Happy New Year!
The past year has been full of growth, reflection, and resilience. As we move into the new year, we are looking forward to finding ways to add joy into our lives.
Many resolutions heavily focus on cutting things out. While removing things and habits that no longer serve you certainly has a place, this year we want to focus on all of the wonderful things that we can add to our lives to make our days, our health, our heart, and our mind feel good.
We invite you to take some time to reflect on the past year, good and bad, and think about how you can make your life more joyful in 2021. This is individual, but here are some of the ideas we are looking forward to adding to our lives this year.
1. Starting the day with gratitude
We often start our day by automatically reaching for our phone, seeing all of the notifications we missed, scrolling through the news, and rushing through our routines to get our list of things done. What if we took five minutes (or 30 minutes or even 30 seconds) to start our day with gratitude for all of the joyful things already in our lives and ourselves?
In your head or on paper, come up with 3 things that you’re grateful for and 3 reasons you’re proud of yourself. Some days the lists will flow right now and you might have a lot of things, other days it might be more difficult. Either way, let’s begin our day in gratitude and celebration.
2. Having more home-cooked meals
There’s something about a home-cooked meal that really nourishes the body and the soul. So much love goes into home cooking…planning the menu, picking out the ingredients, preparation, serving, and sharing. Food is fuel, yes, but food is also culture, comfort, connection, and joy. This year we want to spend more time in the kitchen and branch out to try new things.
We’ll be sharing recipes here and on our social media accounts for you to try this new year. Also, we want to hear from you! If you have a favorite recipe you’d like to share, please send it over or tag us @stjudewellnesscenter.
3. Finding movement that we love
This year, let’s celebrate what our bodies can do for us and find a way to move that makes us feel good. Do you like walking outside and exploring? Circuit training to feel strong? Yoga for flexibility and mindfulness? Boxing makes you feel powerful? All of these (and more!) are valid ways to move your body.
Working out feels much less daunting if you find activities that you love! Check out our class schedules to try out a variety of activities and see what brings you joy.
4. Getting creative
Creativity can mean many different things. For some, it’s painting, sewing, or woodworking. Others find it to be critical thinking to find creative solutions and answers or recipes. This year, we want to expand our joy by stretching our minds to think creatively. Not every project needs to be beautiful, perfect, or even completely done! Sometimes doing something just for the joy of doing it is enough, and this year we want to keep that front of mind.
5. Being present
So we’ve added these pockets of joy into our lives, but now what? It’s easy to rush through our resolutions and goals and think of them as just another thing on our to-do list. But how do we keep them joyful instead of turning them into a chore?
This year, we plan on making these additions to our lives with intention. We would like to be more present this year while we do these activities and throughout the rest of our day. We will wake up and focus on our gratitude. We will find joy in preparing our meals, trying new recipes, and sitting down to really savor our food. We will explore physical activity and find the modes that make us feel our best. We will take the time to stretch our minds and get creative.
