Intentions I’m Setting for 2025
Yesterday was the shortest day of the year. I had big plans to do a deliberate celebration, set my intentions for 2025, and think about the returning light over the next six months with a table full of candles and evergreen branches. Instead, I came down with ANOTHER flu-like ailment and spent most of the day on the couch contemplating how it was possible that I could feel EVERY nerve in my body.
This was not how I wanted to start my two-week break from work. However, getting sick for a second time in just under six weeks after not catching anything for nearly two years was a pretty blatant alarm bell that I needed to figure out my work stress, which has ballooned like a cyst over the last six months.
Which is to say it’s time for a reset and a little introspection on what I want to do more of and less of in 2025.
I’ve broken this year’s intentions into categories as suggested by the Many Moons planner. These certainly aren’t the only things I plan to think about during 2025, but it's nice to have a few big areas to focus on and see what follows from there.
Self Care & Self Development
Get Next to the Telephone Pole
In my death doula class, we talked a lot about getting comfortable with being uncomfortable. One of my favorite metaphors they used was the “telephone pole” example which goes something like this: If you’re on the ground working on a telephone pole and that pole starts to tip over, where is the safest place to be? Many people’s instinct is to run as fast as they can away from the pole in whatever direction they’re already facing, but the pole could easily fall on you if you do that. Instead, the best thing you can do is get right up next to the pole, see which way it’s falling, and then step to the side. It’s terrifying to get right up next to this big pole that’s about to fall and could crush you, but it’s so much safer than trying to blindly outrun it.
Strangely, when it comes to death, grief, and mourning I have no trouble getting right up next to the pole. When it comes to other things like, oh, the nagging feeling that my boss is perpetually unimpressed with my work and therefore I am always one step away from losing my job, well, I would much rather bolt away from that than calmly get next to it to and patiently observe which way it's falling.
I’m not entirely sure yet what it means to get right up next to my worry, but I’m going to spend this year finding out.
Clean Spaces
I’ve always tended toward “messy.” Piles of clothes on the closet floor. Unmade bed. Items accumulating on surfaces.
There’s nothing morally wrong with being messy, but it does fuck with my mental health. It’s hard for me to feel cozy and creative in the midst of clutter and dirty dishes. And I want to feel cozy and creative more often.
And there’s actually some science to back this feeling up. A 2016 study found that “living amid clutter compromises people’s sense of psychological well-being.”
Research shows that both messiness and tidiness are learned behaviors (not something we innately have or don’t have) and so I want to spend this year with an intention to learn tidiness.
Health
My health intentions are really more like goals for 2025 (very tangible).
In the gym:
In 2024, I wanted to be able to do at least one pull-up and successfully kick up into a handstand — both of which I achieved by October! (In fact, I’ll have you know I can do THREE pull-ups!) Next year I want to be able to:
Do a pistol squat
Hold the handstand for at least five seconds
On bikes:
Compete in one bike race
Complete at least three bikepacking trips
Get back into the habit of sessioning difficult things on my bike
Bodily:
Get the first (OF THREE, OMG) gum surgeries needed for my stupid receding gums
Career
As a writer:
Finish my book proposal (I have a book idea!!)
Find an agent for said book proposal
Put out one zine per quarter (more to come on this, but I want more print media in my life)
Commit (really commit!) to one paid post a month for paid subscribers
In my day job:
Remember that as one of the newest employees (and not a member of leadership) I am NOT responsible for fixing systemic issues that have been ongoing for decades before my arrival, but I DO get to decide what kind of attitude I want to show up with.
Remember that a job is just a job, even when it’s “passion” work.
Relationships
I just have one overarching theme for relationships this year (romantic, friends, work, etc.) and that is to regularly ask myself, “How do you want to show up?”
I often forget that if I just SLOW DOWN a little and be a touch more present, I do actually get to decide how I want to show up. And I’d much rather show up with curiosity than explosive reactions.
However, that’s not to confuse “how do you want to show up” with the toxic positivity of “always show up in a good mood and lie about how you’re actually feeling.” Part of this theme is also acknowledging that I don’t have to show up for everyone and that there are some people who quite frankly might be better off if I stopped showing up for them altogether.
Spiritual Growth & Evolution
Practice knowing what “enough” looks like
Remember that healing is not my purpose
Abandon the church of the attention economy and be especially aware of advertising and when a platform only has the goal of selling me something
Service & Helping the Collective
This is an area of intention setting that I often forget about, so it was good to be reminded, especially after finishing The Serviceberry by Robin Wall Kimmerer.
Be more engaged in local actions
With Trump taking office, I have a feeling we’re not going to get the Dolores National Monument, but if it’s still possible for me to be involved in this work during an unkind administration, I will.
Pay attention to local news
Find a CSA/local farm to support this spring
Learn my local flora and fauna
