Did you see the meme about the January challenge, “where you just try to make it through every day of January”?
Or the one where a woman complained that it’s been a heck of a year, and her friend reminded her that it was only January?
For many of us, 2025 is off to a rough start. Our enthusiasm for the new year was extinguished when the fires started. Instead of healthy new habits, we abandoned an alcohol-free Dry January, doomscrolled and stress ate. Now that January is over, it feels like our resolutions might be, too – gone in the chaos of the fires and the news cycle.
But we can always begin again, says Diana Winston, director of UCLA Mindful, UCLA Health’s Mindfulness Education Center.
“We always have that capacity to start again and to really be forgiving of ourselves for the ways we didn’t do what we thought we were going to do,” Winston says. “Just give it a try. And when you fall off again, start again.”
Don't be hard on yourself
Self-kindness is step one if you abandoned your resolutions in the first weeks of 2025, she says, especially given the devastating fires in Los Angeles. If you’re not eating or sleeping well, that makes sense under the circumstances.
“If you’re not doing your New Year’s resolutions, that’s actually an appropriate response to chaos,” Winston says. “We go towards things that are soothing, that are familiar, that are habitual, even if they’re not the best things for us.”
So give yourself a break. You’re only human, and things have been hard.
Any difficult emotions you may be experiencing – despair, overwhelm, anxiety, grief – are valid, normal responses to challenging circumstances.
Meditative practices, such as those offered through UCLA Mindful and its free app, can help calm the mind and provide a refuge from life’s challenges without ignoring them or pretending they don’t exist.
Winston recommends a mindfulness tool called RAIN, which stands for recognize, allow, investigate and nurture.
First, recognize the difficult emotion and label it: “This is grief” or “I feel anxious.” Allow it to be there. Then, investigate the feeling: Where is it in the body? Perhaps your jaw is clenched or your heart is racing. Investigate the physical sensations that accompany this emotion.
“This helps us to not be so lost in it,” Winston says. “We can see it as an emotion moving through me, rather than my emotion taking over me.”
Finally, nurture. Give yourself kindness. Difficult emotions are difficult to experience. How can you be kind to yourself in this moment?
Be open to joy even in difficult times
Allow yourself to experience joy. Many of us have been moved by stories of generosity after the fires, Winston notes. And everyday joys still exist: sunlight shining through a window, a snuggle with a beloved person or pet, laughing with a friend.
Mindfulness allows us to “be with what’s difficult but also savor and appreciate moments of goodness,” Winston says.
Intentionally seeking out and savoring moments of joy is a way of “resourcing ourselves,” she says: “If we’re depleted, then we’re not going to have capacity to handle harder stuff.”
Where is there a glimpse of goodness, even in the rubble of this new year? Intentionally notice these moments. Being aware of joy doesn’t deny challenging circumstances, but helps us cultivate balance and resilience – which is just what we need to reboot the new year.
“Humans cannot function without some balance – we will overwhelm ourselves and go into despair,” Winston says. “Attuning to these moments of beauty, of generosity, of kindness, is deeply uplifting. And they’re there, even if it feels like everything is overwhelming.”
