Don’t look back in sadness
By: Caitlin Clair
Tags: 2019, Anxiety, Mental Health, Journaling, Writing

Don’t look back in sadness

Write your 2019 year in review with positivity

Photo by nick hidalgo on Unsplash

Take the time to mark your height on the door frame. You will find you have grown more than you thought. You not only survived but thrived in 2019.

Some have the self-assurance to know they are thriving. But for those like myself who struggle with insecurity, reflecting on the year’s achievements can be confronting. You can take to your past performance with a red pen without mercy, causing a dim outlook of your prospects.

Tonight, I literally read over my year. I sat down and found myself scrolling through my humble word document journal.

I scrolled to the top because, as the end of the year approaches, I have been drawn to thoughts of progress. Has it been made this year? I scanned the pages for evidence, trying to grade myself so I could relax for the holidays.

Reading back over my year, I initially felt that wave of criticism. But I was able to cast my gaze through mindful-colored glasses and make a fair assessment of my performance this year.

Whatever your feelings about 2019, I recommend taking some time to write your year in review with positivity and balance. Meditate on the progress of the last 12 months and write about it. Celebrate it before you hunker down to making the next year’s resolutions.

Look to the evidence

Much of my journal focused on writing, my love of it, my fear of it and my quest to learn how to do it. Despite anxiety and depression, I had taken small but active steps to write professionally after committing to making writing my career. But I had needed to make a number of tactical retreats due to my writing anxiety.

It was apparent I had spent the year at the mercy of my moods. My focus had been drawn from other goals towards recovery and trying different cures. I had fought daily mental health battles, in an ongoing war.

But in the pages of my journal, I saw how much ground I had gained.

I had dared to take my words into the light of day. I was ending the year with an ongoing freelance gig. When things had got worse, I had the courage to take time off, and put my mental health first. These were undeniable achievements.

If you look closely at the evidence of your year, there were more ladders than snakes. How you feel about 2019 starts with how you cut together the highlight reel.

Be kind when you rewind

It is easy to go down the rabbit hole when exploring any stretch of the past. Gather your cures before you start dredging up memories and prepare to self-sooth.

It is easy to hold yourself to unrealistic standards, as I did and will continue to do when my anxiety gets the best of me. The hard work is giving myself credit where credits due.

Mindfulness has been a great cure this year. Although looking to the past is contradictory to the mindfulness doctrine, I believe the two can work in tandem. Looking at the past through a lens of the present moment can stoke optimism for the future.

I like to think of my recovery as a graph with peaks and troughs, but an upward trend. Faith that you are getting better is essential for survival when you are in the mean reds.

Progress is a one-way street. You need to keep driving to get anywhere.

Beware your markers

“I count my time in dog years,” sings Maggie Rogers, the dominant artist of my 2019 Spotify playlist. These words make me think of the stretching and contracting of time and how we mark our days in moments that have nothing to do with minutes. A kiss can feel like hours instead of seconds. Winter can feel like years instead of months.

My journal was evidence of how I marked 2019 by the seasons of my mental health. Anxiety years, like dog years, aged me faster.

Anxiety and depression make me feel physically frail. Like I have been kept in a dark dank environment for a long time. I am languishing in a body that holds me back and a mind that has betrayed me. That is what Monday felt like, anyway.

Now it is five days later and the light shines a little brighter at the end of the tunnel. My mind fights back against those dark forces like a superhero, dodging criticism and ka-powing self-doubt.

My superhero mind tells me there are better ways to mark 2019 than by anxiety years.

I can count by goals achieved, lessons learned and blessings bestowed. I can count the year Rent-style — by seasons of love. I have made friendships and spent valuable time with loved ones. I have taken my relationship with my writing forward— to commit to it despite my mental health.

Whatever marker you choose, count your year carefully.

Take a pen to it

It was clear from reading my journal that I used writing to work out the knots in my consciousness. It felt like trying to untangle a necklace — it required persistence and the faith that it is possible. I tried to reflect and recover my balance through prose.

I am a strong believer in journaling for better mental health. Writing generally is one of my cures like meditation. The pages were a testament to this. They were dominated by meaningful introspection and almost always resulted in a shift in tone towards optimism.

We can tell ourselves many different narratives about the year’s happenings. But archive those stories that are written by your anxiety. Ignore those lies we tell ourselves that belittle our successes and amplify our failures.

If you are needing to work through some conflicted feelings about your progress this year, take a pen to paper in private or write it out loud in a safe space. You will feel better for it.

My sister uses Dan Siegel’s idea of “name it to tame it” with the kids she teaches. It is the idea that putting your feelings into words can have a healing effect. The act of writing it down will let you name those emotions.

One major benefit of writing your year in review is it informs your for goal setting for 2020.

Move the goalposts for 2020

I am re-entering the job market with an approaching move across the country. Accordingly, I have been updating my CV. It is cathartic in the way that you need to meditate on your strengths and then write about them. My partner likes to say your biggest strength is your biggest weakness, and so it must work the other way around.

When reflecting on the year I tried to reflect on my failures in light of how they are born of good intentions. It is important for me to give constructive feedback that will shape my goals for self-improvement.

Identify your strengths and weaknesses this year to inform your new year’s resolutions. Just be kind to yourself. Even your faults have silver linings.

In Closing

Count up the inches you made towards your goals, and you will be surprised by the road traveled.

There’s value in taking the time to reflect on your year. I know from this experience that this can be challenging. Even now I am fighting the urge to fail myself. But persist with mindfulness.

It is a worthwhile exercise to inform the present and future.

We have lost time, but we have gained moments that will shape us for years to come. And have we changed? Yes. For the better? Yes. For the best? Maybe not. But progress has been made and will be made up to the clock striking twelve.