January’s Reset Process Part I: Review & Release the Old Year

January is a time of reset but not quite a time to renew. While Spring is more fitting for anything resembling a “new year,” it is also true that January resets the Gregorian calendar that governs our American lives. So, a balance between the two is best. 

Because it is still Winter—with the energy of rest, stillness, slowness, and hibernation—I like to use January to review, reflect, memorialize, and celebrate the year before as a jumpstart to the new year shift. 

Our minds and bodies need space and time for quiet reflection to think, pray, meditate, talk, and process before we wholly transition into any “new year” energy immediately on January 1. 

Using your Winter months to calm and quiet yourself to plan and prepare for the secular new year is a good way to honor the season while considering the calendar.

Each year, my coaching clients and I continue (or join) this practice with a body of work that supports waving goodbye while preparing us to also embrace hello. Each woman does this because they are about the business of themselves. I teach them to, “Know yourself so you can be yourself.” We are constantly growing and evolving so we owe it to ourselves to stay attuned to our minds, spirits, hearts, and bodies as we move toward self-actualization and self-development in (self)love and community.

Because this process is separated into two main parts, this post addresses the first part, Review & Release the Old Year. Part Two covers Inviting & Preparing for the New Year (publishing soon).

In Part One, here’s what we do:

• Review the year before with our Wins & Lessons
• Track our daily moods, emotions, and energies
• Reflect with Setting Intentions for 2023 to “Release, Keep, & Create”
• Revisit our Word of the Year from the year before
• Celebrate Ourselves

For the 2022-2023 crossover, we will now release 2022.

Since this is a process, I want to share how you can borrow it with step-by-step action items that you can repeat.

Record Wins & Lessons

The goal is to review your year and recall your wins (whatever you have caused to be or manifested, whatever has been gifted to or shared with you, and any of your blessings) and your lessons (whatever events or emotions that happened to teach you something new, better, or more whether they were desired or not).

This will raise your awareness of the totality of the year and how you journeyed and matured through it. This is exactly the type of energy you want to be in as you close the secular year, as it inspires thought to consider the new year ahead. 

Allow your mind to wander, daydream, journal (written or video), sleep (messages are often delivered as dreams), pray (an upload to the Most High), meditate (a download from the Most High, your Ancestors, or a sign from the Universe, all three separate things from my perspective), and read. Honor and keep the spiritual system or religion you practice in alignment with your reflective work. 

•   Allow your body to move through dance, praise, worship; or walk. 

•   Connect with Nature in any way you choose. 

•   Talk out what comes up or what you receive with a trusted loved one or two as new epiphanies reveal themselves.

Also, your Wins & Lessons memorialize your year-at-a-glance when you record and keep your review—such a powerful intention to give your future self should you need to return to it. 

This process may take days or weeks. Do not rush yourself. Just submit to it as you can, as you will, on your own time.

Track Daily Moods, Emotions, and Energies 

Once January 1 has arrived (or any day you start), begin daily tracking. Simply choose 2-3 words that accurately describe your mood, emotion, or energy for that day. It is best to record right before bed for that same day or early the next morn in full reflection of the day before.

For example, my January 1 reads: relaxed, chill, clear. I also encourage women to record the days of menstruation and the days of intercourse month-to-month. I share with my clients their current Moon Cycle as it offers more insight into their immediate self-work and their transitions into womanhood. {More on that in Part II.}

We keep this practice because women are usually more feelers, connected to their emotions and those of others. Our EI/EQ (emotional intelligence/quotient) is sharp but, as is the case with many other things if you do not purposely strengthen the muscle it weakens. We cannot afford for the power of our Emotional Universe (as I like to call it) to wane or cease because it is connected to our Intuition and other ways of knowing (that we must be abreast of).

As a woman, you are the emotional temperature of your company—especially your relationship, home, or family. It’s crucial that you understand your emotions, process them into feelings, and regulate them. Once you can for yourself, you heighten your ability to be more intelligent to the emotional palette of others–which is another superpower when you use it correctly. 

An easy way to track and monitor yourself each month is to reflect, interrogate, and assess. Try it, it’ll be one of the best gifts you ever gave yourself. {If you are subscribed to my email list, I will send you a free monthly tracker two days before the beginning of each month. If you want a full calendar with more printables about Menstruation and Moon Cycles, you can purchase it all together here.}

Release, Keep, & Create

Once you have finished your Wins & Lessons and have allowed them to marinate, decide what you will release, keep, and create in the new year. What thoughts, emotions, and moods came up for you as you recorded your wins and lessons? Did they trigger anything or anyone you want/need to let go of or walk away from? Dig in there.

Start with releases. You want to begin with clearing and shedding. It helps to make space and increase the capacity for what needs to be continued or created. {Want to read some of my clients’ 2022 Releases?} Move to your Keep column and end with your Create column. {Hold on to the last two columns for Part II.}

Let your reflections marinate and settle. Make any adjustments you feel prompted to. You will know once it is complete. As the year progresses, there will also be space to add to either column once more information is revealed through time. 

Revisit your Word of the Year

This can happen in one of two ways, and I’ll use 2022 and 2023 as an example. If you started 2022 with a Word of the Year, revisit that word and recall the events and emotions throughout the year that honored that word choice.

If you did not start 2022 with a Word of the Year, in hindsight, name it. What should it be called now that you have lived through it? That’s your 2022 Word of the Year. Why did you assign that word?

As you answer these questions, new thoughts and feelings will arise from the reflection of memories. Use that energy to begin creating a short list of what 2023 should be centered on for yourself. Also, review any notes, journals, videos, and your calendar/agenda from 2022 along with your Wins & Lessons, and Release, Keep, & Create work. What comes up?

Celebrate Yourself

You want to honor the year before and energetically say goodbye to it. 

How will you honor that Word of the Year (from the year before) and all the emotions, events, and memories that occurred within it? How will choose to say goodbye to them for that specific time in your life?

Choose any kind of celebration. It does not matter how big or small, but it must be momentous enough for you to remember years later. Once you complete your celebration, it will serve as a seal to that year and its energy.

Let it go.

Congrats, you’ve reached the end of Part One to knowing more about yourself and memorizing your 2022 journey! One of my most-quoted sayings is, “to be yourself you must know yourself.” I use this as a response back to clients confessing to me that they just want to “be themselves” and be liked/loved/chosen for “who they are.”

I wholeheartedly feel that sentiment. I want that too. Better yet, I want to keep it. 

My question in return: So, who are you? This is usually when they freeze in the instant realization of their uncertainty on how to answer that question. I am all for preparing Black women to date and for entering relationships, but I first want to make sure we know who we are and stay present with that developing, evolving being. More, I want my client to understand how to arrange their Emotional Universe, especially before they attempt to ask someone to live in it with them.

I hope you enjoyed your first step. I’d love to hear anything new you learned about yourself! 

We grow as we go®️,