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This year feels like a big one.
In March, I will hit 45 rotations around the sun.

I’m not sure when you actually feel your age, but I’m still not there. When the sun shines again and I see another year added to my life, I’m just as shocked as ever. That being said, my 40s have become a sacred decade. I will carry all I am learning for the rest of eternity. Gratitude fills my bones for the experience and reclamation. And while I have a long, long way to go, I can’t help but look back and feel rich with how far I have come.

As 2025 began to wind down, I felt a stirring in my soul.

That small voice whispering to my heart that change breathes on the wind. How interesting that it was the Year of the Snake, meant for shedding old skin. Fitting. I got quiet, and started listening.

Intention

Living nearly 45 years with attention deficit, I have learned that setting goals does not serve me.

A whole year of focus on hitting very specific targets does not keep my attention and inevitably leads to failure and self loathing. I realize this statement most likely will not resonate with you unless your brain is a little neurodivergent too. I watch highly successful people set and achieve big goals and I applaud them. How absolutely inspiring! I love it! Nevertheless, I know that it is not in my wheelhouse and that’s ok. God creates all of us with unique talents, strengths, weaknesses, and stories.

I took the lid off the New Years box many years ago, and while it has morphed with time and experience, I have never looked back.

Instead of making big, strict goals, I choose one gentle intention.

Just one thought I want to get curious about, pick apart, learn from, reimagine, create, treasure, and hold. I use that intention to set the tone for my year. It leads me in all aspects of my life from personal growth to home projects. I dive all in with no rigid rules, boundaries, or structures.

It’s fluid in a way that keeps my attention and generates thought and encourages growth.

2025: Untethered

The intention I chose for 2025 was Untethered and, oh, I had no idea what lay in store.

Over the last year, I have been loosening the ties that fastened, restricted, and bound. Without expectation. Chains that were wrapped around me by myself and others. Some I didn’t choose, they came passed down from generations before. Some I created myself through a lifetime of mistakes, habit, hurt, self doubt, and living. Limits that held me back, that forced and masked. Fear. Pain. Anxiety. False beliefs. Labels. Old narratives.

To be completely honest, free falling was absolutely terrifying.
I wasn’t fully prepared for that. But I guess, we never really are.

Gentle Practices that Were Rarely Gentle on Me

My year was filled with somatic practices, journaling, prayer, going to therapy, cutting open old festering wounds and cleaning them out. I took my first steps to learning emotional leadership and nervous system regulation. There were many nights of tears as I have battled to forgive and release.

I stepped back from my normal and stepped into awareness of myself and my choices. Taking accountability and ditching victimhood. There were experiments saying no or yes out of love and not guilt or forced obligation. I studied shame and, boy, that hurt.

I let go of who I thought I had to be and made space for who I am.

There is no way I’d have made it through the great untethering without the support of my family. They consistently cheered me on and I don’t think they realize how integral that was.

Nobody told me how incredible it feels when your kids grow up and start supporting you back. It’s breathtaking. They’ve been right there, patient and loving as I’ve worked to unfurl my forgotten wings.

2025 was a year of inner growth. It set me up for change. Although, I can’t say I am entirely ready, I am willing to see where this new wind takes me.

2026:

While doing the work of the last year, I have come to recognize that I have developed an unhealthy habit of chasing.

Chasing people, relationships, fledgeling children, love. Chasing appointments, schedules, doctors, lab results, healing. In hot pursuit of time, happiness, light, purpose, results, understanding, space, self-love, acceptance. Sprinting. Lungs heaving. Mind a blur. Continually chasing after, but just not quite quick enough. Doomed to never catch up.

It’s as if the system, whether society’s or mine, is set up for failure.
And to be truthful, I think it is.

Always running and yet, somehow continually waiting too.
Waiting for the next.

The next crisis, the next season, the next autoimmune flare, the next thing. “After this it will be better”, I repeat to myself. After I heal. Once I let go. When I finally get organized. Once this happens or that. Do you do it too? Live in a constant state of busy? Of waiting? Never fully present where you stand?

After a tumultuous year of untethering, it’s time to step into truth. Who I am and who I’ve always been under the mask of survival. In 2026, I am choosing reclamation. It is time to Reclaim my power, my focus, my energy, my time. My beautiful, fragile self. For most of my life I have felt broken. As if there were missing pieces that made me less than, but when I filled them, became too much. It’s been an exhausting tight rope that I am no longer willing to walk.

I am not broken.
And though that is true, I recognize the need for restoration and regeneration.

Reclamation.

Reclaim Definition:

re·claim

verb

verb: reclaim; 3rd person present: reclaims; past tense: reclaimed; past participle: reclaimed; gerund or present participle: reclaiming

1. retrieve or recover (something previously lost, given, or paid); obtain the return of. Similar: get back, claim back, have returned, recover, take back, regain, retrieve, recoup, recuperate, redeem.
2. bring (waste land or land formerly under water) under cultivation.
   • recover for reuse; recycle.

noun

noun: reclaim

1. the action or process of reclaiming or being reclaimed.

Definitions from Oxford Languages · Learn more

March: You are far too complex and layered to continue living in autopilot, ignoring what truly awakens you. You are far too overflowing with curiosity to settle for routines that drain the wonder out of your world. You are far too tuned into the magic of the world to live like it’s about ticking boxes and survival. You are far too alive with potential to keep living like everything’s already been decided for you, you are far too wild-hearted to live inside someone else’s idea of “success.” You are far too sacred to continue treating your life like it’s something to endure rather than something to tend to. You are far too rare to keep forgetting who you are.
-by Freya Winters

This quote from Freya Winters gives me goosebumps, every single time I read the words.
Must be a message there for me.

Concepts, Thoughts, and Pivots for Reclaiming:

For about a couple of months, I thought my 2026 intention was Analog. I felt so inspired and my social media algorithm was hitting it on the head. My man even bought me a lovely analog wrist watch for Christmas. But the thoughts just wouldn’t settle, it felt like there was something I was missing.

After leaving a therapy session the first week of January, it hit me. Living in a world obsessed with power, consumerism, A.I., speed, and ease, the concept of analog is fantastic and necessary. The social movement currently brewing is right on time, and I will be jumping in. However I recognize that in reality, for me, focusing more on analog living is just a step, not the whole staircase. There is more there and something tells me it is vital.

After a couple of days, the word reclaim gently landed and I haven’t looked back.

Sometimes we have to pivot, even in the face of good things. It doesn’t have to be or, it can be and. That’s one of the aspects I love most about this form of self-enrichment.

Truthfully, I don’t know exactly what this is going to look like.
But, I am hopeful.

Here are a few of the ideas floating around in my head-

• analog activities, hobbies & rhythms- puzzles, arts & crafts, home projects, cooking, gardening, letter writing, reading, taking classes, making things with my hands. I’ve included photos in this post of some of the analog living I can’t wait to get back to! Instead of through a screen, it’s simply living right where your feet are.
• romanticizing moments & daily life
• putting down my silly phone- I downloaded a free app that locks apps I choose for set periods of time. I’m hopeful this will help me so I can work on the habits of picking up the phone without thought + scrolling to escape feelings or duties. I’ll come back and give you my thoughts on the app after I use it a bit longer.
• balance
• therapy
• journaling & self-discovery
• continuing to learn to regulate emotions & nervous system work
• doing hard things + being bad at new things
• unmasking, putting myself out there, and allowing others their own thoughts about me without making them meaning anything
• building community
• nourishing body, mind, and soul
• taking care of my health: exercising, doctors visits, medication, thought work, rest, and continuing to support my body through the experience of mast cell activation syndrome + autoimmunity
• practicing self love and giving myself an extra dose of gentleness & grace when needed
• taking adventures
• pushing myself creatively
• writing for the fun of it
• watching with wonder
• daydreaming again
• creating healthy sustainable rhythms that still allow for pockets of spontaneous joy
• stepping into intention
• quieting the world & living right where my feet are

In the coming months ahead, I am choosing a reclamation.

Reclaiming my time, shine, talents, excitement, emotions, thoughts, body, health, testimony, hope, energy, strength, pluck, light, vibrance, inner child, joy… and all those other magnificent bits of life that turns living into legacy.

Wishes for You

I hope to post more on this blog as the possibilities swirl and I dive into 45 with clearer eyes and an open heart. But no matter what happens, know that I wish you light.

May this year be one of growth and glorious stretching. May you be as the willow and learn to bend. May the sun warm your face after the storm. May you be plucky and brave when the road gets rough. May you look inside with compassion and hold your heart with gentle hands. May peace be within you, lacking of doubt. May God keep you and you keep Him right back. May energy flow and home be soft. May dreams glitter and joy light your day. And darling friend, most of all, I wish you may chose in with both feet and step out of your own way.

Happy New Year!
Good things are in store, I just know it.

Have you set an intention for 2026?
If so, please tell me in the comments below or stop on over to Instagram! I’d absolutely love to connect and hear your thoughts, schemes, and dreams.

P.S. In the event that these words resonate and you’d like to set an intention for the New Year, please check out this post. You will find 3 pages of free printable journal prompts that might help you on your way!

XO, all my love.