Editor’s Note:
Originally published December 26, 2025. I’m republishing this reflection on grief and emotional healing because I’ve realized grieving isn’t a one-season decision. It’s an ongoing practice, and this message still speaks to where I am now.
Why Traditional New Year’s Resolutions Never Fit Me
I’ve never been super excited about New Year’s resolutions.
I don’t get hyped for January 1st. My thought has always been:
If I see something in my life that needs to change, I’ll try to change it then—not wait for a date on the calendar.
Every year, I see the same familiar pattern:
- “This is the year I get fit.”
- People go hard at the gym in January.
- By February or March, workouts fade, life gets busy, and the year ends mostly unchanged.
I’ve never felt drawn to that cycle. It just doesn’t fit how I’m wired.
But a year or two ago, I made a different kind of resolution—one that actually did stick and completely changed my life.
The Resolution That Changed My Life: Learning to Stand Up for Myself
I didn’t post it anywhere. I didn’t announce it. I just made a quiet decision:
I’m going to stand up for myself more.
Nothing dramatic.
No vow to be bold and fearless in every single situation.
Just this:
In big or small ways, stick up for me.
Don’t keep letting myself get totally walked all over.
That was the whole thing.
And honestly? It was terrifying.
Growth Is Practice, Not Perfection
Standing up for myself meant:
- Saying “no” where I used to automatically say “yes.”
- Not immediately backing down because someone was upset with me.
- Letting people think what they wanted, even if they didn’t like or accept the “new” me.
- Letting my needs matter, even when it inconvenienced someone else.
And I want to be really clear about this part:
I did not do that resolution perfectly.
I didn’t even do it “well” at first.
There were plenty of times I:
- Stayed quiet when I wish I had spoken up
- Agreed to things I didn’t want to do
- Let comments slide that hurt me
- Walked away thinking, “Ugh, I folded again”
My resolution wasn’t, “I will always stand up for myself flawlessly.”
It was simply:
“I will try. I will practice.”
Little by little, as I kept trying, something changed.
It didn’t become painless—but it did become more natural:
- Saying “no” didn’t feel quite as terrifying.
- Naming what I needed didn’t feel quite as selfish.
- Walking away from disrespect felt more like self-respect and less like rebellion.
I didn’t nail it. But I grew into it.
And my life looks totally different now because of that one, imperfect, often-messy resolution.
I’ve grown more and more in this area. I’ve had to learn to be okay with the fact that this version of me—who has boundaries and a voice—is not the version everyone prefers.
But this is the version I needed.
Taking Inventory at the End of the Year
As this year ends, I’m taking stock.
I’m an extremely self-aware person. That’s actually what has made this growth possible.
I’m humble and honest enough with myself to know:
- My short-comings
- Where I still shut down
- Where I do well
- Where I need to grow
So going into this new year, I know I want to continue sticking up for myself.
But there’s another area I’ve avoided for a long time.
Why I Avoided Grieving Hard Things
If I look honestly at my life, there’s really only one category I’ve allowed myself to fully grieve:
Pets.
Especially my favorite dog, Huckleberry.
Pets are easier to grieve.
They don’t betray you.
They don’t gossip.
They don’t twist your words or your story.
They don’t use your pain against you.
They just love you.
They live beside you as long as they can—loving, playing, existing in your world—and then they die. It hurts deeply, but it’s simple. The loss is clean. There’s no malice mixed into it.
So I’ve always been able to grieve pets:
- I cry.
- I miss them.
- I feel it.
But there’s a whole world of other things people can (and should) grieve:
- A missed opportunity
- A death
- The loss of a relationship
- A betrayal
- The distance of loved ones
- Expectations that shattered
- A childhood you didn’t get
- A version of life you thought you’d have
When we don’t grieve these things, it doesn’t make us strong. It just pushes the pain underground.
And underground pain doesn’t disappear. It just finds new places to leak out.
How Suppressing Grief Turned Into Numbness
My default has always been:
- Push past
- Get busy
- Focus on something else
- Move on
I didn’t let myself feel much of anything for very long. If I did start to feel something, I had a routine:
- Take a deep breath in.
- Hold it.
- Let it out.
- Look up so the tear doesn’t escape.
- Shake my head a little.
- Go on about my business.
I wasn’t happy about painful events, but I also wasn’t grieving things I should have been grieving. I told myself it was strength.
Underneath, I think I believed:
- I wasn’t really allowed to grieve.
- Other people had it worse.
- If I broke down, I might not get back up.
- The “strong” thing to do was to stay stoic and unbothered.
Eventually, I wasn’t even sure how to feel it anymore.
Big things would happen—events, deaths, betrayals—and I’d be left oddly:
- Numb
- Detached
- “Fine” on the outside
Not because I didn’t care. I cared a lot.
I just didn’t give myself room to care.
And that left me feeling broken in a different way. Like the part of me that was supposed to know how to grieve had gone offline.
Why Grieving Is Essential for Emotional and Spiritual Healing
So, why bother grieving at all? Why not just keep functioning and call that strength?
Here are some reasons I’m slowly learning:
1. Grief honors what mattered.
Grieving something—whether it’s a person, a relationship, a season, or a dream—is a way of saying:
“This meant something to me.
Its loss is real.
I’m not going to pretend it didn’t matter.”
Without grief, it can feel like everything that hurt you just gets erased… and so do the meaningful parts that were tied to it.
2. Unfelt grief doesn’t disappear—it builds up.
When we don’t let ourselves grieve:
- It doesn’t make us strong.
- It makes us heavy.
That grief can turn into:
- Anxiety
- Numbness
- Bitterness
- Explosions over small things
- Physical symptoms (tight chest, headaches, exhaustion)
Grief is like pressure. If you don’t open a valve somewhere safe, it will find its own way out.
3. Grieving keeps your heart from hardening.
If I never let myself grieve, I also slowly stop letting myself care.
Avoiding grief can turn into:
- “I don’t care.”
- “Whatever.”
- “It is what it is.”
But that’s often just pain with a mask on.
Letting myself grieve is one way of saying:
“I’m not going to turn my heart to stone just to avoid feeling this.”
Grief keeps me soft—but in a truthful, grounded way, not a walk-all-over-me way.
4. Grief helps you see what needs to change.
When you actually sit with loss or betrayal or shattered expectations, you start to see:
- What patterns you don’t want to repeat
- What you will and won’t tolerate
- What kind of people feel safe
- What kind of situations you never want to walk back into
Grief is not just sadness; it’s also clarity.
5. Grieving makes space for new things.
It’s hard to fully receive new love, new friendships, new seasons, if your heart is still packed tight with unacknowledged grief.
Letting yourself grieve:
- The old relationship
- The old version of “family”
- The old expectations
…creates room in your heart for what God is doing next.
Not because the new thing erases the old, but because you’ve actually made space by telling the truth about what was lost.
6. Grief is a place God actually meets us.
When I allow grief—not just push it away—I’m also allowing God into it.
Instead of:
“I’m fine. I don’t need You here.”
It becomes:
“This hurt. I don’t even know what to do with it.
But I’m bringing it to You instead of burying it.”
That’s a different kind of strength.
What I Need to Grieve Now
If I’m honest, I have some catching up to do.
There are things I’ve never really let myself grieve, including:
- Changes in relationships
- The reality that some people didn’t have my back the way I hoped or believed they would
- The sweet, pleasing, accommodating version of me that everyone liked—even though that version let me get abused. I miss being able to be that “sweet spirited” and also be safe; losing that illusion feels like a loss.
- Relationships that are both lost and permanently changed
- The version of me that loved ones have created in their own narrative that isn’t actually me
- The betrayals—big and small—that I tried to brush off
- The little girl version of me who was hurt and abused by others
- The true loss of loved ones—through death, distance, or deep rupture
And honestly, the list goes on.
Naming these doesn’t mean I stay stuck in them forever. It just means I’m finally acknowledging:
“These things hurt me.
They shaped me.
And they deserve to be grieved.”
Staying Close to Safe People While Healing
I know this next chapter—actually making room to grieve—is going to be scary.
I’m not going to pretend I’m brave and excited about it. I’m not.
I know it will be:
- Inconvenient
- Messy
- Emotional
- Vulnerable
Grief doesn’t schedule itself around work, holidays, or other people’s comfort.
So as I step into this, I’m choosing to stay close to the people who are safe for me to grieve around:
- The ones who support my growth
- The ones who don’t shame my tears or rush me to “get over it”
- The ones who can handle, “I’m not okay today,” without making it about them
- The ones who love the current me—not just the old, quiet, accommodating version
I don’t want to dive into this alone. I’ll be keeping my safe people and my God very close, because I know I’m going to need both.
If You’ve Been Calling Numbness Strength
If any of this is hitting a nerve for you, maybe you have some catching up to do too.
Maybe you’ve also:
- Called numbness “strength”
- Labeled stuffing things down as “moving on”
- Been the one who kept it together while something inside you quietly cracked
You might need to grieve:
- A relationship that never was what you hoped
- A parent who couldn’t love you the way you needed
- A church that hurt you instead of helped you
- A season of life that ended abruptly
- A version of yourself you had to let go of in order to survive
If that’s you, you’re not weak for needing to grieve.
You’re human.
Maybe your New Year’s resolution doesn’t need to be a big external change. Maybe it can be something as simple and brave as:
- “I will let myself feel what I’ve been avoiding.”
- “I will stop shaming myself for being sad about real losses.”
- “I will find safe people and safe spaces to grieve.”
- “I will invite God into the places I’ve tried to handle alone.”
You don’t have to know exactly how to do it.
You just have to stop insisting that you don’t need it.
My New Year’s Resolution: Healing, Not Just Surviving
So this year, my resolution isn’t about becoming someone totally different.
It’s about going deeper into who I’m already becoming.
I want to:
- Keep standing up for myself—protecting my voice, my peace, and my safety, even imperfectly, the way I did before.
- Start letting myself grieve—not just pets and simple losses, but the layered, complicated ones I’ve been holding off for years.
- Stay close to those who are safe—the ones who can handle my process without trying to silence or control it.
It won’t be neat.
It won’t be convenient.
It will probably be messy and uncomfortable.
But, just like with my last resolution, I’m not committing to do it perfectly.
I’m simply committing to try.
Because I don’t just want to survive another year.
I want to heal.