One Year Reflection
It has been just over a year since I returned from my maternity leave after the birth of my son. When I thought about that, I decided to take some time to reflect on my journey over this last year to get to where I am today and how I have changed as a mom, therapist, partner, and friend.
In the past year, there was:
Time to slow down while on leave
Enjoyment of baby snuggles and laughs
Nights of little sleep and exhaustion
Guilt for not rebuilding my caseload fast enough
Excitement to reconnect with my weekly clients
A new admiration for my daughter in the way she handled being a big sister
Increased tasks and stress in managing a family of 4
Constant compromises with my partner
Monthly meetups with friends and family
And a renewed confidence as a mom of 2 figuring out this new landscape
I want to honor all of the hard moments as well as the ones that I will hold deeply in my heart for years to come. Nothing was perfect about this year and I made plenty of mistakes, yet I want to find compassion for myself in all the things that didn’t go well and be proud of what I did accomplish.
We don’t need to wait for New Years or our own birthday to take time to reflect on our past year. Sometimes it can be helpful every now and then to take a step back and notice how we have grown. Personally, I like to use creativity as a means to reflect and one way that I marked this occasion was to create a “strengths collage” in which I cut out pictures and words from magazines that reminded me of my strengths and things I was proud of. This is something I frequently do with my clients as well. I found images of family and nature, and phrases like “never stop growing” and “take charge.” When I look at the collage, I feel gratitude for making it through and excitement for what is to come.
Think about your own accomplishments from the past year. What are you proud of and how can you send some compassion to yourself for the mistakes that you made? What would your strengths collage look like?