Check out 16 Return-To-Work Programs In India For Ambitious Women Like You!
Photo by Cristian Escobar on Unsplash
New Year’s Eve is beyond letting go of the old and welcoming the new. It’s a time that reminds you of your journey through the year, your growth, and your transformation. It’s a time when you remember how you felt, how your mind-body-soul perceived everything, how you responded to every perception, and how it made a difference in your inner fabric.
Also, this is the time when you set intentions for the new year and set goals to achieve successfully. This is why I have curated some nice rituals to make your year-end as well as New Year’s Eve more meaningful and purposeful. Let’s have a look.
Slow down:
The New Year’s Eve is a great time to slow down. December doesn’t come alone, there comes the twelfth month of the year when you start planning your new year one month ahead. But you must remember that the year is still alive and it’s breathing its last. So, how about slowing down and giving an ode to the year that made you grow one year older?
Start your year-end rituals by slowing down. Have enough time for yourself, unplug from the social media hype of the New Year’s Eve celebration, and give ample time for your self-care routines. You can also practice affirmations to receive more good vibes.
Find some time for nurturing your mind-body-soul. Declutter the unnecessary baggage from your closet, life, and mind. Nourish your body, detox, and rest. Engage with some spiritual activities like chanting and meditating to rejuvenate your soul.
Write down what you want to let go:
Another beautiful year-end ritual is writing down what didn’t work for you this year, what made you sad, what left you empty, and leaving them behind. For this purpose, you can write all of them on paper, make an airplane, and fly it away. This ritual is particularly to be done on the 31st December night, when the world is waiting to welcome 2024, and a few hours are left to bid adieu to 2023.
If making an airplane is not possible for you, make a paper boat and float it to the nearby river or any water reservoir. You can also burn the paper and turn it into ashes, thus burning your negativities of 2023 to an end. This way, let go of all things that didn’t work, and put an end to them with a hope to welcome good things in the new year.
Say your hopes, dreams, and promises to your favorite plant:
Buy an indoor plant and nurture it like a baby. If you are a plant parent, this ritual is a great way to show your affection to your plant babies. Come to one plant, say your expectations to your plant baby, and cuddle it with love. See the miracles happen when they respond to you with positive vibes.
Connect with yourself deeply and hear the whispers beneath your skin:
This is a good time to connect to yourself and make a deeper connection with your inner self. Find a quiet corner and sit there for a good amount of time.
Slowly, close your eyes, relax your body, and breathe. Breathe…breathe…breathe. As you breathe, let your mind-body-soul heal. Don’t get distracted, instead, focus on your breathwork and surrender yourself to the inner guide.
Now, try to pay attention to the silence within. Interpret it to get a deeper understanding of what it echoes to you. This moment may bring something unexpected to you, whether it’s sorrowful or happy, hear it attentively and accept it.
Your inner whispers will surprise you, perhaps, they will echo the message of the universe to you about the year leaving or the year coming. Let them guide you to the new year purposefully.
Write a letter to this year as well as the new year:
This thought came to my mind first when I hosted my first blog hop on 2020 New Year’s Eve. While curating the writing prompts, I realized letter writing would be a nice way to remind myself of the good things that happened amidst the gloom, the people and memories I am grateful for, and the learnings I want to pass on to the year approaching. Similarly, it’s a beautiful ritual for the new year to set intentions about the hopes, dreams, and aspirations I am planning for personal and professional growth.
Writing a letter to the year that’s ending is a nice way to bid goodbye to the frame of time that contributed to your life a whole year and now it’s leaving the older self of you. On the other hand, writing a letter to the new year is also a great practice to visualize your goals and manifest your expectations from the year knocking at the door.
Reflect by indulging in self-conversation:
This time of the year is all about mindful reflections. And when it comes to reflecting, one of the best things to do is converse with yourself. You can talk to yourself in your mind, sitting on your balcony or in a quiet corner of the house. Also, you can journal and write down a dialogue with yourself, contemplating the year, and seeing it through your lens.
For this purpose, you can use a free-flow writing style, or ask yourself some questions to write the answers as a self-reflection activity. Some nice questions for this ritual may help you find more clarity about the vision for the new year as well.
Ask yourself:
If I am asked to define the year 2023 in one word, what would be that word?
What made a difference in the year?
Which memories brought me a moment of joy and a smile on my face?
What are the mistakes I made in 2023 that I don’t want to repeat in my life?
What are the things that boosted my spirit and I want to continue doing them in the new year as well?
What are the areas that gave me a sense of accomplishment and made me proud of myself?
What are the challenges I faced this year, and what gave me the courage and strength to win over them?
What new experiences did I have this year?
Which good habits did I build this year and want to continue in the new year?
Which books do I love reading and want to give them re-read?
From my wish list of 2023, what is left undone or unexplored, or given less time and I want to give it more time in the new year?
Which self-care activities do I want to practice more often in 2024?
What offered me a sense of purpose?
Where do I want to see myself at the same time of the new year?
Whatever the answers come to your mind, write them effortlessly. Don’t overthink and judge yourself for the answers you are writing. Once you finish the self-conversation ritual, reflect on them mindfully.
Light up your gratitude list:
No matter to what extent the year has hurt you with challenges and failures, there must be some good things that made the year memorable for you. You will have at least a handful of them to light up your life. Write the moments that brought happiness, your achievements, your good experiences, people who had your back, and how you are grateful to them for gifting you a ray of sunshine. Write all of them in your gratitude journal, keep these pages open, and light a scented candle beside it. Or collect your gratitude notes in a jar and wrap them with fairy lights.
Contemplate on your takeaways of the year leaving:
A year means 365 brand new days to explore, to know, to learn as well as to unlearn. When you contemplate on the year, you will find some beautiful truths of life unfolded before you and some useful life lessons you learned. This way, they contribute to your growth and transformation to continue to the new year as well.
Meditate and manifest:
New Year’s Eve is the time when you want to see new dreams for the year to come. New hope blossoms in your heart. You make new promises to the year so it makes the whole new set of 365 prosperous days to add more meaning and success to your life.
For this purpose, make a stress-free bucket list in your bullet journal, set intentions behind your vision for the new year, keep your goals realistic and achievable, add some good habits that you want to develop in 2024, and connect with your circle where you can have good conversations with like-minded people.
However, most importantly, you need to meditate upon your intentions to align your vision for the new year with your purpose and goals. Meditate to visualize them in your inner canvas and manifest them to enter your wholeness.
Thus, letting go of everything old, shedding the layer of the defeated, fragile, and withered self, manifest the newborn version of you to start another year-long journey afresh.
Swarnali is an Author, Blogger, Wellbeing Researcher, and Singer. She blogs at 'The Blissful Storyteller'. She runs The Peace Stories initiative where she shares stories of healing, recovery, personal winning, and self-discovery. An avid read more...
This post has published with none or minimal editorial intervention. Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, individual posts do not necessarily represent the platform's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
UP Boards Topper Prachi Nigam was trolled on social media for her facial hair; our obsession with appearance is harsh on young minds.
Prachi Nigam’s photo has been doing the rounds on social media for the right reasons. Well, scratch that- I wish the above statement were true. This 15-year-old girl should ideally be revelling in her spectacular achievement of scoring a whopping 98.05% and topping her tenth-grade boards. But oddly enough, along with her marks, it’s something else that garners more attention – her facial hair.
While the trolls are driving themselves giddy by mocking this girl who hasn’t even completed her school yet, the ones who are taking her side are going one step ahead – they are sharing her photoshopped pictures, sans the facial hair, looking nothing less than a celebrity with captions saying – “Prachi Nigam, ten years later”.
Doctors have already diagnosed her with PCOD in their comments, based on photographic evidence. While we have names for people shamed for their weight – body shaming, for their skin colour- racism, for their age- age shaming, for being a female- sexism, this category of shaming where one faces criticism for their appearance has no name. With that, it also has zero shame attached to it.
Please enter your email address