Happiness

Mary’s New Year’s Resolutions: 2024

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

It’s 2024, which means that Child(ish) Advice is four years old (old enough to be in preschool).

The lull between Christmas and New Year’s always has me contemplating what goals I’d like to set for the upcoming year. This time around, I found myself writing the same goals that haven’t been achieved for years (or piggybacking on goals that have recently been met). The resolutions started feeling like a never-ending hamster wheel. I don’t want 2024 to be mundane.

During our monthly meeting, Patti had mentioned creating resolutions about how you want to feel rather than what you want to accomplish. That perspective shifted my mindset on how I want to live in 2024. So, with that said, here are my New Year’s resolutions.

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Patti’s New Year’s Resolutions: 2023

| Patti Webb

This Christmas, all of my cousins bought our grandparents Skylight frames. It’s a digital frame with an app that allows people to add photos and video directly. I sent four years’ worth of kids pictures to each of their great-grandparents and Lolo and Lola.

It gave me a chance to go through my phone and sort all of these photos of the girls. Reflecting back on everything we did with them when they were little, and now as school kids, the highlight reel really is heartwarming. That doesn’t mean that our day-to-day is any less challenging or that burnout isn’t perpetually looming on the horizon.

I did accomplish what I said I would do last year: to be more selective with my time and attention. I said no to more things and didn’t overschedule or overcommit. But that’s not just what it’s all about.

In a recent news article about Yale’s viral course on Happiness, it’s not about being time-rich. It’s about actually having fun. While we can spend time recovering from work or winding down, relaxing things are simply just relaxing. They are NOT invigorating.

Full transparency: I signed up for the Yale “Science of Well-Being” course on Coursera right after I finished listening to this article.

So now that we have this context, I’ll jump into my Resolutions.

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Need a Hygge?

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

Our house, especially in the winter months, runs deep with all things Frozen. The songs are constantly on repeat, the movies are frequently requested, and anything Olaf is heavily sought after. At a recent visit to the bookstore, my son and I found a book called, Disney Frozen: Anna and Elsa’s Hygge Life, which got us wondering.

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Post-Holiday Hangover

| Mary Stoffel, MOT, OTR/L

The glimmer and glow of the holiday season has seemingly come to an end.  The lights and decorations go back in their boxes, the tree is put away (or finds its new purpose as mulch), and the joy of opening presents will need to wait until the next birthday or holiday event. Although most of us are just fine with the holiday season ending and look forward to going back to the usual, some of us, especially kiddos, struggle with the shift.

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