Another new year? Why?!!

#061. Dislike New Year's Eve? Don't get it? Don't want to be a part of it? Hate it even?!

Well allow us to show you how you can turn it from foe into friend.

This is The Silent Why, a podcast on a mission to open up conversations around loss and grief and to see if hope can be found in 101 different types of loss.

We (Claire & Chris) know New Year is hard and disliked by a lot of people, but as it's technically only a calendar change we also know a lot of these feelings actually stem from personal hurts and pains people have around their previous New Year experiences.

So we've got 6 top tips on how to find ways to enjoy New Year and make it into something helpful instead of hurtful.

We've also got 20 questions you can ask yourself and work through if you want to assess where you are right now and where you want to be next year. You can copy and paste them from the podcast transcript if you want to work through those (https://thesilentwhy.buzzsprout.com/1799189/11953644-another-new-year-why).

And here's the link to the New Year song we mention and quote from - 'For all that you have done' by Rend Collective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYelp1pMpVs 

Wherever you are, however you're feeling, we wish you a New Year filled with hope, because... 'Hope is being able to see that there is light, despite all of the darkness.' Desmond Tutu.

For more of our content on New Year check out these episodes/blogs:

Blog: Know Hope (read/listen):
https://www.thesilentwhy.com/post/knowhope

Episode 13 - That weird time between loss of an old year and start of a new year:
https://www.thesilentwhy.com/podcast/episode/4be504ec/that-weird-time-between-loss-of-an-old-year-and-start-of-a-new-year

5 short hopelet episodes for bursts of hope:
https://www.thesilentwhy.com/podcast/episode/4c222f81/hopelet-1-when-your-hope-is-small

Transcript

Claire: Welcome to The Silent Why podcast.

Chris: The last of 2022!

Claire: We’re your hosts, Claire...

Chris: And me, Chris.

Claire: And this is a podcast on a search to see if it’s possible to find hope in 101 different types of loss. 

Chris: In this episode we thought we’d just share some top tips for heading into a new year, especially for those that maybe don’t really like it, to help you find ways to make it more enjoyable and work to help you rather than hurt you.

Claire: Yeah, New Year’s Eve is a bit of a love/hate thing for many people and from our research it seems the latter is more common, so…

Chris: Whether you’re scared about what’s ahead…

Claire: Fearful of what you’re leaving behind…

Chris: Running from something that happened this year…

Claire: Reluctantly leaving 2022…

Chris: Can’t wait to get into 2023…

Claire: Or - dreading being in 2023.

Chris: We’ve got some top tips to help you feel less resentful towards the old New Years Eve experience. And maybe even make it enjoyable along the way.

Claire: Part of the reason a lot of people don’t get on with New Year is that it feels like a big deal for a lot of reasons, not just the end of the calendar year. And it’s also often hyped up in an unhealthy way - which can make it very daunting.

Chris: All the reasons people don’t like New Year can be good or bad depending on how you view it: 

For example;
The expectation to be happy and celebrating, or drinking and partying (a good thing to do, but there are many stages in life when we don’t want to be expected to do that)

Claire: Not being great with change (change can be good, but a lot of people don’t like it and are fearful of it and New Year enforces it every single year)

Chris: It’s let you down in the past when your expectations were high (it’s nice to have good expectations but when they’re not met it hurts us)

Claire: There’s the pressure to have achieved or achieve things (again, achieving is good but it’s hard when we’re not in that place and we want to be)

Chris: It can force a self-assessment on where you are in life (which can be very healthy but only at the right time and in the right way)

Claire: It reminds you of time passing or getting older (not a bad thing, it’s what life is all about but we don’t always want to be reminded of it)

Chris: It can feel lonely (sometimes it’s good to be alone but not when we’d rather be with people we can’t be with)

Claire: It makes you feel like you’re missing out on something special (it’s lovely to see others celebrate things, but if you’d like to be doing it too and you can’t, it’s hard)

Chris: It reminds you of broken resolutions or none at all (resolutions are great and helpful for those that set them and follow through but they’re not designed to make you feel bad about no having them or not keeping them) 

So, if you’re not a fan, how can you approach it differently this year? 

Claire: Well, using the Who, What, When, Where, Why format (and adding on the ‘How’ just for fun) we're going to help you turn New Year, or New Year’s Eve itself from foe into friend.
And we’re kicking off with…

Chris:
1. WHO!
Who are you?
Might seem like an easy one but knowing who you are as you leave one year and start another can be a really helpful exercise to set your expectations in the right place. We don’t mean ‘what’s your name, and where do ya come from?’ We mean what version of yourself are you this year?
Maybe you’re on top of the world, good things happened last year (finally!), good things are due to happen next year and you are ready to parttttty! Or maybe you’re just still in your early 20’s which often has a similar feeling to it. If this is the case, then celebrate. Celebrate all you have that’s good because it doesn’t come along every year, that’s for sure. 
Maybe you’re at your lowest, 2022 was brutal and there’s no reason for 2023 to be any different. Be kind to yourself. Assess things a bit and be honest about who you are this year; a blubbering mess? A shell of a human? A lonely person who doesn’t know why they’re still here really? A worn out, beaten down version of you you never thought you’d experience? A human who seems to get everything wrong and is weighed down with shame?  Acknowledge that, give yourself some grace and kindness and know you’re not alone in that feeling or situation as the clock strikes 12, and that’s ok, everyone has a new year like this. So, work out who you are, and then you won’t be setting expectations for yourself that will lead to disappointment. If you’re in the mood to celebrate because things just feel in such a good place for you and you don’t get round to organising a way to express that, and find yourself alone and suddenly depressed and bitter that you’re not celebrating your achievements with others - then that’s on you. If you’re not in the mood for celebrating but you take your heartbroken body to a huge party - well, I’m sorry, but expect to feel a bit worse by the end of it, not better, you’re setting yourself up for disappointment. William E. Vaughan said: “An optimist stays up until midnight to see the New Year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves." 
Who exactly are you this year? 

Claire:
2. WHAT
What do you want to do?

I never fully understand why people plan or book things they don’t want to do over New Year’s Eve. Instead of going with the flow, following the tradition, following your friends or family - work out what you’d actually like to do in advance. What would you like to be doing on New Year’s Eve? Do you want to be asleep in bed as if it was a normal night? Do you want to be in the middle of a city under the fireworks with a big crowd? Do you want to have a nice meal and then watch the fireworks on TV? Do you want to be with friends? Do you want to be alone? What do you WANT to do? This is a great starting point to help you find something you enjoy. Now, sure, I understand that not everyone can do what they want, maybe you want to spend it with friends or family but you can’t, or they’re busy or maybe you want to go to a huge party but don’t want to go alone and so can’t do that. Maybe you’re too sad to even think about it properly. But if you think about it early enough and plan, most of these things are possible to organise and arrange or find a way to do, but you can’t do that until you know WHAT you want to do, which is usually helped by following on from, and working out WHO you are this year.

Take a leaf out of David Bowie’s book when he said; “I don’t know where I’m going from here, but I promise it won’t be boring.”

Chris:
3. WHEN
When are you going to acknowledge it?
You don’t have to have big celebrations as the clock strikes 12 on 31 December. Maybe you want to be asleep for that, but you would like to mark a new year somehow. Work out what works for you. Maybe you get up early on the 1st January and have an hour to yourself assessing life, maybe you have a really nice lunch planned to go out and chat with someone about your year behind and the one ahead, maybe you go for a walk to mull things over, maybe you spend the evening doing some self assessment on things, make a plan for the year ahead and then go to bed early. Maybe the first Saturday of January is going to be kept aside for you to spend some time intentionally looking at where you are and what you’re doing with life. Maybe you don’t want to do anything at all. But if you like the idea of starting the new year with some time of intentional thought or goal setting or holiday booking or questionnaire answering then work out when you want to do this and put it in your diary every year and protect it. Sarah Ban Breathnach said; “New Year's Day. A fresh start. A new chapter in life waiting to be written. New questions to be asked, embraced, and loved. Answers to be discovered and then lived in this transformative year of delight and self-discovery. Today carve out a quiet interlude for yourself in which to dream, pen in hand. Only dreams give birth to change.”

Claire:
4. WHERE
Where do you want to be?
This can work in two senses of the word - where do you physically want to be? And where do you want to be in your heart? Both important things to consider and think about. If the passing of one year and entering of another feels symbolic for you and it’s something you want to mark in some way, where do you want to do that? In your lounge, in bed alone with a glass of champagne, at a party, in the middle of town, at a significant place… where do you want to be? Why not plan it so you’re somewhere that makes you feel the best you can feel at that moment? And where do you want to be in your heart? Do you want to be in a place of bitterness and sorrow? Do you want to be grieving? Do you want to be thankful? Do you want to be expectant? Do you want to be hopeful? Do you want to be realistic? What place do you want to be in for the new year that’s coming? And I hate to tell you this but whatever it is, you need to put some things in place to make it happen, these things don’t just come about by wishing them, but if you’re intentional enough about it all you can build an environment around you that helps you into the place you want to be and then you have to choose to make it happen. If you want to be hopeful about 2023 then you have to choose to place yourself in a position of hope, find things to be hopeful about, choose to not indulge the feelings and voices that squash your hope, find your way to the place you want to be, but first you have to work out where that is? Because it might be that you just need to acknowledge you’re grieving, hurt, sad, heartbroken, and accept that and go with it because you haven’t been letting yourself go there, or you might have been there too long and you know you want to be different this year and position yourself, despite your pain, to feel hope again. Sometimes we just need to know it’s ok to feel hope again. Hillary DePiano said; “You can get excited about the future. The past won’t mind.” 
Where do you want to be? 

Chris:
5. WHY
Why don’t you like new year?
If you don’t like New Year - work out why. It’s not ok to just throw generic reasons at it because everyone else is - why don’t like you like to celebrate or acknowledge it? Because when you have an answer to that it will tell you a lot about who you are, what you want to do, when you want to acknowledge it and where. You might say ‘it’s just a hyped up celebration designed to make people feel bad’. Well, that’s not true, and it says more about you than New Year.
New Year is the end of one year and the start of another. It's a big deal in our world because it’s the start of another calendar year, by which everything we say and do and celebrate and grieve is recorded by. It doesn’t have to be celebrated but it is nice to consider it and mark it. Without it we just run from day to day endlessly without any sort of break or point by which we can assess things. Without it you couldn’t utter the words ‘I lost so-and-so three years ago’ or ‘it’s been a year’ or ‘2012 (or whatever year) was tough for me because I lost…’ We need the years to start and end for us to mark the passing of time and the good and bad things that happen to us. So when you say you don’t like New Year because it’s a hyped up celebration designed to make people feel bad, I hear - ‘I’ve had expectations in the past to celebrate New Year but they left me disappointed or lonely’ I hear that you’ve been hurt by it and the pain is still there. No one has strong feelings about a date just moving from one year to the next unless there’s hurt there really.
Maybe it’s moving you out of the year where you lost someone and that’s either a good or bad thing for you but it’s hard and it hurts.
Maybe you thought you’d be celebrating with friends but they’ve let you down and that’s hard and it hurt you.
Maybe you hoped you wouldn’t be alone for new year but you always are and it’s hard and it hurts.
Maybe you expected things to have changed by now and you’re remembering the hope you had last year, or the year before and things haven’t changed and that’s hard and it hurts.
How have you been hurt by New Year in the past?
Whatever it is, work out why you don’t like it. And then choose to acknowledge that, face it and maybe choose to change it into something else that doesn’t have the power to hurt you - work it into something that heals and helps you instead. Paul Smith said:
“You can find inspiration in everything. If you can’t, then you’re not looking properly.”

Claire: Those are the 5 W’s, but there’s the H that is so often added onto the W’s and I think it’s a great starting point for turning around New Year if you want to make it into something more positive for you this year. 

There’s one thing and one question that we can all answer to start the shift towards finding a good way to see in a new year. And it starts with our H question - How?…

6. HOW
This New Year - How can you be more thankful?
Even the clever folks at Harvard have written on the benefits of gratitude. Gratitude is acknowledging the good in our lives and a by-product is that it connects us to something larger than ourselves. Research has show that it is ‘strongly and consistently’ associated with greater happiness and feeling positive emotions, as well as improving health, dealing with problems and building stronger relationships.

And we all have something to be thankful for. It might not feel like it all the time but we do. 
Maybe we’re going through some awful grief right now but we are healthy, our body is free of disease or life-limiting disorders. 
Maybe our health is bad but we have a family around us that love us. 
Maybe we have a really good friend that would do anything for us. 
Maybe we love nature and can enjoy that free of charge whenever we want. 
Maybe we have one small beetle that visits our balcony every day and makes us smile in our sadness. 
Maybe we have a pet that makes us laugh. 
Maybe we have a roof over us when we sleep. 
Maybe we have food in the cupboard. 
Maybe we have a wage. 
Maybe we have our sight in both eyes and can gaze at the stars. 
Maybe we have our hearing in both ears and can enjoy music or bird song. 
Maybe we have arms or legs that work as they should. 
Maybe we have a clear mind and normal mood patterns. 
Maybe we don’t live under the fear of death or war. 
Maybe you’re alive and breathing (I hope you are anyway!) 
Whatever it is, we all have something, and I’ll even venture to say that when you find one thing, I guarantee you - others will start to come to mind.

Finding things to be thankful for is the starting point of hope and the beginning of raising your eyes from the floor of your pit of darkness (that we all find ourselves in at some point). Yes, there’s a time for looking down at the floor and shedding those tears, but there’s also a time for starting to gaze up and allowing yourself to see what’s ahead and above. Oscar Wilde said: “We are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.”

Chris: And if you need some help assessing this year and where you are, then here are 20 key questions you could ask yourself (and you’ll find them in the episode transcript if you want to copy them out), which will help start you off in assessing where you are right now and where you want to be:

Claire & Chris:  

1. What were the top three significant moments of this year for you? (these might be good or bad)
2. Name one thing you did this year that you think you will remember for the rest of your life?
3. What is something you accomplished this year that you are proud of?
4. What is the nicest thing someone did for you this year?
5. What was the most challenging part of this year for you?
6. Where has your favourite place been to ‘just be you’ this year?
7. If you could change one thing that happened this year, what would it be
8. What is something that was hard for you at the start of the year, but is easier now
9. Who have your most valuable relationships been with? (i.e. if they were removed from your year completely it would have a big impact)
10. In what area do you feel you made your biggest improvements/growth?
11. In what way(s) have you grown: emotionally/spiritually/physically/intellectually? (whatever is most appropriate for you)
12. Of the books you read, quotes you heard, sermons/talks you listened to, what most had an impact on you and comes to mind first? 
13. What is the most enjoyable part and the most challenging part of your work life (or home life if not working)?
14. What was your single biggest time waster in your life this past year?
15. Knowing what you know now, if you could write a letter to yourself at the start of the year, what advice would you give yourself?
16. What are you most grateful for this year?
17. In less than 10 words create a phrase or statement that describes this past year for you.
18. What one thing from this year do you not want to take into next year?
19. What are your hopes for the year ahead?
20. What one word describes how you feel about last year, and what one word describes how you feel about next year? (Do they need to change?)

Claire: And maybe it’s the year to set yourself some new traditions around new year. 

Chris: In our house, every year at midnight for the last few years Claire’s requested that we play a song, (and speak or sing along) by Rend Collective from their Christmas Campfire Vol 1 album. A song they wrote to the tune of Auld Lang Syne called ‘For all that you have done’. we’ll put a link in the show notes to it (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYelp1pMpVs)

Claire: I like that it has that familiar New Year feel to it with a tune we all know but the words when I first heard it just made me feel hopeful as I crossed into the year ahead and it feels like a good thing to be speaking out as the first words I speak of every new year. I like to think I’ll either listen, speak or sing these words to start all my years.

So, from both of us at The Silent Why, we want to wish you a healthy start to the new year.

Chris: Full of happiness, new traditions, new dreams, new expectations (that are met) and everything you need right now, wherever you are and however you’re feeling. 

Claire: And mostly, full of hope.

Chris & Claire: Hopey New Year!

Chris: And we’ll finish with some of the words from that song, for all of us, as we stand together in our grief, loss and pain, but also in our hope and thankfulness: 

Claire:
“In unity we'll stand as one
As family we'll go 
Shoulder to shoulder, hand in hand
Into the great unknown.”