Happy twenty - twenty three everybody! I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and entered into this new year calmly. I am so excited to be back from this mini break I took from the newsletter. I didn’t do much cooking over the holidays. I was actually happy to take a break from the kitchen. However, my body was definitely ready to get back into a routine. All the food and drink and lack of 8 hours of sleep each night caused my skin to break out into a rainbow of pimples on my face, so I was eager to get back in the kitchen and cook myself yummy and nutritious meals to gently bring my body back to its routine. I made some very flavorful chicken thighs cooked in Italian herbs and lemon, as well as a nutrient rich salad to go along with it! But before I get into the recipes and books and podcasts I want to share with you, I want to talk briefly about New Year’s resolutions.
If you follow me on Instagram, then you may have seen some of the tips I shared about how to properly set goals in order to set yourself up for success. If you are someone who does a lot of reflecting at the end of the year and you set goals, intentions, or resolutions for yourself in the new year, I think you’ll find the tips I shared very helpful! However, for those of you who don’t do these things I want you to remember to not feel pressure. At the end of the day, life is a process and time is a construct. Your body has no concept of time. It has no idea that a week ago one year ended and a new one began. For all it knows it was just another Sunday. But again, it has no concept of time, so it was just another day(no Sun). I, myself, like to set intentions for the new year. For the past two years I have written myself a letter reflecting on the year that was and set intentions for what I hope for myself in the coming year, hoping that my future self will read the letter a year from now and have accomplished all that I wished for myself. I find that it helps me clear my head and be intentional about what I want to achieve. However, sometimes I am not so clear on what I want. Sometimes I know what I want but it’s not that specific. It’s just a general feeling of how I want to enter the year. I have felt guilty at times for not having extremely specific goals. We can be bombarded with information about other’s really specific new year’s resolutions that it can make us feel ashamed for not having them.I’m also aware that on December 31st I may want one thing but by March 1st I want something else. Again, life is a process and we can “reinvent” ourselves on any day of the year if we want to.
If you’re someone who goes with the flow, or who doesn’t put pressure on January 1st, I just want to remind you that that’s okay too! There’s no need to put pressure on a date. Our lives don’t transform over night anyway. What works for someone isn’t going to be the thing that works for everybody. In whichever way you approach the endings or the beginnings of cycles, you do you! I just hope these next 365 days bring you health, happiness, and peace of mind.
Happy new year! Now, let’s get into it.
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