Your reflections and introspection of 2024. What's in sight for 2025

[meadow_wind]

To close the year, I invite members to share their personal reflections on 2024. For moral support, advice, and helping each other.
I'm having a hard time formulating this into words, so I'll keep it simple in the form of short questions.

What were your objectives, and did you reach them?
What have you learned?
What have you worked on?
What books did you read?
How do you feel about yourself, about others, about this forum, about the world in general, etc.
What do you want / what are your objectives for 2025?
What would you like to change in your life?
Anything else I may have forgotten to mention, add to it!

On a negative note:

• I feel lonely and gloomy. I have been grumpy and impatient toward everyone as of late.
• I feel dissatisfied with my life when I look in retrospect of "what I should have done" when I was younger.
• I'm disorganized and have a hard time prioritizing tasks to make my time efficient.
• I have neglected charging my crystals, doing Eiriu Eolas, and physical training for the past month.
• I feel stuck with everything; in this apartment that I dislike, with my emotions, with my "programs" and patterns, with a partner that I feel disconnected from, etc.
• A few times, I caught myself becoming emotionally entangled after binge-watching a TV show (one was 30 ep, the other 50 ep). Mostly getting attached to the characters and missing them once the show is over, and even falling for the Male lead and wishing I could meet someone like that in real life. (I might start a thread on this topic in 2025 to try to uncover why this is happening and how to "fix" this)
• I'm behind with reading The Wave and all other books because I invested my free time mostly in researching the forum about health, as well as other projects, and those TV shows are also time-consuming.

On a positive note:

• I did a lot of research and reading on the forum and I took lots of notes. My Casssiopaea computer folder is well organized.
• I have improved my diet by gradually cheating less with the stuff I love but can't eat.
• My health seems better now: I'm less tired and able to work all day without having to nap from exhaustion. BIG + for me!
• My Heart has been stable, with no more Afib episodes for many months, until this December: it seems to be randomly becoming unstable again.
• I lost 5 lbs over 2 months because I tried a little bit of intermittent fasting by skipping breakfast, and because I went to a spa for thermal therapy 11 times in 1 month (I caught a big discount for a 1 month membership in October). I do hot-cold at least 3 times and stay in the cold pool for at least 1 min. It feels really good.
• I pay more attention to my thoughts and my surroundings, but I feel I need to work toward the next step.

Objective for 2025

• Managing my time better
• Be more disciplined and consistent with my routine and exercises
• Finish reading what I started
• Start working on other levels since the physical is stabilized enough for now. Will need guidance on that.
• I need to find my purpose in this life and fulfill myself because I need to move on from being a mom at home and I want to provide a better environment for my kids and myself. We are way too isolated and lacking meaningful healthy relationships.

My best wishes to all members during the holidays. We all struggle in one way or another, but we are there for each other.

 

[Goemon_]

on a positive note:

Since I first became aware of cold therapy years ago I have tried several times to implement it.
Last cold season I finally managed to implement it, did about 60 full session cold bath. About 40 such sessions this season.

Coffee is bad for me, at least if used daily. although it seems ok in summer time for reason unknown. I quit coffee again 2 weeks ago. Basically it is still a work in progress. I'm starting to see how to avoid a bad spiraling dynamic, like: I feel down, I think about having a coffee, if I fall for it I will get back to the bad habit and it will be hard to be "sober" again. Solution: I don't fall for it and instead have a nap or go for a walk for example.

For several years I have been trying to socialize, especially with neighbours , with great success. Among other things we have now a sort of darts club. We managed to get together pretty much once every week during cold season, which is good for the mood of everyone. And I play a big part in the regularity of our meetings.


On a somewhat negative note:

I struggle to have enough money coming in but there is some hope on the horizon. Talking with neighbours can bring unexpected solutions! it seems.

 

[Nević Nenad]

It was great! (add lots of hysterical laugh here)

 

[Alejo]

I think this is a good idea, to have a general discussion and if anyone wishes to have a particular discussion on any given topic, then they can open up a separate thread.

I usually like to do this myself daily and weekly, to take stock of what has just gone on, and then do a long yearly one that I journal about on the first of the year.

I think it was a 50/50 year for me in terms of success and disappointments, I was successful at quite a number of things and unsuccessful at a few others, in the end I believe it was decently balanced. I finished all the books I wanted this year, and began looking at trauma with Peter Levine at the begging of the year, and now I am getting through a book about JFK.

Got to travel to new places and some I had been to before, see new things and visit people I love, which I've always liked, it helps me stay humble.

The world was decently nuts, with some nice surprises and some crazy stuff. Life got more expensive and so I had to adjust, but still afloat.

 

[SOTTREADER]

Been as good a year as any. First and foremost, need to be grateful for the things that matter the most - grateful to see through another year, health still holding up, no major disasters has visited those closest to me, all in all happy about these key things that matter the most.

With regards personal life lessons, I'd like to think I'm not necessarily being a difficult student and I'm doing what I can to the extent I can. There are certainly things to keep working on and a few things are emerging as areas of interest or new lessons that may grow in prominence in 2025. I feel like I can handle life stresses rather than get overwhelmed by them which I'm grateful for as it took years of effort to cultivate. Life is a ravenous animal that will keep coming at you though so this "current state" isn't a static situation but a rather dynamic one.

I feel like suffering comes to us all but I wonder if we can work our way into having the suffering that suits us best. I feel like the best we can do is choose our suffering and this seems like a worthwhile goal. I feel like a good number of people work towards having no suffering but I think that's a fool's errand.

There are a three poems that I always go back to and that resonate with me. I'd say these poems still hold true to my experiences this year:

Finally, I always come back to this speech whenever I feel like I want to give up. I imagine Alexander is my soul and my various "I"s are the soldiers listening to the speech. Helps put things into perspective with regards the long journey travelled - sometimes we get so caught up in the now that we forget to take perspective of the many challenges we've faced and overcome. Not only in terms of this lifetime but no doubt in terms of many lifetimes. To stand on the cusp of the events that will visit the world and our souls and the opportunities these hold is not something to take for granted. It's a great opportunity and one that we must give our all to.

 

[loreta]

Nothing was negative for me in 2024 since I am still alive and full of life. Even the problems I had were a source of insights, so very positive. A mega-lumbago was very important for me in 2024 and even if the pain was unbearable, this lumbago opened up very enriching insights about myself and my life as a couple. Then in 2024 once again I met very generous people and this generosity was a gift in my life that allowed me to see my lack of generosity, so another insight. I saw time pass very quickly, at supersonic speed, which allowed me to reflect on the passing of time. I traveled through time, saw myself as I was, sometimes with shame, sometimes regretting the things I did, and so I learned to forgive myself, which is not easy! A good year, I repeat, we are alive and that is already a miracle. Thank you 2024!

For 2025 I expect, without demanding, the continuity of my inner search, to continue to move forward and evolve, to continue to read good books, to ask myself questions. Welcome to 2025!

 

[Pearce]

2024 started in a not great place. Jobless for 4 months, debt pilling up, full support for Team Meteor '24 ...

But then, I finished my school, became licensed as a massage therapist, and began to work. I had plans but the universe had others. I quickly noticed how bad it is the amount of people dealing with chronic pain in the body, and I began to surrender to the process and found myself outside of my comfort zone in terms of my ability to help. But I kept pushing, and found incredible success.

Then, in September, seeing a niche I could fill, I launched my own therapy practice, and started working alongside a chiropractor and physical therapist. I'm currently finishing a program to become a certified personal trainer so that I can extend my scope of practice to muscle rehabilitation. Alongside all of this I am starting to make the effort into my own diet and health, something I have neglected.

And last but not least, in March I will be receiving my massage therapy instructor's license because he who learns must teach, and my eyes are set on building a wellness education center that helps bring knowledge to people. The road ahead continues to open new avenues and Ufo/aliens and meteors and world wars be damned, I've never been more galvanized to learn and to be part of this transition to a new world.

For me, 2024 was about recognizing my own value, my place in all of this, and what I may have to offer.

So come on 2025, let's rock and roll

 

[Mari]

Thank you for your post everyone!

It feels like this year went in a flash, and I have the same feeling as I had for the last several years - like the time is accelerating and that I have no time, in a sense that I have no time for learning all that I wanted and planned. Like the time in general is running out. Like this world is running out.

So, in a way, I can say that this year was for me marked with accelerated swallowing up the books on various topics, trying to catch up and trying to fix as many as possible in myself and to understand more about myself and the world and the history in general. It all kind of culminated with my reading in family constellation, which is the topic I´m on currently on (along with books on Stoicism, and some various novels put in the mix).

Interestingly enough, at the same time I started to be interested in this topic of family constellation, I´ve picked up G. G. Marquez book "One hundred years of solitude" as a part of my "project" to reread books that I´ve either never finished or that made an impact on me when I was young or that are simply classics of literature, not realising that this is an epic book covering over 100 years (and over 400 pages) about 7 generations of a Buendía family with all it´s horrid faits, lived generation after generation in a swirl of letting themselves loose in their darkest passions, darkest thoughts, with characters ending in self imposed solitude. Written in so called magical realism style, in precisely that solitude characters have either gone mad or they found themselves. Grandma Ursula, observing the events in her family during her life, said on so many occasions throughout the book that “...time was not passing...it was turning in a circle...”.

Which brings me to the book "It Didn't Start with You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle" by Mark Wolynn. If I were reading it only 3 years ago, the answers I would be giving in the book would be very much different. It feels like one part of my inherited behaviour/trauma was finally resolved, which is kind of confirmation of a feeling I´ve been having for a year now. Like, the time finally is going forward and is not stuck in a circle of repeating drama. Not saying that I´ve solved it all, but more like one big burden is released of my shoulders and I can move forward.

Whether it is all true or not, by realising only that, that I did move forward in my life at least in some aspects, it feels like a nice ending of a year.

Apart from all the stress around my job, my money situation and my personal life´s regular problems, the overall state of the world, etc, on personal level this year feels much more relaxed in a sense that I feel like I´m more myself and that I´m allowed to be myself and that that is good.

Well, let´s see what 2025 will throw our way! I hope you all have a good one!