Is "New Year's Energy" a Problem?
Dispatch #52: Let's discuss my favorite holiday
For all of you desperately curious readers out there, this is Shira Erlichman reporting live from her couch at the beginning of January, here to announce through thirteen megaphones what everyone who knows me already knows: New Year’s is my favorite holiday!
I can sense your head swiveling gayly like a gay owl (the only kind of owl IMHO) in my direction a la shock. Really, Shira? Why exactly? Is it that New Year’s gives you a whiff of the solid turning of a page? Is it just the joyous invitation for newness (often stamped by snowfall)? The chance to refine your purpose on this planet with bombastic hope? To tango with manifestation (that elusive broad who is often busy hooking up with delusion)?
Oh, we know you, we get your whole “notice everything” agenda; so it’s probably just the opportunity to pause and turn your attention inward and reflect. Or to get high on potential and set a goal or three or thirty-seven. Or to compare your present self to your past self to your future self with charts and equations and SMART goals and the (often contradictory) weighing in of experts. And/or (here comes that word) simply to make some resolutions! - the etymology of which can be traced to the “process of reducing things into simpler forms” - and while we can admit that’s cool, how simple can it really be? To restart? To manifest? Because, my dear, after 365 days of deep commitment all these past years all of your resolutions have obviously bore fruit; for example, you’re walking around 100% more hydrated with a six-pack and an air-tight meditation practice unbothered by…life.
Do you remember, Shira, what that wonderful poetry teacher wrote you in an email long ago about the New Year? “A necessary illusion,” she called it. It made you smile; you still think about it every December as the clock inches closer to midnight and your imagination takes hold as to what might be, what might be.
Friends, you clearly know me well. The answer is all of the above. And also, “a secret third thing,” as the kids say. Something ineffable. This time of year just does something to my spirit.
I love reflecting. I love tracing a feeling with a thought. I love tracing a thought with a feeling. I love thinking about what’s been good for me and what’s been not so great. I love to do so without pressure, when possible, and most especially when the air is crisp. I like what neuroscientist Julie Fratantoni wrote in her recent Substack post about keeping this reflection simple, “At the end of the year...I use a simple framework: Keep Doing, Stop Doing, Start Doing. What is working well? Keep. What is not working well? Stop. What do I want to add or try? Start.” Here are a few excerpts from my 2026 Keep/Stop/Start list:
Keep: Time with Eden. Eating protein. Honoring my path, my journey.
Stop: Going to bed so late! Being on my phone so much! Negative self-talk.
Start: Forming loving relationship with inner-critic! More analog time. Game night with friends. Investing in the power and sacredness of my attention.
This past year Instagram kept insisting that I buy under eye cream, and the continuously live streamed genocide made me ache at the unbelievable cruelty of the human animal, and AI’s crescendoing impact and supremacy made me feel hopeless for a literate and analog future. When I was overwhelmed I found myself coming back to the same three things: simplicity, imperfection, attention.
When something heavy threatens to spin my head like a tornado and split my spirit into eighteenths it’s really helpful for me to remember that the situation can be made better right now by one or all of those three things.
Simple doesn’t mean simplistic. Even if you can make something just 2% simpler, that’s great. Consider how a simple breath can fully reinvigorate a moment. I invite you to relax by 2% right now with a single deep breath.
Remember that imperfection is the law and therefore perfect.
Pay attention to what’s coming up in your body. That information will guide you to the next best step.
The older I get, the less I trust gurus or experts or influencers or or or or or… and the more I trust regular people making an honest effort, over and over again, getting up after falling and dusting themselves off or curling up in bed and crying, just being messy and whole simultaneously.
I often came into my therapist’s office with what I’ll call “New Year’s Energy” (LOL), also known as TSDTCE (The Sudden Desire to Change Everything). I remember C saying, “Anytime someone comes into my office wanting to change everything, it of course doesn’t work. We can’t throw ourselves away. We need every part of ourselves.” And I’m full of that energy, dear reader, I’ve admitted here it already! I love the illusion that I can change everything tomorrow if I just XYZ! (XYZ: Open Excel, make a chart, reference three books/videos/TEDTalks on productivity, consider a gym membership, make another chart, this is how many books I’ll read this year, this is how much I’ll, how little I’ll, how often I’ll…etc. etc. etc.)
I don’t think “New Year’s Energy” is a problem. It’s kind of sweet. There’s a love of potential in there! There’s a hopefulness about change. And there’s some acceptance too; a seeing of what’s not working. A desire to rebuild because one still has hands, hope, a heart.
Tonight, on the first of January in the year 2026 of Whoever-the-Lord, I’m reporting live from a place with no answers. And there’s a strange peace here. I have some know-how but I’m not an expert at anything. I live in the dialectic where I love the world and feel rage at its colossal failures and hang suspended in that truth. I garden mid-air, tending to what’s tender, knowing I’m limited and powerful and you are too. I wrote a lot this year. I edited a lot. I’m proud of myself. I began healing some relationships in long need of healing. I’m proud of that too. I made new friends, some in Palestine. I took risks. I opened up. I met my fear time and time again. I got embarrassingly aggravated, took a breath, and hit restart. I chopped my hair off.
Could any of this fit under that tidy (capitalist) word: “productivity”? Sure. But if one is that strange animal, an accordion-being, ever opening-and-closing, making all kinds of strange music as she moves; that is, if one is unpredictable, if one is real, if one is emotional and practical and unreasonable and grappling and wonderful and untamable by capitalism or “shoulds,” well, then one starts to feel the shape of her Self as so much more than what she makes or the goals she reaches for or the checklist she monitors or the many comparisons she keeps in claustrophobic jars under her bed. She starts to feel the shape of her Self as something else entirely. Something without walls. Something cosmic. She is everything, welcomed.
Let’s pause here, friends, with another single deep breath. Sending love from my living room, your friend in all things path-full and un-lying. Your friend who was stopped cold in her tracks by this red bird of plastic tangled in the night’s web. Your friend who, despite the many routines and charts and efforts, is just another walking question mark. An arm looping to throw a stone, ? , to watch how it ripples. Not because it’s productive, but because it’s beautiful.
Happy New Year.
With maple syrup,
"I garden mid-air, tending to what’s tender" <3
Something without walls, something cosmic 🥲 always a true and wide gift to read your words.