As I reflected on mindful ways to greet a new year, I was intentional in not using the word “resolution.” With this intention in place I allowed my embodied brain (not the one in my skull) to scan my whole body to see what it thinks of 2020 and two words popped up quickly: embody hope.

For me the words “embody hope” are related to my experiences in 2019 and how those experiences have impacted my path forward in 2020. Last year felt challenging to me in so many ways, and a feeling of powerlessness permeated most of these challenges.

The felt sense of powerlessness—an empty hollow feeling in my gut that shouted the world ‘alone’, became so familiar that I almost felt uncomfortable if it wasn’t present. Powerlessness rained on me at a time that was already full of grief and loss. I did not resist it; I accepted it and within time became strong enough to carry it with me, like an old familiar friend, alongside the grief and loss.

I leaned heavily on my new friend, self-compassion, to comfort me at times when I thought I couldn’t bare anymore pain or uncertainty. I felt grounded within the humility that being human is loaded with suffering.

When the new year in Austin was welcomed with blue skies and ideal weather I felt like a long lingering storm was finally passing, although the realities of questionable affordability in Austin, a possible constitutional interpretation crisis for our democracy and climate change still feel heavy and omnipresent.

Perhaps my body needs to connect with a felt sense of hope in order for me to move in 2020 with ease and grace. Or, to go one step further—perhaps an embodied feeling of hope is present with others in my community and I was able to capture a fraction of it when strong winds blew through Austin not long ago. And maybe connecting with hope, through all of my senses, is helping me connect with the tender and compassionate facet of the human condition.

My intention for 2020 is to follow the lead of my embodied brain as its first declaration of 2020, to embody hope, is all the validation I need to know I am on the right path forward.

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Cyndi Collen, LCSW
Owner of Flourish Psychotherapy & Nutrition

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