Rachel’s Room🛋️Starting Where You Are

Happy New Year. Cadre crew. Hello. Hello from me and Milo in 2026. Can you believe I cannot. I hope you all had a lovely New Year's Eve. I went out for a little bit with some friends, and I was home at 11 and kissed Milo at midnight and then was straight to bed. So I was definitely thinking last night a lot about how. I think so often, like, we see, like, what everyone's doing for New Year's Eve. We kind of feel like if we don't have plans like, that we, like, if there's something wrong with us or, like, why don't I have someone to kiss at New Year's and just try to remind myself and hopefully remind you that it is just another night, it's just a day.

Like, it's okay if all you did was stay home. And there's no, like, there's no right or wrong way to bring in the new year, because it really is. It's just a day. And the other thing I saw recently was someone saying, like, nature's new year is actually spring. And, like, we put all this pressure on January to be, like, when we have a reset and when we start again, but nature actually has their. Their restart and reset in, like, March and April and winter time is really supposed to be a time for us to be resting.

And I loved that. I felt like that was like, giving me permission to be, like, okay, like, spring is when, like, the big changes come, and now is a time for, like, recharge and rest. So I thought. I found that to be very lovely. So goals, or if you want to make resolutions of myself, not, these are ways I'm going to punish myself because I hate myself. And I find when we do that, the. The goals that we create or the things that we want ended up shifting. Like, we noticed that, like, instead of it being about, like, I want to stop doing this or I want to do less of this, or I, you know, I don't want to engage in XYZ anymore.

They start to become more actionable. They start to become things that we want to do rather than things that we don't. And it's a lot easier. A lot easier. Like, a lot. A lot easier to create change when it's coming from a place of action rather than omission. So, for example, like, if, you know, like, if something that I really want in the coming year is coming from a place of, like, not. Not liking the way the last year went, let's say, like, this last year, I really didn't like how I communicated when I was upse.

And so if I. If it came from a place of, like, I didn't like that about myself and I said, I, I don't want to communicate poorly, well, how do I know how to do that, right? Like, how do I actually make that happen? But it's. If it's coming from a place of like, I actually really want. What I want for myself is loving relationships that have a lot of communication, then something I can do is I want to communicate more clearly with people, or I want to be more honest with people, or I want to have better boundaries.

Like, we can create something from an action rather than from trying not to do something or withhold. And that, that allows a lot more room for exploration, for trying, but also for, like, making a mistake without it being a sign that you didn't do it. Because I think oftentimes when we make a goal about not doing something, the minute we do it, we failed. But if the goal is to do something, we can do it wrong. We can do it a few times. We can do it and like, you know, have it be sort of like a not fully expressed version of it.

But we're, we're still on our way, we are still in the process of doing it. And so it creates a lot more flexibility and room for us to move towards what we want rather than the strict rule about cutting something out. So I think that's a really great way to frame goals or things that you might want for the new year is coming from a place of self love rather than from a place of self hate. The other thing too, that I really like to do in the new year is practice gratitude for the. For the past year, um, or think about things I'm proud of.

So looking back at the last year and asking myself, like, what am I really grateful for? Like, what am I really grateful for in terms of, like, what happened? What am I grateful for in terms of what I did? What am I grateful for in terms of people in my life? What experiences am I grateful for? What opportunities am I grateful for having had? Or small things like, you know, what was a meal that I'm really grateful I got to eat? And making a list of things that you're grateful for from the past year, and then also looking back and thinking about things that you're proud of from the last year, like, what am I proud of from the last year?

And I did this with my therapist, and I was really, really surprised at how big of a list I was able to make of things I was proud of. And in doing that, I was also able to notice how so many of the things that I was proud of are things that I can absolutely keep doing. They're things that I can absolutely bring into the next year. And they're not that big, they're not that hard. It's not like, you know, I did these crazy things that I'm proud of. They were really kind of small things that built up over time.

And so I think by, like, reflecting and seeing, thinking about things that we were proud of, it also shows us how, like, how we're actually doing pretty good and how we're actually doing okay and, and how these are things that we can bring in to the. To the year without too much effort and without putting too much pressure on ourselves. Because the truth is, like, you are doing great. There is no need for this day to mean that you have to radically transform your life. Nothing is going to radically transform today.

You can literally make resol or goals any day of the year. It does not have to be today. So even if you don't make goals for the next year or resolutions or don't reflect on 2025, that's okay. Because today is just a Thursday. That's all it is. It's a Thursday. And there is no need for you to put pressure on yourself to do anything differently or change right now, today if you're not ready or you don't want to. There is a lot of time for that to happen. And now is not the season that is perfectly fine.

I hope that you all have a very restful day today, that you are giving yourself a lot of kindness and reminding yourself that you are just wonderful, exactly as you are. And I'm so excited to bring in this new year with you and to be here for another year with you on Cadre. And I am really looking forward to seeing what 2026 brings. So, happy New Year and I'm really glad that you're.