but let's dig a little deeper on this whole “New Year - New Me” trend:
January 1st has nothing to do with your body. It's a date on a calendar decided by Julius Caesar and his peeps (aka, the Julian Calendar). Not very resonant for the female body.
New Years is in the thick of winter (in the Northern Hemisphere), the darkest, dormant, the most ideal time for quiet and slowness. It's not the time for attempts at big change. It's the perfect time for reflection and inward energy.
Your body IS connected to the earth, the seasons, the moon, and your menstrual cycle. You already have brilliant and real ways to renew, but big diet and body changes on January 1st set us up for failure every time because it's so out of sync with who you are.
How does that sit with you? Does it let you release the idea that you need to do a cleanse or a big change come the new year? There’s a better way. When we invite in rather than focus on what needs to be taken away, we find more ease. In my years of health coaching, I’ve seen that the change comes when we first add something in.
Diet culture tells us to remove. It’s traumatic, hard, scary, and all about deprivation. Adding in something, like a ritual, that soothes the nervous system, makes everything else more doable.
Right now we’re in the days when the balance of dark and light tips and the sun begins a return trip that invites newness, growth, increasing warmth, and brightness inside you. It's a beautiful time to, first, feel the darkness (what has come before this moment) and then, move to the healing light. The solstice is a time of rebirth, a special window of peace and renewal. The quiet of a long night welcomes you to look within. Now is a perfect time to honor your own inner light with renewed attention, awareness, and gratitude.
Ritual became a biggy after my mom died in 2020. I was so drawn to the ways I could mark shifts in time beyond the typical anniversaries people commemorate in grief.
My Winter Solstice Ritual, asking lots of questions about what I want for my future.
2020 took this to a new level for me. My sacred time in the morning is now a make-it-or-break-it for my day. Rituals honor where I really am, in nature, in seasons, and in my body, and feel a million times more relevant than January 1st. Creating your sacred time and space is all about self-love. It’s about bringing in something nourishing rather than removing and punishing.
Rituals honor moments of transition when it feels like life just passes us by.
Below I’ve shared some journal prompts that are ideal for right now— for you to learn about your relationship with food before you seek a solution to the struggle.
Our productivity-obsessed, check-the-box, stuff-it-down-and-move-on culture wants us to rush to the end. To the end of what? Real change comes when we can be with what is so we can see, clearly, without judgment, what may emerge.
Questions to get you started:
When did your stress, struggle, or battle with food begin? What are your earliest memories including food restriction or rules? What do you remember people around you saying about food, both the positive and the negative?
When do you enjoy food? When do you find pleasure in food? And when does food feel like stress and a chore?
What is your #1 food struggle right now?
What are you worried about when it comes to your relationship with food? For yourself and for your family?
What does Food Freedom mean to you? What would it feel like for this whole food thing to not be a hardship? What would your days look like? How does this feel in your body right now?
When you ask these questions, you’ll begin to see the parts under the surface that need a little more nourishment, compassion, and love.
Give yourself the time to go deeper, feel it, and embrace the real stuff. Jumping to the fix, without really understanding the struggle at the root, fails every time.
Self-acceptance, self-compassion, self-love— how can you bring those in? I know this has been a year, but rather than racing to the end since there’s no real finish line here, can you take a bit to pause and learn more about you?
Please share in the comments how it feels to dig into this.
