In the brief lull between Christmas and New Year, we can already hear the hoofbeats of their approach: the next set of expectations.

We just ran the brutal gauntlet of holiday demands, trying to make a dark time of year merry and bright, with no more time, energy or money than we usually have. And we mostly did it, like we mostly always do. We made a way out of no way. And now…we rest?

Nope. In just a few days it will be time to get thin, get organized, get energized, and Achieve Our Dreams in 2017!!! Or to flog ourselves and each other for any shortcomings therein.

Let’s not go to that party this year.

In part, this approaching set of expectations springs from a natural need for balance after the holidays. Our houses are overflowing with gifts and paper and chaos and we want order and space. What seemed festive a month ago now just seems suffocating. After weeks of rich meals and sweet holiday treats, soup and a salad seems like a relief. There’s nothing wrong with any of that.

What’s wrong is when those natural, gentle yearnings are wrenched from our hearts, twisted, and handed back to us as a pointed and painful yoke of expectation – we SHOULD be thinner, our home MUST look a certain way, we OUGHT to feel positive and motivated at the start of a new year. The media has a hand in creating this painful yoke, for sure; so do cultural expectations, and so does our own perfectionism. So this year let’s not give them the material. Let’s not tune in to the same old boring January drumbeat of thinner and better organized. Let’s listen instead to the quieter, wilder beating of our own hearts.