What 2025 Taught Me — and What I’m Carrying Forward

I appreciate the idea of the new year as an opportunity to begin with a clean slate. At the same time, I think it’s just as important to reflect on the lessons we carry forward from the past year — the ones that shape how we step into what’s next.

Here are my top three lessons from 2025:

1. Feel emotions without having to do anything about them

This lesson was inspired by the quote, “Between stimulus and response there is space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Parenthood has a way of testing you multiple times a day, everyday. It’s easy to fall into a cycle of reacting and repairing, but repair can only heal so much. A reframe I’ve been practicing is allowing myself to feel the full intensity of an emotion, even when the impulse to react is strong. When I stay with it long enough to move past the “peak,” the feeling begins to dissolve. Reality settles back in, reminding me that all emotions are impermanent — both the uncomfortable and the pleasant. There is something deeply freeing about trusting that you can feel without immediately having to do anything about it.

2. Replace a negative thought with an opposing one 

This lesson was inspired by Yoga Sutra 2.33: “Vitarka bādhane pratipakșa bhāvanam” when disturbed by negative thoughts, cultivate the opposite.

In my interpretation, this practice isn’t about forcing false positivity. It’s about not allowing a single thought or emotion to consume you. It’s the intentional redirection of your mind toward what supports clarity, compassion, and discernment. Your mind is shaped by habit and every time you choose an opposing thought, even briefly, you have the power to weaken old patterns and strengthen new ones.

3. Be intentional with how I spend my time

This lesson was inspired by M. Scott Peck’s words: “Until you value yourself, you won’t value your time. Until you value your time, you will not do anything with it.”

Another thing parenthood will do is show you how you see yourself. In the past year, I learned a lot about how I value myself by how I spend my time, especially in moments of stress, overwhelm, and emotional reactivity. With less time available, I no longer rely on buysness as a coping mechanism. When I don’t protect my time, I don’t protect my nervous system. Rushing from one thing to the next leaves me more reactive, less patient, and quicker to respond from exhaustion rather than intention. Being intentional with my time has become an act of emotional regulation. It looks like creating space before responding, building in pauses instead of pushing through, and choosing fewer things so I can meet them with more presence. When I honor my time, I am better able to stay grounded—especially in moments when my emotions are intense or stretched thin. I’m learning that valuing my time isn’t about productivity, it’s about capacity. When I respect my limits, I’m able to respond rather than react, and show up in ways that feel aligned with who I want to be, both as a parent and as a person.