Not sure what percentage of population I fall in with, but I am not a fan of new year’s resolutions.
When it comes to resolutions, I reserve these for my birthday because I see this as My Personal New Year. This is a concept I adopted from the Native Americans of New England – which is another story in and of itself but will save that for another day!
Since I keep my resolutions and life reflection to my birthday rather than January 1st, I often do not participate in the popular practice of setting new year resolutions. Afterall, I am likely to forget about them in 2weeks anyway. I will however, from time to time, set a single intention, or a “Word of the Year”, yet even those I am not the greatest at keeping.
Are you asking yourself, “Then why the heck are your writing this post?” yet?
The answer is a basic one. I want to “get my sh#t together”, I need to. 2024 was a rough year and I slipped into several unattractive habits that I hate about myself.
With that in mind, the answer seemed simple.
Given I am launching this blog with the New Year, why not share my Intentions for 2025 openly with you, and then keep myself accountable to you with monthly recaps? Now, I won’t use the term “resolutions” because my neurodivergent, anxiety riddled brain will freeze like a deer in headlights with such a “permanent” word. Instead, I will call them my Intentions for 2025. Much more agreeable to my crazy mind.
Yep, I am a weirdo, and guess what, I am, if not totally okay with that, well on my way to being so. That is part of being a Dandelion Dreamer.
Also, with the dumpster fire that was 2024, I did not do a life assessment and adjustment around my birthday, so two birds, one stone!
2025 Intentions
1) Journal Daily
In 2014 my life was forever changed with the loss of my daughter. One of the greatest aids I found to help me process and survive, was to journal. My mind was spinning. Thoughts were constantly swirling in my head yet at times I was physically catatonic for lack of a better description. I didn’t know what to do with myself.
Reality was so foreign to me with what my reality was supposed to be that at times I literally did not know what to do with myself.
As time moved forward, I found turned to journaling. Being a natural list maker, the idea of writing what was in my head down on paper seemed to make sense allowing me to purge the emotions and thoughts I was struggling to process.
By doing this, I realized in time that not only was I beginning to return to the land of the living, but it was a safe place to express all my feelings, fears, hopes & regrets, doubts and experiences. I was able to get these things out of my head, recorded in a secure space and able to then look at them objectively so I could begin processing each emotion.
Although life circumstances prompted me to halt journaling for a few years, 2024 proved that it is a practice that very much needs to be returned to my life.
What I intend to capture in my journal for 2025 is first to recap my day, my emotions, thoughts, and plan.
I will also track my progress with the 17 daily habits for increasing intelligence. To know more about this, you can check out my post, “Can you increase your IQ?” I was initially thinking about recounting expressions of gratitude as well but have another intention for that instead.
2) Go to Church
This one may seem a bit on the obvious side, but I have been pretty slack at attending church in 2024. I appreciate the positive energy attending church on a Sunday sends me into my coming week with, and 2024 really could have used more of that! 2025 I intend to not make a similar, easily avoidable mistake.
3) Meditate & Try Manifestation
Meditation, a very en vogue trend right now, it is a practice that spans continents, centuries, and religions. Meditation has grown in the Western world so much over the last decade that science is finally catching up. Multiple studies are proving that regular meditation can have positive effects on stress, blood pressure, and anxiety. It is even being shown to have positive results with PTSD.
2024 found me experiencing levels of anxiety and a frequency of panic attacks that have been unmatched since 2016. I do not want to encourage this to continue in 2025, so I am going to incorporate meditation into my regular practices. I am hoping that this will begin to help with my heighted levels of stress, improve my sleep and ease my anxiety and PTSD.
4) Frugal Downsizing & Maintaining My Home
2025 will be seeing me get married and blending my home with my fiancé and his girls, so this has practical purposes in my life however age may be playing a factor too!
Be it age, or trend or a result of the “times” I have been longing for a simpler life. I would love to find 2025 end with my family purchasing a larger property with sufficient land to care for animals and grow a sustaining garden.
With these desires, reducing my possessions to a frugal and minimalist level and maintaining them will assist in attaining a simpler lifestyle.
5) Prioritize Quality Family and Friend Time
Life can get crazy, and it is easy to let other things take over and shift our perceptions about what is important, yet when we stop to pause and consider what truly matters to us, often it is not the things we are focusing our energy on. For me, nothing is more meaningful than time with my kids and a few good friends.
This year I intend to keep that focus front of mind so that I can ensure that I am prioritizing those relationships over anything else. I realized this past summer that I only have 6 more summers with my kids before they are off to college and the world. This was a bittersweet realization that. Time truly does get faster as you age, and I want to make the most of my opportunities with the ones that matter.
What this means in a quantifiable way I am not sure yet, but I would like to begin with the intention of weekly QT time with the kids each week when we are together.
6) Gratitude Jar
Earlier I alluded to an alternate way I have opted to highlight a practice of gratitude this year and this is it. I was inspired to attempt this for two reasons.
First, I was reflecting on some of my favorite gifts I have given over the years, one was a jar I decorated and filled with little printed meme scrolls tied with ribbon. These memes were quotes of encouragement and love that I gave a friend who was dealing with a health crisis. It’s one of my favorite gifts I’ve given because of the effect it had on my friend.
It was a random gift, given to someone dealing with a lot and the love she felt in that giving and the help those little quotes were giving her each day held so much for her that I received an unexpected gift in return of her joy. I am not always so clever as to provide little gifts that can have touching meaning for others, but that gift was special. It is that kind of feeling I want to feel again and recording what I am grateful for each day just might be the best way to do that.
The other inspiration was a practice from my childhood that I miss and often long to somehow introduce to my own kids. As a young girl, my family had this Thanksgiving tradition where my mom would have a box, usually decorated by us kids, in which we would slip pieces of paper into the box over the days leading up to Thanksgiving.
On these pieces of paper, we would write something we are grateful for and then at Thanksgiving Dinner, the box came out and we read each expression of gratitude our family had recorded. What stays with me about this tradition, were the unexpected words of my siblings’ expressing gratitude for something another had done. I found it special that we simply prompted to write down things we were grateful for we began to recognize the special way us five kids did things to make each other feel good.
These two experiences are something I want to share with my kids. They are getting older and that means more and more time away from our little family circle. I want to find a way to keep my family close even as they become more and more the humans they are meant to be, gain independence and broaden their horizons. This is what inspired me to do a Gratitude Jar rather than journaling for gratitude.
The process is simple, find a clean mason jar and a stack of Post-It notes. Each day, write what you are grateful for on a Post-It note, one gratitude per Post-It.
Ideally, you would want to write a couple of things per day. Aim for a minimum of 3. The more you can identify each day the greater impact this exercise will have.
Science is beginning to study the effects gratitude exercises have on individuals, physical health, group health, and even adolescents. Among these results, research shows that by focusing on positive elements in your life you begin to shift your focus and retrain your brain to identify first with positive rather than negative factors.
This shift helps release dopamine in your brain increasing your overall satisfaction with life in general, appreciation for those in and around your life, aids in reducing your stress levels.1
A few of the other health effects include2:
- a lower rate of health issues,
- improvement with memory issues,
- higher productivity,
- tension releasing from muscles
- better digestion,
- greater empathy,
- stronger mental resiliency,
- improved self-esteem,
- reduced impact of PTSD symptoms.
- greater creativity, and even
- added longevity to your life.
For our kids the above benefits are also being seen in addition to a reduced sense of entitlement and materialism. Studies are showing the youth tend to become more satisfied with what they have rather than always wanting more and are in contrast more generous with others3.
As a mom, anything that can assist in fostering feelings of empathy, generosity, greater self-esteem and resiliency while nurturing their attention and creativity is something I will happily welcome into our home!
