By: Milo Crosswhite, MA, LPC-C

Happy New Year! As I reflect on the year’s end and the new one that’s just begun, I am moved to reframe the idea of a new year’s resolution. I am not anti-resolution; I am anti-self-shaming. Most new year’s resolutions do not last throughout the year. Studies suggest that approximately 23% of New Year’s resolutions fail by the end of the first week of January, and around 40% of people give up by mid-January. By the six-month mark, over 50% of resolutions have been abandoned. There are so many reasons that a resolution extinguishes whether it no longer holds our interest or works for our schedule. What if, instead of shaming ourselves, we chose curiosity over judgment? What if we asked: What did this goal teach me about myself? How did it serve me while it lasted? And what can I let go of without guilt?

This is where we shame ourselves for not continuing to use a tool that no longer fits us. But here’s the truth: Growth doesn’t have to come from tearing yourself apart. Growth comes from nourishing the parts of yourself you’ve been neglecting and celebrating the strengths you already have.

There is nothing wrong with you and you do not need to become a completely new person. Rather, I offer that you deserve to be MORE YOU. More authentically you. What does “more you” even look like? It looks like honoring the messy, complicated, and brilliant person you already are. It means acknowledging your needs and listening to them—not just when they’re convenient but every single day.

If we make this year’s mantra, New Year, More Me, we will create a habit of checking in on ourselves. If we continue to check in on our body, what it is telling us, we will bring ourselves back to center and back to our home. Our somatic sensations offer us information. If we continue to check in on our emotions throughout our day, week, month, and year, we will become more comfortable in those emotions. We can better identify our emotions when we are practicing paying attention to them. Increasing our awareness, increases our confidence in ourselves and understanding the information which our emotions are offering us. Holding space for our emotions increases our emotional agility. And with that agility comes freedom: freedom to feel, to heal, and to move forward without the weight of shame holding us down.

Instead I offer that we choose a Breakthrough mindset which offers us an opportunity to embrace ourselves with compassion and importance, on our journey to being our most authentic selves, living our highest quality of life. 

This work is supported through art processing. Art is not about creating a perfect piece—it’s about giving yourself permission to express what words cannot. It’s about using color, texture, and movement to explore your inner world and, in doing so, finding clarity, connection, and peace. Through art, we can unlock the parts of ourselves that we’ve hidden away, bringing them into the light to be seen, accepted, and loved.

On a journey to healing, empowering, and uplifting our quality of life, our appreciation, gratitude, and satisfaction.  You are invited to take this journey with us. 

Join us for a processing workshop using art to break through our obstacles and the false narratives we continue to believe. Whether we have been socialized to minimize our experiences or reinforced our belief that we are not … fill-in the blank, enough. We can choose to break through the scripts and choose us. Imagine what could happen if you rewrote the story. Imagine what it would feel like to take up space unapologetically and to declare, “I am enough just as I am.”

Choose yourself as you would hope your children choose themselves. Choose yourself as you hope other women, friends, and family would choose themselves. Because when you choose you, you’re not just setting a resolution—you’re starting a revolution.

Ready to start your breakthrough journey?
If you’re ready to embrace your most authentic self and let go of the false narratives holding you back, we invite you to join us for our upcoming art processing workshop. Register now to begin healing, expressing, and creating a new narrative—one where you are enough just as you are. You are worthy of more.