New Year, Same Us

2022 seems kind of like 2020 part 3, doesn’t it? New Years resolutions don’t seem to have the same impact of the years prior. I’m not one to super celebrate New Years, but it seems like this year many people are unmotivated to change.

My plan for 2022 is to be a better version of myself than I was in 2021, simple yet complex. I’m focusing on competing with myself rather than comparing myself to how others are doing with their own goals. Abby and I have been doing 30 days of yoga together, which has kept me feeling more motivated to keep up with the yoga. Both of us have missed a day or two, but instead of skipping the days we missed, we go from where we left off. So if I couldn't make it to Day 4, I will end up doing that video when I start back up, same for Abby.

I have never done a challenge like this with someone else to help keep me motivated, so I am very much appreciating to have Abby and we keep encouraging each other to feel good about it, rather than letting the feeling of being judged creep in, killing the motivation to keep going on this physical and mental journey that this yoga journey has presented.

The physical strength I'm gaining for doing yoga consistently is so welcomed. My body has been wanting to get strong again, it misses hiking all the time. I feel my joints getting stronger, muscles lengthening, and feeling "brighter" in my mind. The mental gains from this journey is what I'm enjoying the most so far. It's a time I carve out for myself and check in with how I'm feeling. The times we focus on our breath and relaxing certain parts of the body is when I notice where I store most of my stress. It's usually the shoulders where I'm finding I need to focus the most to relax, and because they are quiet, my mind will wander and I'll find out what is stressing my out the most.

The reason I titled this “New Year, Same Us”, is because of how blah everything feels about this past year or so. With politics and Covid dominating our daily life still, we are stuck trying to figure out how to function in this new world. There hasn’t been much hope in figuring out how to tackle some out biggest problems, like the disposable objects that have just recently began going back to their pre-Covid numbers for countries that don't rely on informal collectors, or the fact that we let the rich reap the benefits of Earth while they are the ones responsible for destroying it.

Think about it, we are using so much disposable objects because companies offer them to us. We are pushed hard to continue to keep a society running that only puts a small percentage of people at the top. They reap the joys of life while the rest of us struggle to make ends meet. Homelessness has risen 15% from 2019 to 2020. Many people were living paycheck to paycheck before the pandemic, and if they couldn't get things figured out with the pandemic, they most likely contributed to the growing homeless numbers.

We need to make a change as a collective society and start holding companies responsible. I hope to continue my trend of supporting small businesses this year. I hope 2022 is the year of small business for you, if you haven't already made a change for this new year.

Happy trails,

Allie