Your Permission Slip for a Shame Free New Year
To hell with resolutions
The pressure is on, isn’t it?
As the calendar turns, a cultural mandate arrives.
It tells us to audit our lives, find our flaws, and create a list of ways we need to be better.
For many of us, especially those healing from high-control environments, this season can bring a quiet sense of dread.
The language of resolutions, the overnight motivation for drastic and radical transformation, self-discipline, and starting with a “clean slate” can feel eerily similar to the performance-based worthiness we are deconstructing or have left behind.
The “be better” mantra lands in the body with a familiar tightness because it’s built on the same logic that high-control systems use.
It suggests:
Your worth is conditional.
You are a problem to be fixed.
Rest is laziness, and striving is righteousness.
If this time of year feels heavy for you, I want to validate that experience completely.
You are not “doing it wrong.”
You are having a wise, protective response to a system that often prioritizes performance over presence.
I’ve felt this even more acutely since moving to the north. There’s a wisdom in the season itself that pushes back against the demand to hustle.
Even though we’re past the solstice and the light is slowly returning, the darker and colder days still invites me into a different rhythm.
This almost ancestral part of me nudges me back to slumber. It is longing for warmth, nourishing stews, deep rest, and quiet connection.
Our bodies seem to remember that this isn’t the season for the frantic energy of spring; it’s the season for the quiet insulation of snow and the wisdom of hibernation.
What if, this year, you could lovingly decline the invitation to fix yourself?
What if you could approach this threshold not as a performance review, but as a gentle intention to return to yourself?
The Shift from Cage to Compass
A few years ago, I realized that traditional resolution culture was, for me, an annual dignity violation.
It started from a place of deficit, demanding I betray my body’s wisdom for an idealized, often arbitrary, outcome.
The most powerful shift I made was to release the word “resolution” and gently pick up the word “intention.”
This is more than semantics; it’s a profound shift in how you relate to yourself.
Resolutions are rigid commands. They are pass/fail and rooted in a sense of lack. (“I will lose 15 pounds.”) They are a cage.
Gentle Intentions are flexible questions. They are guided by curiosity and rooted in your inherent wholeness. (“How can I move and nourish my body in ways that feel joyful?”) They are a compass.
One of my intentions this year includes:
Wander the Wilderness. I love the great outdoors here and there are lots of rivers and streams I want to get to know better. There isn’t a defined metric I can use for success here, because I have a relationship with the wilderness, not a contract.
Resolutions often lead us to shame when we slip up.
Intentions lead to discovery, regardless of the outcome.
A Gentle Practice to Begin
Before looking forward, let’s honor where we are right now.
This is a practice in grounding ourselves in what is already wise and true.
As always, you are welcome to particpate in as much or as little as feels safe to you.
Consent is key.
I call this practice the “Enough List.”
Find a quiet moment. Grab a journal or a scrap of paper.
Title it: “My ‘Enough’ List for the Past Year.”
Gently reflect and jot down a few things. Small moments are deeply welcome here.
A moment you were kind to yourself when it was hard.
A boundary you set, no matter how small.
A time you rested, even when you felt you “should” be productive.
A truth you learned about yourself.
When you’re done, read over your list. Place a hand on your chest. Take one slow, deliberate breath. Let the reality of your own resilience land in your body.
You begin this year not from a deficit, but from this place of profound wholeness.
Your Invitation to a Deeper Practice
This practice of creating an “Enough List” is the very first step in a much deeper guide I created to support you through this season: Resolutions Without Shame: A Dignity-Based Guide to Gentle New Year Intentions.
It’s a digital workbook filled with reframes, embodied practices (like setting sensory intentions), and a “Compassion Plan” for the moments you forget—all designed to help you set gentle intentions from a place of dignity, not deficit.
One of the convictions I have for my work is that I do not want to gatekeep resources for healing, health, and wholeness. As such, I have made the guide available as “pay what you want” which means it is also completely free.
A quick note for my cherished paid subscribers: This guide along with my other resources are included in your welcome email! Thank you for your incredible support. You can find the original email in your inbox.
You can find the link to the guide in the button below:
For this new year I want to invite you to grant yourself permission to be fully human.
To honor your body’s need for rest. To celebrate small moments of joy and to be compassionate with yourself when you forget.
These intentions are a compass, not a cage.
Your dignity matters. Always.
This spoke straight to my body. The way you name resolution culture as a dignity violation and connect it to high-control logic feels so true, especially for those of us unlearning performance-based worth. I really felt the shift from cage to compass that language alone changes everything. The seasonal framing landed too, that permission to hibernate rather than hustle feels deeply wise. I love the “Enough List” as a starting place, it honours what’s already been carried instead of demanding more. Thank you for offering something so humane, spacious, and genuinely reparative at this time of year.