new year — Blog — Focht Family Practice

In today’s world one need not look far to find stressors. On a global level we are facing environmental threats, a war in the Ukraine that approaches the one-year mark, financial market uncertainty, and a globe still trying to understand how the meaning of health and illness have been reshaped by the recent pandemic.

The pause from work and school for the winter holidays can be a time of great connection and gratitude and joy. It can also heighten emotions of anxiety, grief, and intensify family conflict. When our own personal individual contexts and stressors intersect with the shared global stressors it can feel overwhelming. It’s normal to feel depleted and burnt out at the beginning of a new year.

As a response to this overwhelm many people begin January with pledges and resolutions - issuing themselves rigid new behavioral goals. I feel such compassion for this reasonable desire to gain a sense of control and order in a world that feels out of control. The problem with the over-emphasis on resolutions is that we become outcome-focused and then when we fail to meet our goals we feel a sense of failure, followed by a lack of motivation and that familiar feeling of burn-out. When we are outcome-focused, we are assessment-focused (did I do good enough?), and we are future or past-focused, not present-focused. The outcome-focused brain state has us teetering on the edge of activating our fight or flight system.

I want to offer a different intervention this January – play.

Mammals are hard-wired for play. Humans are no exception. Play is good for our mental health because it’s about the experience: process for process’s sake. Anything that gets us INTO an experience and OUT OF outcome-focus thinking is therapeutic for the nervous system and for relationships. So why do we abandon play as we age into adults? One answer is that our society values productivity and play is not productive. It is not measurable.

But our kids can remind us of its value. Play activates imagination, creativity, team-work, belonging, wonder, and humor. Often play involves learning new skills or problem solving. Sometimes it’s just outright tomfoolery and mischief. Play connects us to our physical body and to the flow state – getting lost in the present moment. Play helps us let go of the things we can’t control. Like grey winter weather. Play allows us to transcend boundaries that exist in the practical world. Play is always available to us and it’s usually low-cost.

So what do I mean in practical terms? Jenga. A trampoline park. Puzzles. Lego. Game nights with friends (charades, trivia, board games). Wild dancing to music. Card games. Twister. Bowling. Turn your kitchen into a restaurant and give everyone a part. Set up a bean bag toss. Make costumes. Play is a word with millions of interpretations. Invite silliness. Invite invention. Invite peace. And leave your phone in another room. Don’t let a notification or the pressure to post take you away from the gift of the here and now.

Play doesn’t replace worrying about the world or about the personal challenges we are weathering. It does gives us a respite from the worrying and restores our bodies and minds so that we feel more grounded and able to face the messy parts of our lives.

January is somehow already upon us. And while the world we are inhabiting presently is different in many ways, some things do not seem to be changing in 2021. Just like in Januarys of old, our social media feeds and inboxes are currently flooded with all kinds of “New year, new you” messages. Everything from fad diets and must-have “nutritional” supplements to gym membership, meal delivery plans, and home workout equipment deals are being splashed across our television screens. We are constantly bombarded with ideas about what our bodies are supposed to look like and what is healthy, continually shamed into restricting our eating and manipulating our bodies into society’s current standards of acceptability and beauty.

These standards ensure that every January people jump to set unrealistic and unsustainable goals around losing weight, exercising, and/or dieting that often leave them disheartened and feeling things like guilt, shame, disgust, and despair by the end of the month. To make it all the more demoralizing, this cycle can lead to a lifetime of disordered eating and other health issues and ensures that we continue to line the pockets of what Emily Nagoski and Amelia Nagoski call, The Bikini-Industrial Complex, This is the term they use to describe “the $100 billion cluster of businesses that profit by setting an unachievable “aspirational ideal,” convincing us that we can and should — indeed we must — conform with the ideal, and then selling us ineffective but plausible strategies for achieving that ideal.”

What if we did something different this year? What if we place the focus on loving and accepting our bodies as they are? And recognizing that food is not good or bad, nor is it the enemy? What if we unlearn the idea that health is dictated by a number on the scale? (Spoiler alert. It’s not. You can learn all about this lie via the resources below) What if radical self-love, acceptance, and compassion were the resolutions and goals we gave our time energy and money to? Do you think, maybe, just maybe, these might prove more helpful in supporting your overall well-being? I suspect they might. If you’re ready to start this new year differently, you’ll find some resources below.