Monthly Archives: December 2025

New Year’s Resolutions’ Low Approval Rating

New Year’s Resolutions have a low approval rating – and so they should. But first, let’s define ‘resolutions’ as we use the word. How do we qualify or even quantify its use? If the concept demands determination, self-discipline and control, well, it’s time to reconsider. If, on the other hand, as we transition from one year to the next, do we see this as a time to consider the past twelve months, reframe troubles as lessons learned or even growth, and reorganize our intentions for 2026? We know only too well that a great deal is beyond our control. However, conventional wisdom suggests that our reaction to our experience is what is significant. If we gain strength through solving problems or simply weathering storms, we, simply, gain strength! If flexing a physical muscle against resistance makes our bodies stronger, so too, flexing our ability to apply personal wisdom and individual ethics to the flood of obstacles that meet us daily must certainly enhance inner strength. Aligning ourselves with our own set of morals and standards and acting in accordance with them, is a continuing challenge but an unending opportunity to build our own fitness in every sense of the word.

Years ago I had the privilege of writing and editing a weekly Sunday full page for the Rutland Herald & Times Argus titled ACTIVE VERMONT. (There is a link below to one of my articles that is as relevant today as it was in 2013.) As I researched back through some of my stories, I came across these paragraphs from 12-30-2012:

“At this time of year when the ubiquitous New Year’s Resolution list beckons, I am doing something a little different. I am taking a page from the book of the Roman god Janus after whom January is named.

Janus is the god of beginnings and endings, of transitions and of time itself. The two-faced head of Janus often crowns doors and gates with one face looking back and the other looking forward. Is this not what we are doing at this time of year: looking back over the year that has just passed and looking forward to the year ahead?

An interesting aspect of the Janus head that I recently observed is that each face is the same. One is not looking forward with furrowed brow or looking back frantically as if to say ‘where has the time gone?’ Both faces consider what has gone before and what lies ahead with equivalent composure.”

Here we are more than a decade later preparing for another transition into a new year, 2026. And yet, many of us celebrate a variety of transitions throughout a 12-month cycle. Often we see a birthday, anniversary, full moon, solstice or equinox, even a sunrise or a sunset as a time to segue into something, if not new, at the very least deliberately different.

Each time I wring my hands and think our country or the world has never seen such hard times as we are experiencing, I need only to turn my head to look back – way back – into the history of the world. We are still here. That is not to say we should stick our heads in the sand or that we should fail to show up, but it is to say the tides turn randomly and we should always seek to both participate and to hope.

What about those resolutions? If you need help goal setting (S.M.A.R.T. goals continue to be an excellent way to go about that) there is plenty to be found with the help of your favorite search engine. I recommend that you take a hard look at your goals before setting them, however. Be original. Trash those consistently vulnerable goals such as…I will lose weight, I will get fit, I will make a lot of money. Each of us has within us (sometimes hidden, but there) tools of creativity. Now is the time to find those tools, dust them off, and fashion resolutions with a gentle determination to breathe life into our expectations and create habits that will ultimately define each of us.

Recently I shared with a Yin Yoga class a forgiving analogy with respect to the Water Element that coincides with the season we are now experiencing. This season encourages us to go deep – to take time to think, to value even a few moments of stillness and to recognize the value of darkness. As water flows around obstacles in its way, as water takes the shape of whatever container it fills, as water soaks and nourishes, may we, too, flow with composure around whatever obstacles we encounter.

Finally may you always have a close friend.

Happy 2026.  

“Be like water making its way through cracks. Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object, and you shall find a way around or through it. If nothing within you stays rigid, outward things will disclose themselves. Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” Bruce Lee.  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/32579.Bruce_Lee

Revisiting a New Year

Revisiting a New Year

A “NEW” YEAR

Submitted by Linda Freeman for 12/29/201

“Active Vermont” [Rutland Herald and Times Argus]

At midnight on December 31st the year 2014 will begin. How do you feel about that? Do you remember this time fourteen years ago when we were about to enter the year 2000 amid predictions of massive universal computer failure, terrorist threats in the red zone and all kinds of foretold evidence of doom and destruction? Guess what. . . 

And then there are the interminable, gag-me New Year’s Resolutions that are abandoned before memory can preserve them. All too often, rather than resolve to make worthwhile changes in our personal lives, what we really do is set ourselves up for failure, deepening the pit into which we may have fallen through bad habits or inappropriate lifestyle choices. Ugh.

What do you do to celebrate the New Year? I can remember my dad donning a tuxedo and my mother zipping up her favorite floor-length gown to go dancing on the eve of the 31st. Once they took all of us kids along. It was my father who taught me how to follow my partner’s lead and my mother who taught my brothers how to hold the door or seat her at the dining table. (Of course, being boys, they pretended to dump her on the floor, but they did get the message and subsequently polished off a few good manners when the occasion warranted.)

There was a formal sit-down dinner and a live orchestra that played until the famous countdown when everyone blew whistles, wore silly hats and left to drive home. (Sobriety? At that point I didn’t know enough to check.)

Later when my children and I moved to Vermont we celebrated big time but in pjs, watching old movies, abandoning dinner for a mound of glorious Vermont made snack foods and then dashing to the barn to wish our horses and ponies a happy new year of soundness and good horse show results.

Though friends of ours told of traveling to Woodstock to dine, dance and spend the evening at the Inn, it seemed that more of our friends were choosing to celebrate quietly at home reducing the risks associated with being on the road on a party night.

Some of us will look back on 2013, sorry to see it end. Others are already anticipating turning over a new leaf and moving into a new year. 

As I write this, the word that pops out to me is “new.” Is January 1st really any different from December 31st? Do we feel older the day after our birthday? Probably not, but we did recognize the newness of the first day of school, didn’t we? Perhaps January 1st is similar. We turn to a new calendar page, begin a new session, and may even begin to think about the end of one tax year and the beginning of another.

By the time we get to New Year’s Day, we need a change. The preceding season has been hectic and our personal life is like a computer on overload. When the system is jammed we shut everything down and then restart. Could that be a better way to consider the transition into 2014 than a list of daunting resolutions?

When a client tells me he or she wants to become a new person, I discourage that concept and instead coax into definition parts of that person that are positive and worth developing. Over time we find that each has inner strength, inner qualities that make that person who he or she is. They don’t really want to chuck them all and begin again.

It’s classic that many folks want to “lose weight” and vow to begin on January 1st. To think that overnight one can turn from habits that have caused packing unhealthy and unnecessary body fat, is an exercise in sabotage. Can we begin the process? Of course. The more we learn and choose to eat and exercise healthfully, the better our chances of continuing a journey that may be long and sometimes slow, chiseling away extra stuff (body fat, stress, unattractive habits) that will chip away to reveal the real you or me underneath, the hidden athlete within, the optimism and enthusiasm that may have been buried for a long time, and the spontaneous laughter that can transform a discouraging day into one with possibilities.

In the long run, “new” is not what happens. Instead of “ring out the old” how about bring out the old, taking a second look at opportunities in the light of inevitable change.

If we are athletes, we may have already run our fastest race, but perhaps it is time to run our longest. If we cannot run, we can ride. If we cannot afford lift tickets, we can ski back country. 

If overwhelmed raising small children or developing a professional career, perhaps now we can carve out daily time for deliberate physical activity. We might be able to step back for a few years, but at some point we need to prioritize our own well-being. It’s a no-brainer that if we want to be there for others, we need to be healthy, strong, and fit with enough energy to support and sustain.

Take this notion and go with it. Gather up all the frenzy and stress that drive your days and shut down your internal computer. Then push the restart button. When you open to a blank screen, what will you type in? Some things are up to us. Certainly circumstance, health, economy and relationships play starring roles, but where does one cross the line into excuse? 

Connect with friends, explore the vast outdoor experience that the state of Vermont offers, commit to ourselves. There’s nothing new about any of this. It’s all here and now waiting to be utilized.  Maybe giving ourselves permission to actively move into 2014 is what is new. The old is who we are already, undiscovered possibilities.  Happy New Year.

December 2013

I APPRECIATE YOU

I appreciate you. 

I appreciate that you are reading this post.

I appreciate that you are taking time from what is most likely a busy day to pause and read a message from me. 

And now I ask you to pause again, and think about this. If I say to you, “I appreciate you,” how does that land? Does it make you think I’ve gone beyond muttering thanks and truly mean that you – not just your deeds – are important to me? Or do you find it annoying?

All one needs to do is hop on the infamous Reddit site and one will find a plethora of pros, cons, opinions and purported facts about the recent trend to use this phrase. Perhaps beginning in the southern United States and slowly migrating north, maybe around the time of Covid, increasing in popularity in younger communities, the words “I appreciate you” can now be heard coming from the lips of just about anyone, any age.

As I write this post, here in New England we have stepped out of Thanksgiving weekend straight into a snow storm and the month of December. As I work with clients, encouraging each to continue to work to build the habits of strength, cardiovascular fitness, flexibility, balance and play, I also encourage taking time each day for a few moments of stillness.

Last night in my Yin Yoga class, I suggested that during this season of the year, the most Yin time of the year, we are to give ourselves permission to slow down. We have permission (not that we need it!) to pause to simply think. Perhaps that is why I decided to write this post.

This morning I was on a leisurely walk with my two beloved Labs and as I watched them play in the snow, and then nearly stand on their heads, noses buried deep down into who knows what, I went down the proverbial rabbit hole of thinking about the phrase “I appreciate you.”  And so it is that even on a mundane walk, one can think deeply.

I remembered that seated at the Thanksgiving table, I looked around and thought “I appreciate you.” Why didn’t I say it out loud? Is the phrase new enough to me that I need to try it out a few times first? I do think there is a certain personal sincerity to it, so the phrase should be used selectively. One day this past summer a contractor was speaking with me and paused, then quietly said “I appreciate you.” To me it was a gift.  The other day it happened. I had the perfect opportunity to use this phrase. The exhausted Postmaster at our tiny local Post Office – always seriously overworked – was doing his best to serve many of us. I was the last in line and when he handed over my packages I thoughtfully said, “I appreciate you.” The smile that lit his face reinforced my growing fondness for these few words, judiciously uttered. A pause, eye contact, maybe a soft smile, and some nice words – what does this cost us? Nada. 

So perhaps, if we use this phrase carefully, check to be sure of our intention, and then gift another from the heart – perhaps this simple phrase could be the beginning of something sorely needed in the current culture of discourtesy. So much is out of our control. But we do have total control over the words we speak. As Epictetus said, “We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.” I would add, then when we do speak, may we do so wisely. 

I appreciate you.