The Next Stage of Your Journey

At the start of a new year, we all tend to both reflect on the prior year and look forward to the coming year. My guess is you’ve grown in many wonderful ways since the beginning of 2022, and that’s worthy of celebrating! But perhaps you also feel stagnant or stuck in some ways, and those would be good things to work on in 2023. And we hope this month’s theme of setting intentions and this week’s topic of mapping your journey will help you continue your process of self-growth and dreaming BIG. 

Of course, this is hard. It requires digging deep, looking within, reviewing our own stories, and deciding how we want to BE or who we want to become. That involves not just setting resolutions but setting intentions. 

My first intention for 2023 will be to focus on being more present – more “being” and less “doing.” I’m following Love Your Brain co-founder Adam Pearce’s lead when he states that his intention is to focus on “how I am going to be rather than what I am going to do.” (I recently took part in a fabulous six-week traumatic brain injury (TBI) caregiver retreat with Love Your Brain, an organization I discovered after our son’s motorcycle accident.)

In mapping our journey for the coming year and beyond, it also helps to understand how we got to this moment. Organizing our experiences and sharing our stories not only helps us recognize our own strengths but also allows us to help others by providing support, building connections, and reducing the stigma surrounding mental health disorders.

One thing that has surprised me over the years since my brother’s suicide is that every time I have shared my story – of strength and hardship, courage and fear, mistakes and resilience – someone would thank me and say that my story had brought them HOPE. I was hesitant to share my story at first, but when this happened again and again, I came to realize that I AM strong, I CAN do hard things, I have survived 100% of my hardest days so far, I will stumble and fall, but pick myself UP again, and I can COPE.

Your story is your journey, with all the bumps and stops and detours, but it also shows your resilience. As we begin this next stage of our journey that we will call 2023, take a look at where you are, how far you have come, and who YOU intend to BE.