If 2025 has been a difficult year , if you’ve navigated a separation, or you’re slowly finding your way back to yourself after a toxic relationship, you might feel ready to kick this year straight to the kerb.
But before you do, and before the Christmas chaos sweeps in for those who celebrate, this is your invitation to pause. To breathe. To reflect.
How good are you at celebrating your wins?
How comfortable are you with giving yourself praise… with offering yourself even the smallest moment of self-love? If your body just cringed, good. That’s a signal, a gentle nudge that something inside you is ready for softening, for healing, for change.
Because wins don’t have to be headline-worthy. They’re not only the big contracts, the qualifications, the loud achievements. Sometimes a win is simply making it through the year without abandoning your values , the things you hold dear, the parts of you that stayed intact despite everything.
Sometimes it’s holding onto your sense of self.
Getting the kids to school on time, with brushed teeth and minimal snot (a huge win for me these days).
Choosing yourself over a toxic relationship. Saying “no more” when you’ve outgrown someone else’s dysfunction. Realising, perhaps for the first time, that you matter.
We live in a world that tells us more is always better.
Why didn’t I do this?
Why didn’t I achieve that?
Our saboteurs love that narrative, push harder, stay busy, keep chasing, don’t stop to feel. But when was the last time you asked yourself why?
Why am I doing this?
Is this aligned with the life I want?
Is it coming from my Sage, or from fear, pressure, and survival mode? Slowing down is not laziness. Stillness is not failure. Sitting with the uncomfortable is, more often than not, the doorway to healing. And if this is your first Christmas alone, be tender with yourself.
Create new traditions. Find pockets of peace where you can. Celebrate yourself.
Be your own biggest supporter, because look at how far you’ve already come.
You didn’t survive this year by accident. You survived it with strength, intention, courage, and a Sage voice inside you that refused to give up, even when you couldn’t hear it.
As somebody who has often tied my sense of worth to “achievements” and “getting things done”, my biggest wins this year have surprised me:
- Relocating my family to another country without losing my sanity, something I once foolishly believed I could just “tick off” a list. How wrong I was. A lot of learnings for me there.
- Seeing Bob Dylan in concert with my dad, choosing to create memories that don’t “achieve” anything except connection.
- Helping my daughter catch and reframe her self-critical language. She’s only six, yet I can already hear her saboteurs whispering.
- Slowing down. Becoming more intentional. Checking in with myself far more often, and actually listening to my body.
If these had been my reflections years ago, I would have been deeply disappointed.
“Did I hit my KPIs?”
“Did I achieve something impressive?”
“Did I earn it?”
But I continue to learn that healing asks different questions.
It asks: Did you return to yourself?
Did you choose peace over productivity?
Did you honour the life you’re trying to build?
So let me ask you, nice and gently:
What are you proud of this year?
And please… be kind to yourself when you answer.
