It's pretty hard to come up with something unique for the obligatory New Year blog post. What could I write about the New Year that hasn't been written on a thousand blogs already?
You are supposed to write about new year resolutions or about how you have grown so much in the last year. But if I am honest with myself I don't want to make myself feel bad and think over all the things I said I would do last year but never did. We are supposed to look forward. Put the past behind us and be positive about tomorrow. A new start. A fresh page.
But what if you can't see a way to start again and you already feel, just two days into the New Year that you are already cruising down the same path you took last year. What if the things or the issues that you are dealing with, still exist and that midnight on January 1st 2012 didn't bring the magic turnaround in circumstances or feelings that we are made to believe it is supposed to.
In fact a lot of people find themselves in this position. They are still dealing with depression, or addiction, financial worries or any number of things that is making their life a misery. This blog is for them. It's for the people who find themselves stuck. The people for whom it could just as easily be the 2nd January 2011 as it is 2012.
In 2011 I did something that I had wanted to do for a long time and finally got off my ass doing. When I went for my first meeting with a counsellor in September I was scared, excited and slightly relieved. But ultimately having someone who I could talk to about things in my past and help me deal with them in a way that would bring me freedom and some hope, was an amazing experience for me.
And that is why this year I will be looking back more. Because if I learned nothing else from counselling it was this.
Sometimes looking back is the only way you can look forward.
Sometimes dealing with our past is the only way we can have a fulfilling and hope filled future.
Maybe you need to do this to get out from the stone you find yourself. Maybe you need to remember a time when you were happy and free and remind yourself that person is still in you somewhere. No matter how muffled their voice has become. Are there things from yesterday that are preventing you from creating tomorrow?
Because there has to be hope. Sometimes we need to fight for it and if a fight is what is needed, fight. Find people who can fight for and along with you if you can't. Maybe they are the ones who will help you look back.
Because this year your past might just be your new future.
And we need you.
