Happy New Year!

Happy New Year!

by Tammy Townsend Denny, TI Executive Director

​As we transition from one year to the next, I would like to share with you a few words I stumbled upon from best-selling author Donna Ashworth. In a recent Facebook post, she shared a poem that began:

Why do we start a new year, with promises to improve?
Who began this tradition of never-ending pressure?
I say, the end of a year, should be filled with congratulation, for all we survived.
And I say a new year should start with promises to be kinder to ourselves, to understand better just how much we bear, as humans on this exhausting treadmill of life.

Ashworth goes on to implore us “to strip away a layer of perfection” and “to reveal the flawed and wondrous humanity we truly are inside.”

She ends the poem by challenging us to embrace the beauty of our imperfections.
In these last hours of 2022, I invite you to consider making a list of all that you have survived this year. This is not a list of your public accomplishments and awards, though those are important. Instead, make a list of those struggles and uphill battles that may not have been as readily seen by others.

When your list is complete, acknowledge the difficulty. Embrace it. Then, make another list of all the actions that helped you survive. Maybe it was praying, calling your Theresian sisters, enlisting family support, walking in nature, journaling, petting your dog, going to therapy, seeing your doctor, or staring out the window into the wonder of the world.

Whatever is on your 2022 list, I would like to congratulate you! You did it! You survived! Read those words again slowly: You survived.

In these last days of 2022, I celebrate you for all that you have survived – all the spoken and unspoken challenges. As we begin 2023, my prayer for you is one of peace and acceptance and love.