Reflections and recommendations
Guiding yourself forward
Since this is New year’s Eve and I won’t be writing my column again until next year (ok, ok, that’s also next week ;-) ….. here is some handy reflections for you AND my 2025 list of fabulous things.
On Monday I held my Your 2026 Revolution session where I took over 75 women on a little adventure into themselves….because all adventures start on the inside.
I had them my use-every-day journaling prompt just to keep the connection going with themselves through this next year. It’s so easy for women at midlife to get pulled way from themselves, distracted and hijacked by all the external, they forget to nurture the internal.
So I’m attaching it here for you if you’d like to have a go.
The ideal is pen to paper every day, but who are we kidding? Life is lifey so while that is the ideal, it’s better to do something - anything - than nothing at all because you think you have to be perfect.
So three times a week is better than none. Doing it in your head is better than not doing it all. You can speak it into your phone if needs be. It all counts. The key is simply to check in with yourself as often as you can. Even to wake up every morning and say “hello you!” is a start.
Reflections
And to really kick off the new year, without a resolution in sight, it’s a really good idea to reflect on the year just gone, before getting intentional about the year ahead.
It’s not an exercise in self-flagellation but a simple memory jog to get the right info you need to get intentional or 2026.
So start with listing the main events / highlights of the year. (Mel Robbins suggests going through the photos on your phone, but I also skim through my calendar to remind myself of what happened).
This is such an important exercise because you can wrap a whole year up in the mood of one event, when in fact it was always much more. This year has been dominated by my dad’s end-of life care, his funeral only a few weeks ago. And yet, when I went through my photos and calendar I realised my year was filled with many little adventures, brave choices, good decisions, bad hair days, fun family stuff, and many, many, many delights in nature…. especially my walks along Donegal beaches.
So take a beat to reflect and reminisce… you won’t get this year over, so give it another look over.
Then ask yourself:
What brought me most joy?
It is over not the big headlners but the small, simple moments and connections in your life.
What gave me energy?
Again, yes it might be the holidays but often - for me anyway - it was the regualr things like my weights classes, my walks in nature, writing, watching my garden grow, my friends.
What drained me most?
Surprisingly, this wasn’t just the long months of care for my dad. It was also the bloody laundry (have now come up with a better solution to the constant nagging of my daughters to put it away), and scrolling on my phone.
What do I want to leave behind in 2025?
For me this is wasting time on my phone, and wasting energy on being annoyed.
What do I want more of in 2026?
Try and not make this last one resolution-y but more revolutionary. These are a couple of mine:
1. Focus on emotional ease. (I’ve been working on this for a while now and aim to make it an intentional practise in 2026. This is about trying to respond rather than react and it gets easier and easier the more I practise. Setting my intentions are key and then not trying to overly control an outcome. For example. I had my ex-husband and his partner over for dinner on Christmas Eve. With emotional ease as my guide, my intention was to just be myself (with a few verbal guard rails!) and let the evening be what it was - it was NOT my responsibility to make everyone happy and worry that everything was perfect. The result was a really lovely evening that I’m proud I was able to give my girls. Emotional ease for me means trying not to let everything (anything?) become a drama, trying not to get hijacked by draining energy like resentment, guilt, stewing over things etc
2. Have some feckin’ fun. I had a tough enough year at the end of a tough enough decade. I want to lighten my life up and not get so bogged down.
For me, giving myself practical ways of living to practise is better than strict resolutions.
Yours could be better connection to self, spaciousness, going into recovery for perfectionism, get out of your own way, pushing out your comfort zone, resting more, prioritising sleep, moving every day, trying new things. Whatever it is, it’s really helpful to set yourself a little guiding light for the year ahead.
Recommendations
And as part of my end of year reflections, here are some of my recommendations from this year:
Podcasts
I listen to a lot of politics podcasts so to discover these two beautiful podcasts that tell human stories in such unusual ways has been a delight to break the horror of this year in politics and world affairs:
Strangers on a Bench - Tom Rosenthal sits down on a bench in various parks in the UK and starts talking to a stranger. Some of the conversations are stunning. A reminder you just never know what’s going on in people’s lives.
Heavyweight is hard to explain other than Jonathan Goldstein helps ordinary people confront unresolved past regrets, conflicts, or lingering questions, acting as a “therapist with a time machine” to facilitate difficult conversations and find closure, often involving road trips, reunions, and exploring moments where life took an unexpected turn, This one is beautiful
Amid all the crap and madness and brutality this year has shown me on social media, this account has been a little beacon of joy. Plumes is a French musician who sings to a variety of animals and watching their reactions is just beautiful. https://www.instagram.com/plumesofficiel/
Books
I struggled this year to read as much as I normally do. With so much going on I found it hard to settle but these are two beauties…
Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver - Oh. My. God. I still miss him.
The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak. Stunning and I’m planning on reading her one of the moment - There are Rivers in the Sky - next.
And for non-fiction, The Human Age by Diane Ackerman is a lovely reminder of how beautiful our world is and how resilient and creative people are.
Any recommendations for me please are most welcome!
TV series
My stand out series was 1883. I’d loved Yellowstone but was late coming to the prequels. While 2023 is good, I thought 1883 was one of the most beautiful things I’ve watched in a long time. The power of the main female character alongside the power, beauty and cruelty of nature is stunning.
Food
Beetroot. Who knew? I like the spicy beetroot tub from Dunnes in particular and chuck it into everything.
Drink
Kombucha. Especially the raspberry ones but any will do. I’m slightly obsessed and may even put making my own on my 2026 list if anyone has a recipe?
Beauty
New puppy has caused me a fair bit of stress but…. because of her I have seen so many sunrises and sunsets this year, and for that I am really grateful.
Despite it being a challenging year for me in some ways, there is so much to be grateful for and I’m really looking forward to the coming year. More fun! More evolving! More becoming. In all it’s shapes and forms.
I’d love to know your favourite things this year and your hopes for next?
And I am doing a little adventure next year called Illuminate 2026. Starting on the 1st January (but you can join anytime, the prompts aren’t dated and you’ll just start at the beginning) I’ll take you on a guided journalling journey through a lovely cycle of self-discovery, passions & purpose, and living with intention.
Because connection to self is not a once-off action but a life-long relationship, I’ll send you one prompt every day to ponder (in a journal is best, but in your head is fine) to help you develop a strong and dynamic relationship with yourself. It’s so easy for women to get pulled away from themselves… reacting to all the external and detaching from your internal connection. One really important thing you can do is try to stay connected to yourself amid the mayhem. To check in regularly. To see how you’re doing, the same way you check in with your ageing parents, your kids, your work colleagues, your friends, your partner, your neighbours. To put - and keep - you on that list of care.
Why journaling works.
The goal in life is not to be happy 100% of the time, but to be able to live through a wide range of experiences and emotions and stay connected to yourself.
The process of putting down what’s in your head onto paper has an impact. It helps your brain make sense of the tornado of thoughts, feelings and experiences that your busy lives swirl around you. It’s too easy to push forward with your head barrelled down to survive. Journaling helps you thrive amid the mayhem of midlife. Reflection gives you perspective, a crucial sanity-saving element we often miss in our mile-a-minute lives.
So if you’d like to start 2026 with an intention to invest some energy and thought on yourself, Illuminate 2026 will support you into and through the year. All the details to join are here - https://www.alanakirk.com/illuminate
Happy New Year lovelies and here’s to 2026 being the year of our best becoming.
https://www.alanakirk.com/