Caring for your Mental Health in the New Year

It’s the start of a new year. You might be feeling the post-holiday blues, or the exhaustion of the sprint to the end of the year and a lot of family time. You also might notice yourself feeling some positive and motivational energy associated with a fresh start, a turn of the calendar, and a reset to goals and intentions for the next 12 months. Regardless of where you fall on this continuum of emotion and energy, it’s a great opportunity to check-in with yourself.

I find the new year brings with it two distinct opportunities for caring for your mental and emotional health. The first is a chance to reflect on the year that has just come to a close. It’s so important for our memory and our psychological integration to spend time reflecting and processing our experiences. What happened to you in 2024? Maybe lots of really wonderful things––a new relationship, a promotion, the completion of a big project, a new baby. Maybe some really painful things happened too––the loss of a job, the death of a friend, illness, relational rupture, a traumatic event. I hope you’re taking time to process these experiences.

Consider asking yourself some reflective questions, like, what are you proud of? What will you miss? What are you grieving? What are you relieved to leave in your past? What are you eager to take with you into your future? Take your journal and some of these reflective questions to a coffee shop. Or meet up with a good friend for a new years reflection walk and swap stories and takeaways. 

The second opportunity the new year brings is the one we hear a lot more about––goals or intentions for the year ahead. There can be some really nice motivation and focus at the start of the year. Sure, this can (and likely will) fade. But the new year provides a built-in opportunity to check-in with how you’re living and if you like it. Is there anything you’d like to change? Is there anything you’d like to learn or grow in? Is there anything you’d like to quit or set a boundary around? Is there anything, internally or externally, you’d like to nurture or care for?

It’s important that we set ourselves up well with these goals or intentions. So perhaps a monthly, quarterly, or mid-year check-point might be helpful. We can lose track of our goals and our momentum in the second half of the year, so I find it helps if we set a time to check-in. Also, you might consider sharing them with a partner, close friend, or a therapist. Whenever we’re setting goals for ourselves, it’s important to hold ourselves to them with compassion, doing what we can to avoid the guilt or shame that can come with missing a mark. The thing is, unexpected things happen. All the time! Hard things, disruptive things, painful and unplanned things are likely to be a part of your year too. Make space for that in yourself. Remember that processing and pivoting and practicing self-compassion are part of having a good year too.

If you find yourself at the close of 2024 and looking down the pike of 2025 with a lot of unprocessed emotions or experiences, consider inviting a therapist to join you on the journey. The new year is a wonderful opportunity to set out to care for your mental health in a new way.

If you’re entering this season with grief, anxiety, or the desire to make meaningful change, I hope you’ll reach out about how somatic therapy can help support your processing and equip you for the year ahead.