Happy New Year! Do you love New Year’s Eve? Do you hate New Year’s Eve? Do you feel indifferent to New Year’s Eve?
However you feel, I hope you have a wonderful New Year! Watch or listen to episode 91 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast wherever you get your podcasts for some of the self-care rituals and practices that I do every year or most years.
I hope they’ll help you work with your own ADHD brain, AuDHD brain, and also to continue to heal from any trauma. Use this time of year, where there is so much external pressure in terms of how you might be thinking you should be celebrating or what you should be doing to go for it with all that appeals and ignore all the rest!
[Link to selfcarecoaching.net/blog for show notes, full transcript and more]
le grá (with love),
Eve
LINKS
Sign up for Míle Buíochas Mondays (Polyvagal-informed and more every Monday) here
Your vibe for 2025: Episode 38 of The Feel Better Every Day Podcast
Choose your transpersonal quality for the year ahead
Happy New Year and bring what was good about the break into your year ahead
Make the most of the seasonal energies
CHAPTERS
0:00 – Mixed feelings about New Year’s Eve?
2:28 – Checking in with what actually appeals
4:53 – New Year intentions and PDA-friendly resolutions
6:01 – Lessons, blessings and reflecting on the year
8:18 – Choosing a guiding word or theme for the year ahead
10:26 – Clearing space and symbolic release rituals
12:02 – Self-acceptance instead of self-improvement
13:39 – Community, connection and designing New Year’s Day
16:12 – Creative visioning and sensory mood-setting
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Do you love New Year’s Eve? Do you hate New Year’s Eve? Do you feel indifferent to New Year’s Eve?
However you feel, I hope you have a wonderful New Year and in this episode, episode 91 of the Feel Better Every Day Podcast, I’m going to be sharing some of the self-care rituals and practices that I do every year or most years in order to help you work with your own ADHD brain, AuDHD brain, and also to continue to heal from any trauma and just to really use this time of year where there is so much external pressure in terms of how you might be thinking you should be celebrating or what you should be doing and they’re very tentative invitations in terms of if anything appeals, go for it and ignore all the rest.
I’m your host and producer, Eve Menezes Cunningham. I’m an author, columnist, trauma therapist, self-care coach and senior accredited supervisor specialising in ADHD and ADHD friendly trauma-informed, neuro-affirming, transpersonal and somatic approaches.
I help people heal through self-care practices that honour your body and your brain and your nervous system as well as your Self, that highest, wisest, truest, wildest, most joyful, brilliant and miraculous part of yourself.
With new episodes every Tuesday, you can either subscribe or follow to make it less likely that you’ll miss new episodes and if you’re new here, even if it’s nowhere near New Year’s, when you’re listening to this, you might still enjoy this episode. It can be great for a fresh start at any time of the year.
The PDA, “Don’t tell me when to celebrate New Year! I can redesign my life anytime I choose!” but you might also enjoy some of the older episodes and access deeper dives with the Sole to Soul Circle, access free resources and more information at thefeelbettereverydaypodcast.com
As you listen to today’s episode or watch today’s episode, ask yourself what appeals. Just check in with yourself.
Notice how you feel. Do any of the ideas make your heart sing? Do any of them feel really heavy, too much pressure? You don’t have to do anything. You can completely ignore the New Year!
It is just another day and it can be a wonderful time to reset, to remind ourselves of all the choices we have in terms of doing things differently. As always, it’s aimed especially for trauma survivors and people with ADHD or AuDHD brains and I’ll be going through the Feel. Love. Heal. framework that I developed in order to share these ideas.
We have different levels of bandwidth at different times and (have I forgotten to record? Nope, I haven’t forgotten to record, I had forgotten that it’s not a touchscreen screen) with different levels of bandwidth, sometimes we might be very able to do the things that we know are going to help us feel better, the Feel part.
It might be reaching out to someone. It might be some form of movement. It might be anything at all that helps you regulate, that kind of lowercase self-care.
Other times you just have to accept where you are because bandwidth is too low. Other times that Love part, the acceptance, the support, the self-love, it can feel more challenging than the Feel part.
It can be harder to accept ourselves exactly as we are, to love ourselves exactly as we are. In those cases, the more regulatory things can be easier.
And the Heal part, the more collective self-care, the co-regulation. Whether that’s you offering space, holding space for others and, just as important is you accepting the space that others hold for you, finding spaces where others can hold you because you deserve holding and that might be something that you want to build more into your life.
Perhaps you’re very much about giving and you find it harder to receive? As we move into the Feel part of the Feel. Love. Heal. framework this week, we’re looking initially around any PDA you may feel around New Year’s resolutions.
That Pathological Demand Avoidance (or Persistent Drive for Autonomy! Because let’s face it, if you are neurodivergent and if you were conditioned out of knowing what you knew was right for you from even potentially pre-verbal, it would have manifested as Pathological Demand Avoidance and doing the opposite of what people wanted you to do but it’s that part of you that can’t be tamed. And honouring that, recognising you can do Resolutions your way.) You don’t have to do them at all but you might want to think about something that is going to help you live a life that is more fulfilling, more meaningful, more joyful and that enables you to thrive.
Be curious around that. You might want to do something I do each year again in terms of making a note of the Lessons and Blessings from 2025.
Lessons might have been really painful things that occurred, things that you survived, things that you might still be dealing with, challenges that you’re still facing. Being open to what might be trying to emerge at a soul level with even the most challenging of situations, whether that’s around setting boundaries or asking for help or whatever it might be, if you’re able to think in those terms, it’s not going to make the challenges go away but it can make it a bit easier to bear. Just asking how you can learn from each problem, how it might be trying to help you. And I realise that it’s one of those really frustrating things to hear and it can be very helpful to reframe things that we struggle with in this way.
With Blessings, again, it might be that with hindsight you see some of the challenges turned into Blessings or it might be things that were utterly joyful and you can immediately, but it can just be a lovely way to connect.
I have the Míle Buíochas Mondays newsletter which helps you create and sustain a gratitude practice that hopefully honours your whole Self, your whole nervous system. It’s not all about love and light. It’s also acknowledging the times not only when you’re in ventral vagal, when you’re in Purr!, when life is good, when you feel connected, when you feel safe, when you feel happy. But it’s also about the things that move you out of that into sympathetic survival, into that Hiss! or even dorsal vagal, that Freeze!
You might want to sign up for that if you haven’t already and you can just ask yourself now, how does it feel to think back over the year? It might be that you take one month at a time, a Lesson and a Blessing for each month.
Or just write or – for some embodied journalling – record yourself talking or as a video or even just talking at your reflection. Just ask yourself what have you learned, what have been the themes? Ask your Self.
And there’ll be a link in the show notes to your transpersonal quality for the year in previous years or as you think about the year ahead. It may have already occurred to you and I often begin thinking about this before my birthday in November. Next year (and I’m recording this in 2025) Freedom has stood out for me.
In previous years, it’s been like for 2025 it was Harvest, for 2024 it was Pleasure, for 2023 it was Ease. I’ve had Joy, I’ve had Love, I’ve had all sorts of different words. I’ve been using this, Assagioli who created psychosynthesis, he used to have what he called “evocative words” dotted around on index cards in his home.
I loved when I visited his house which had been turned into a museum, and seeing his handwriting and (in Italian) Patience and Serenity because everything I’d read about him I assumed that those qualities came naturally to him and they very much did not.
He had to focus on what he wanted to bring more of into his life and he did that by writing it down and looking at it on a regular basis. We now have so many tools, we can create vision boards, we can create mood boxes, we can create a beautiful wallpaper for our phone and have it kind of in your face on a regular basis. I think Steve Harvey, the American actor, he used to have his evocative words, he wouldn’t have called it that, but sewn into the hem on his suit so he’d see it like when he was getting dressed.
It’s really about anchoring what you want to bring into your life as much as you can so if it’s peace you might be choosing images that represent Peace to you or Freedom for myself for example. Have fun with it, be creative with it, share it, I’d love to hear whether you want to comment or whether you want to email eve at selfcarecoaching.net and again show notes will have links to previous suggestions.
Something I love to do each year before New Year’s and also before my birthday but I noticed more resistance this year because I was away in Malta for my birthday so I didn’t do my pre-birthday deep clean so it feels more overwhelming for New Year but I do love a deep clean of my home.
It just feels lovely to be letting go, to be releasing and to be welcoming and I think it’s in Japan where they talk about having like bookshelves not being completely full or drawers not being completely full, always having room for new goodness to enter and just notice how it feels.
You might think, “Cleaning? No way!” or it might be, “Actually, that feels better than a party to me” or whatever it is and it might be a symbolic clean, you might do one drawer or you might like just do kitchen counters or you might want to do all the things. But do it in a way where you’re intentionally releasing what no longer serves you.
I love taking the bins out before New Year’s and there’s a lovely way to open the back door before midnight and release all you’re ready to release from the year that’s gone and then at midnight, just after, open the front door and consciously welcome all the good you’re open to receiving.
There are some ideas that you might want to implement and as we move into the Love part, that uppercase Self care, that acceptance, that loving yourself exactly as you are, you don’t need to take on anything new, you don’t have to improve yourself or do a thing. You are already part of nature, you are already part of the Divine.
You might want to take a moment or longer to connect with yourself as you imagine the year you’re moving into while remembering that you’re already whole, complete and you get to heal more deeply and to enjoy more.
But there can be something, it’s like with EFT, we start with the setup statement and we’re saying even though whatever the issue is, I choose to soothe and support myself or I’m OK or traditionally I deeply and completely love and accept myself, the more we can love and accept ourselves as we are, in EFT they call it the psychological reversal, we lose that resistance to change, so by accepting whatever you don’t like about yourself as much as you can, ironically you allow that to dissolve the resistance, what we resist persists, it becomes easier to make potentially healthier choices in that area of your life and choices that support what you want but from that loving accepting rather than punitive shaming which of course is going to trigger a stress response.
Notice what comes up for you there as you consider that and as we move into the Heal part, the collective care, think about your ideal community and ideal company. If you are a party person, who are you looking forward to seeing tomorrow night?
Who are you looking forward to spending time with on New Year’s Day?
Are you hosting?
Are you going out?
Are you staying home?
Learning to drive has revolutionised my life in terms of being able to have more choice about what I do and doing all the things I love on New Year’s Day to have a taste of all the things I want to bring into my New Year, so like there’ll always be yoga, there’ll always be ideally a sea swim unless it’s too stormy, time with loved ones, time writing and reflecting and intentionally creating that kind of vision that what I want to consciously release and invite. I like to eat something delicious and nourishing, movement is very important, getting out in nature.
Just thinking of ways in which you can bring a taste of all the things you want 2026 and beyond to offer you into your New Year’s Day. Not in a way that overwhelms you but if you’re thinking about your ideal community and company, if that isn’t already the case for you, let yourself know that you deserve it, let yourself want it, let yourself be open to creating it in 2026 and beyond.
I’m going to be offering new live in-person monthly lunar circles, it will be my first time offering in-person for a good few years and you can email eve at selfcarecoaching.net if you’re near enough Westport, County Mayo Ireland to potentially join us but the theme for this year it will be around the Waning Half Moon where it’s going to be releasing the things that get in the way of balance and harmony so each month will have a different theme but that will be a consistent theme throughout the year, releasing blocks to balance and harmony, releasing blocks to freedom, releasing blocks to whatever it is you’re wanting to bring more of into your life.
This week in the Sole to Soul Circle I am going to be encouraging participants to create a mood box or bag or whatever works for them, it could be a vision board but I find the mood board it works also with the, it works with additional senses not just what we can see, you can have music, you can have taste, you can have smell and you can have tangible like fabrics or other things you can feel as well as connecting with the strongest feelings of whatever it is you want to create for yourself.
You can join the Sole to Soul Circle for free or as a paid member and as a member each Wednesday you’ll receive a deeper dive into each episode. Free subscribers get journal prompts and paid members from just eight euros a month get an exclusive video or audio recording and you might also like to sign up for my free weekly newsletter which I mentioned earlier, Míle Buíochas Mondays, where each week I share some of the things I’m grateful for as I support you in building your own gratitude practice that honours your nervous system by welcoming all the feelings and all the states of your nervous system.
Whether you want to heal your trauma or befriend your ADHD or AuDHD brain you can find out more about the book 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing and explore self-care coaching and other ways in which we might work together as well as accessing lots of free resources through selfcarecoaching.net
Thank you so much for listening or watching if you haven’t already subscribed or reviewed that would be delightful and the more five-star reviews the more shares the more engagement I get the more likely it is that people who are trying to heal their trauma and befriend their ADHD or AuDHD brains will be able to access this content which I hope will be helpful.
I love hearing from you and next week we’re going to be looking at moving into the new year with neuro-affirming trauma sensitive yoga and meditation [this’ll actually be in another episode!]. I hope that you have a beautiful start to the year as you release all that you’re ready to let go of.
Thank you for listening or watching the Feel Better Every Day Podcast this episode like all of them was produced by me your host Eve Menezes Cunningham you can find full transcripts links and more information in the show notes and also at selfcarecoaching.net as well as more information about the book 365 Ways to Feel Better: Self-care Ideas for Embodied Wellbeing and if you’re interested in those deeper dives joining the Sole to Soul Circle as well as lots of other free resources and information about other offerings.
If this episode was helpful, please leave a five star review. In a world in which so much is coming up for healing and so many people are feeling unsafe I want to do whatever I can to help as many people as possible heal from trauma helping create a world in which everyone is safe welcome and loved. Physiologically, emotionally, spiritually and mentally able to thrive. Your subscribing or liking or sharing feedback and other support helps me help as many people of all genders with trauma histories and ADHD and your learning to take better care of yourself isn’t just good for you it creates a ripple effect helping others feel too so keep looking after yourself do what feels good let yourself honour your nervous system let yourself honour your charge your life force and míle buíochas. A thousand thank yous.