”and you too have come into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.” – Mary Oliver

As you place one foot, and then the other, onto the ground of this new year, you may want to think about what you want to leave behind in 2024, and not drag with you into 2025.

You may want to take stock of all your strengths and of how you may want to take them to the next level this year. These can include your transferable skills, expertise, passions, positive personality traits and interests, amongst other things.

You may want to think about setting so-called “new year’s resolutions” or concrete, measurable and inspiring goals, and figure out how you might set about achieving them.

You may want to imagine yourself on the brink of 2026, looking back at a successful and prosperous and meaningful year, and being able to pinpoint what made it so.

And, to take the pressure off yourself and the need always to be striving towards the next thing, you may, like Mary Oliver, want to “walk among the trees,” gradually moving from a state of being so “distant from the hope of [your] self” to being present to the message that, like the leaves moving effortlessly in the breeze, you “too have come into the world to … go easy, to be filled with light, and to shine.”

I offer you the gift of Mary Oliver’s poem, When I am among the trees, to inspire you at the beginning of this new year to take yourself frequently into the woods or onto the beach or into the mountains, and to engage all your senses in experiencing the natural world and learning from nature’s wisdom so that you go more easily into this new year.

When I am among the trees

When I am among the trees,

especially the willows and the honey locust,

equally the beech, the oaks and the pines,

they give off such hints of gladness.

I would almost say that they save me, and daily.

I am so distant from the hope of myself,

in which I have goodness, and discernment,

and never hurry through the world

but walk slowly, and bow often.

Around me the trees stir in their leaves

and call out,”Stay awhile.”

The light flows from their branches.

And they call again, “It’s simple,” they say,

”and you too have come

into the world to do this, to go easy, to be filled

with light, and to shine.

Posted by Juliette Gyure, life and leadership coach.