Marking the turn of the year
Holding space between 2024 and 2025
This time of year, many of us have that tad bit more time and headspace for meaningful rituals. Working in transformation, I’ve come to value rituals to the point of often intentionally crafting them to cement the transformed reality.
Let me share one of mine and invite you to do the same. I truly look forward to learning from you and perhaps absorbing some of your ideas into my practices!
Growing up, all the festivities of this holiday season centered around New Year’s. Christmas was a purely religious holiday, and religion was a big no-no for the Communist Party. The tree, the lights, the music, the movies, the main meal, the gifts, the Russian counterparts to Santa and his entourage — all drew their significance, traditions, and joy from the turn of the year.
Image credit: Oleksandr Pidvalnyi from Pixabay.
Over time, my interest in the religious meanings of the season came and went. The festivities gained energy when the kids were small and then waned again. Gift-giving moved around depending on who I celebrated with. The same factor plus the weather unrecognizably adjusted the menus (not a lot of slow cooking happens in Australia’s summer heat). What has remained steady is the impetus to reflect on the passing year and set intentions for the next one.
My ritual
What did the passing year hold?
Writing down the big happenings of the year started as a way to understand why I found myself particularly spent at the end of one December. I remember hearing that moving house, starting or ending a relationship, or a new job were individually a big lift, and any two in quick succession could overwhelm one’s life. Well, that year I had all three, and they didn’t even seem to belong at the top of a nifty list. It helped to write it down.
Set intentions for the next year
New Year’s resolutions had already given way to setting intentions. These come in two groups: a list of wishes and several small pieces of paper holding all that is not welcome in the new year. Those pieces of paper get burned, literally.
Now, I make space for this annual ritual with the aid of a dedicated journal. On the one half of the journal’s spread, I set intentions in three groupings: family (pre-marriage, it was called “personal life”), my wellbeing, and my work in the world (called “career” when I still hoped to contain changemaking to a job). The other half of the spread waits empty for twelve months.
More often than not, I don’t open that journal except over the holidays, so it is often surprising to read that left page as I reflect on what the year actually held.
The “biggies” of 2024 for me
The US election and the wars in Ukraine and the Middle East colored everything.
On the family front, I lost my beloved father-in-law, Donald Stinger, and was forced to accept that the war has cut me off from my bio-family in Russia.
Professionally, I built on the milestone that was the publication of Change-maker’s Handbook in very late 2023.
I spent 2024 scaling my work to connect, validate, and equip changemakers worldwide for their vital work; to advocate that changemakers represent a distinct psychological profile; and to professionalize changemaking.
I anchor several events in the US, and my book tour also took me to Australia, Luxemburg, and Germany. Sadly, these efforts didn’t lead to the impact I hoped for.
Pushing my comfort zone to snapping point in hopes of supporting more changemakers, I ventured onto social media (TikTok, Instagram, Threads) and started this Substack as the main platform to engage with you, my global network of changemakers.
2024 also saw me cross the half-way mark in my PhD, which aims to generate the change equivalent of the periodic table of elements.
Having been the editor-in-chief of two magazines, in 2024 I got a chance to edit a book. Very rewarding! More on this later.
Wellbeing-wise, 2024 has been tough, and I come to its end heartbroken. The darkness we all experience at times has been deeper, louder, and more prolonged. I’ll share more in another post soon.
Similarly, stay tuned for my hopes for 2025.
In the meantime, share your turn-of-the-year rituals so that we can all learn from each other!
Thank you for sharing this. I love the question ‘what did the passing year hold?’ I’m trying to reframe my view on my life to be more about what I’ve experienced not what I’ve accomplished. I also like the idea of literally burning the things we don’t want to take with us into the new year! 🔥