In approximately two weeks the year will be over, and we will have made it through one of the most mind boggling 12 months of affronts, travesties, and cultural upheavals in our lifetimes. So, how are we doing? Do New Year’s resolutions even matter now, or has that tradition crumbled away with the East Wing and a few honored institutions we thought would last forever?
Granted, it was a good year for some, but for those who feel like they’re crawling out of the rubble of an old year looking for enough solid ground to stand on in the new one, even if it’s only a patch of personal integrity the size of your two shoes, we wonder how one moves on to a truly fresh start?
For answers, we contacted a longtime carer for the mental health of the local community, therapist Jillian Guthrie of Simplicity Counseling. Guthrie is no stranger to affronts, travesties and upheavals, beginning with her own dysfunctional family. Even at 17 she knew she wanted to help other kids who were misunderstood and mistreated.
“I always found myself talking to other people, listening to other people who had trouble, so that’s something about helpers that you’re just kind of born with,” Guthrie said. “I’m a safe person to talk to and I’m pretty good at listening.
“You’ll do your best work if you do your own self-exploration and healing and check in with yourself, know where your ego is and come from a place of humility. It’s the sweet spot for helpers. So that’s why I went into private practice, and it has gone well for me in that regard,” Guthrie said.
As a licensed clinical social worker with a bachelor’s in psychology, Guthrie has worked in her field for the state, for nonprofit and for-profit clinics, and for homeless people. She left the clinic setting for private practice to be able to see clients as many times as they needed to be seen instead of being buried in insurance limitations, paperwork and redundant forms.
And she has agreed to some helpful end-of-year counsel:
On New Year’s resolutions
“I think our culture romanticizes this concept. It’s connected to getting dopamine hits from getting to a place where you feel good and then wandering off – that’s what New Year’s resolutions do. People mean it when they make them, and they really want it to happen. Then we attach an expectation to a date and that’s folly, but also New Year’s resolutions are often like going from A to G without even visiting BCDEF.
“You can’t skip steps to get to the place where you profess you’re going to get on New Year’s Day, and have it last. It’s kind of a set up for failure. For instance, people have great results from taking the new fat busting shots, but if you don’t change your relationship with food, if you don’t learn the steps between A to G, then you’re just taking the fast track; you can’t sustain it unless you take that shot for the rest of your days and I don’t think that is healthy.
“With that kind of shortcut, the person doesn’t actually deal with why they have the weight issue. And I’m not talking about people with medical issues.
“So New Year’s resolutions are that dopamine hit, feeling good about myself because I’ve made a promise and then wandering off, like people who say they’re going to go to the gym five days a week all year, but stop going around January 19.
“Assigning an expectation to a date is kind of magical thinking. Just because it’s November or January first doesn’t improve your chances at all, because it hinges on your mindset and your follow-through.
“So, I would start with that. You can make a resolution any time of year. And you can start a day over at any time. If somebody cuts you off in traffic, it doesn’t have to ruin your day. That’s something that you let happen in your brain because thoughts create feelings that create behavior. But that day has 24 hours, and we can start it over at 3:41 in the afternoon if we want to. We need to understand how much we make choices rather than feeling like we’re being pulled around and don’t have a say in things.
On making a change to reach a goal
“If you want this year to be different than last year and you’re attached to January 1, try spending a day contemplating what’s gone on in the past and what you’d like to see in the future. Try freestyle journaling so that you can get to what you actually want. I love the concept of positive and negative space from the art world. To apply the concept to finding your plan, think of a rubber stamp of, say, a squirrel.
“You start with a block of rubber and carve away anything in that block that’s not squirrel and you’re left with a squirrel – that’s positive space. The stuff you carve out is negative space. It’s gone and the squirrel, which you’re looking for, is positive space. You can stamp a piece of paper with it and see a squirrel.
“That is positive space you’ve created by taking out the negative space. How that applies to what we’re talking about is that it’s way more effective (and actually comes with guidance), to think about making changes heading toward something by removing everything that is not that thing.
“Say you don’t want to yell at the kids as much. Have a positive goal of being able to identify two or three times a week when you are proud of how you handled it or constructively handled it. You can say ‘I actually stopped, took breaths, and I remembered da da da da and, I didn’t judge. I asked questions instead of giving direction,’ so you acknowledge what’s there. That’s the positive space.
“Decide what you’re looking for (a different way to deal with the kids), not what you don’t want anymore (yelling at them), because if your objective is just to not yell anymore, it doesn’t really give you direction. Focus on the goal of what to do instead and stick your flag in when you get there.”
On moving on from a ‘bad’ year
“First of all, recognize and acknowledge that it has been tough and in what ways it has been tough for you, not just what someone else in your family is saying or what you hear on the news. Sit down with yourself and make a list. Where have you found this past year hard on you? How has it affected you? How has it challenged you?
“That’s knowing your starting point. In mental health we have diagnoses, and it’s pretty common that people don’t want to be diagnosed because they don’t want to be labeled or pigeonholed; but diagnoses are helpful when you have the right one. It takes time and skill to really discern what you’re looking at because once you know a diagnosis, it creates sort of a plan.
“If someone is misdiagnosed as bipolar, for instance, and they’re actually autistic, the treatment is quite different; so, it is important to personalize and acknowledge how events have affected you.
“I think for anybody who’s paying attention, we’ve learned a lot about ourselves this year. It’s similar to going through Covid. The people who went through the Medieval plague said the same things we did during Covid. Like, I can’t believe this is happening. This is surreal. You know, why is it happening now?
“I think a lot of people learned things about themselves during Covid. with the disagreements over how to handle it and the isolation and the changes that people made, being around somebody for way more hours a day than usual. We learned a lot about ourselves during that time, and I think we can do the same with this past year if we pay attention.
“Assess yourself without judgment and just look, just see how you responded to things and whether your thoughts are matching your actions. Thoughts matching action is important. Every behavior can be explained by the thought that created the feeling that made you do it.”
On keeping your balance
“We’ve had good parts of this year. A lot of people have had wonderful things happen. So, we don’t want to just categorize this as a bad year and miss out on the benefit of the balance, even if it’s more uncomfortable than comfortable, even if it was only two things you can think of that were good about this year. It still helps you create more of a balance and see life as it actually is.
“This very human life is unpredictable and wonderful and joyous at times. It can be surprising. It can be really tough, but then that turns into something helpful. It’s like that A to G analogy. We humans want to skip to the good part. Our culture in particular wants quick gratification and we want to not suffer very much while we get there. And that does not build healthy, realized humans.
“You might want to read about Carl Jung’s concept of individuation. It’s a lifetime process where we shed the impact of culture and family that has created a person who’s not our totally authentic self because we’ve taken on low self-worth or we’ve taken on becoming a doctor when we really want to be a professional swimmer, et cetera.
“Whatever your authentic self is, is your healthiest self, but it’s a real challenge to get to that place. The older we get the more we have to notice what is not ours and leave it behind – and then notice who/what our strengths are, where we really resonate, and what we really want for ourselves in the time that we have and focus energy, time and intention on that, not what other people are supposed to be doing or what other people think of you or a false goal that your culture tells you is going to be top of the mountain.
“At the end of the day, you’re with yourself in your head and you face yourself one way or another. That’s where the rubber meets the road and that’s who we need to talk to most. So, individuation is really being more in competition with who you genuinely are – your authentic self, versus who you are today and where you can get. That’s the only measure we need to care about, not what anybody else is doing or expecting of us.
“I can feel this in my chest every time I say it, I’ve considered it an honor and it is humbling to help so many people in this community, to be trusted with the information that they bring, to be trusted with their loved ones and those friends that they refer to me. It’s the highest honor. I’m having a good time being a town therapist,” Guthrie said.
Jillian Guthrie sees clients three days a week and can be reached at Simplicity Counseling (479) 244-5181.