The new start of a new year and a new you!

The New Year for many people is a time when feelings and emotions become magnified. It is a time where one can feel even more lonely when it appears everyone else is partying or appears to be having a great time.

It can be a time for reflection as we look back over the past year. One can be very critical of targets that perhaps may not have been achieved, losing site of the fact that just maybe they were indeed a stretch we may have set ourselves that could be unachievable anyway. We look at why our best laid plans didn't work out as something got in the way, a family member or loved one became ill, our closest friend becomes distant for no apparent reason, we move into our perfect home to find that it didn't live up to our expectations and so the list goes on...

It is a time where many people become confused, depressed and struggle to face what the New Year may bring. Relationships seem to be put to the test as we fantasise as to how they perhaps should be. Bearing in mind the extra Christmas expose we are presented with on the television adverts of the happy families having their Christmas turkeys followed by beautifully wrapped presents under the Christmas tree, it's hardly surprising that we start to unfairly compare our relationship to the fantasy one.

As we look to the New Year, many resolutions take place. A favourite of course is to join a gym which is why the gyms are packed with people trying to live up to achieving their perfect body image, although I do appreciate not everyone does this. Any gym will tell you that their busiest time is January with new memberships purchased for the year with falling figures of less people attending by March. This demonstrates the need for change, a new you. Sadly people come to me telling me they failed and feel they have let themselves down.

January is a time where counselling may prove to be a place where one can safely look at the reality of their life. A place where one can see that perhaps their feelings and emotions have become heightened and magnified around this time of the year. Counselling offers a space for you to have clarity of you feelings where one can look at the widened lens of your life rather than a snap shots view. In a non-judgemental, empathic way a counsellor can listen in a different way to that of friends and family. A counsellor will not influence you in a way helping friends may try to do. 

Through only being able to be really truthful to ourselves and be in touch with our 'real' feelings by dropping our 'masks' can we find our own way forward. Finding our inner peace and our way forward into the New Year through choosing our own paths to travel is our first steps to actioning our new found resolutions. Sometimes difficult decisions have to be made and worked through. Most importantly they have to be your decisions. This is the beginning of your way forward. The new start of a new year and a new you. Its a time to be true to yourself.

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The views expressed in this article are those of the author. All articles published on Counselling Directory are reviewed by our editorial team.

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