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- January 2, 2024
Hello friends,
These first few writing prompts in January will be focused around helping us identify our values and our core beliefs as they stand now. Throughout the year, I will be periodically sending writing prompts that help us check in on if those still ring true for us. From there, we will identify both short term and long term goals that resonate with what is right for us rather than with what is expected of us. These prompts are less about achievement and more about self-knowledge. What matters to you? What is important to you?
Todays prompt is about checking in with patterns from our past year and identifying ways in which our life has changed. Set yourself a timer for 5-15 minutes and free write, stream of consciousness without censoring yourself.
Take 5-15 minutes and write about
How has your life changed in the past year?
The biggest change in my life in 2023 was buying a house. It has changed and impacted my life in a lot of ways. For one, it reflects a decision to stay in the U.S.A. in general and in Chicago in particular for the foreseeable future. Of course we could always rent it out or sell it if we needed to relocate, but it definitely feels different from renting.
There is a lot of freedom and anxiety that comes from having to deal with repairs and changes to the property yourself. Of course we knew that home ownership would be expensive, but it is definitely a challenge. It helps though to know that it is an investment in the building and in ourselves instead of feeling like our rent just disappears every month. The house is over 100 years old though, so there is a lot to do.
The other big change in my life has to do with health and weight loss. I’ve gone from about 212lb to 180lb the last time I weighed myself. I’m sure the current number is higher, because I allowed myself a lot of flexibility around the holidays, but it feels very new and good to feel some sort of direct cause and effect between how I treat my body and how I look and feel. Before, it felt like whatever I tried, nothing made me feel better or lose weight. In the past year though, I’ve discovered a lot of things that trigger my RA and cause me a lot of pain and cutting them out, or significantly reducing them has also caused me to lose a lot of weight. It feels like vanity to dwell on that and there is also a grief to seeing how much better you are treated by the world when you weigh less.
I’ve also recognized in the past year that my people pleasing tendencies are a real problem. They cause me a lot of distress. It is hard to let go of them though, because I truly cannot identify a lot of the time whether I want something genuinely and for myself or whether I want something because I think someone else wants me to want it. It leads to a lot of enabling behavior as well. I’m making progress on that front, but it is something that I actively need to address in 2024.
I hope todays writing prompt gives you some clarity on what was beautiful in the last year, what was scary, and what you might want to change and improve in the months ahead. (As always, feel free to write your journal as a reply to this email, spelling mistakes and unedited grammar encouraged.)
Your friend,
Laura