NEW YEAR, SAME YOU... AND THAT'S PERFECT

Have you ever woken up on New Year’s Day—or any “big” day—and thought, This is it. I’m finally going to be different…and by the afternoon, you’re exactly the same? Yeah, me too.

In this episode, I’m ditching the guilt, ditching the resolutions, and leaning into something far more powerful: curiosity and grace. I’ll share how I noticed my patterns without judgment, how I gave myself a little breathing room, and how one small choice changed my day—without “fixing” myself.

If you’re tired of the pressure to have it all figured out, or if you’ve already failed your resolutions, this episode is your reminder: you don’t have to start over to start smarter. How about we get curious about who we are right now, show ourselves a little grace, and see where that takes us?

Let's get into it.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

This is Unsided. Unsided. Unsided. Hey everybody, it's Christopher. Welcome back to another episode of Unsided. I'm always happy to have you here in conversation with me. It's January of 2026, the start of a new year, and I woke up today feeling incredibly optimistic about what's to come for the new year. And I went out to the shed behind my house that we've converted into a little podcast studio meditation space and an office. And I wake up early often and I come spend some time out here by myself because it's one of the few times during the day when nobody's asking anything from me, when I can just be completely on my own, when I can do whatever I need to do, and spend some time with myself. And today was no different. And I came out and I spent some time and I meditated and I felt very clear. And then I went back into uh the house and I decided to go back to sleep for a little bit. And I woke up about noon. And you know how you go back to sleep when you shouldn't go back to sleep, and you wake up and everything's kind of off-kelter. My mood was just a little bit off. And because of the work that I've been doing, I've been more self-aware of when I'm having a trigger or when I'm having a moment where I can't quite regulate my mood. And I was surprised today by the fact that I couldn't quite regulate my mood. And I started getting into my head about all of the different tasks that I wanted to get done today or over the two-week break. And when I get stressed or when my emotions aren't regulated, one of the first things I do is I go to my task list in my head. And I don't know why. It's not particularly comforting, but it's just kind of my go-to place. And I start feeling the stress of all of the things that I need to do. And for me, one of the stories that I've told myself over the years, and one of the things that I'm working on, is that I have to do everything alone. That there is a lot that's on my plate that I have to deal with. And it doesn't necessarily get easier, meaning that that thought is still there, but I'm more aware of when it happened. So today there was a moment when I thought I just need to go for a walk. And I started to go for a walk and I realized I didn't want to be away from my family, my mom, and my husband. It's just us home today for the New Year's. The kids are with their mom. And I thought, I want to spend some time with them, but I'm gonna have to figure out how to regulate this emotion. And one of the things that is hard for me to do sometimes is to get vulnerable and say, hey, this is where I am today. And so my husband had asked me, Are you okay? And I said, Yeah, yeah, I'm fine. I just need to go for a walk. And I came back and I said, Look, actually, can I just have a hug? I'm feeling something and I don't know what it is. And there would have been a time in my relationship with him and just in my relationships in general, when either I would have thought, I don't need to bother anybody with this, or it's my responsibility to get myself out of this, or maybe in my earlier days I wouldn't even have been aware, you know, that there had been a real shift. But either way, there would have been times when I wasn't able to communicate it and I wasn't able to say, hey, can I have a hug? I need to kind of work through this. Because you know those feelings that you have when something is just flowing through your veins and it feels unsettled, but you can't give it a specific name. Maybe you could go through a list of all the things in your life that are challenging, but the reason that you're feeling stressed at that particular moment is kind of hard to name. You can't really control anything, nothing necessarily has changed, you don't need to do anything, but you're just feeling yourself kind of vibrating in that unsettled way. I mean, I am assuming other people out there know that feeling. It is a common feeling for me, and it's what I was feeling today. And it made me think a lot, as I have been, about what it means to communicate with the people that we're in relationship with, what it means to let them into our minds, to our hearts, to our beingness, so that they can kind of walk the journey with us rather than being shut out, kind of witnessing us, waiting for us to come back around. And I wouldn't say that it's something that I'm really adept at. It's something I'm getting better at. There's kind of a a mixture of things here. You know, I talk to my children a lot about emotional responsibility because I think about it a lot myself. And my husband and I talk about it a lot. Am I being responsible with my emotions today? Or are you being responsible with your emotions today? Are we able to name and identify, hey, I'm having a moment and I don't want to take it out on you, but I need to let you know you might pick up on something. Because one of the things that exists for sure in my household is kind of this extrasensory perception. And I can't speak to other people's relationships, I can only speak to my life experience, but I imagine it's not uncommon that people who are really connected, especially in families, they pick up on people's energetic shifts. Certainly I wasn't taught how to really handle that when I was younger. I watched people, you know, in my family argue a lot, get into fights a lot because there were things left unsaid, unexpressed, underexpressed, whatever the case may be. There was a lack of emotional intelligence to discuss, to really work through things. So that's something I've had to teach myself, especially since becoming a parent. I'm committed to understanding moments like today, when I'm seemingly in a great place, and then either I sleep too long or something else pushes me, and I find myself in an unsettled place, and my partner, my family members can pick up on it. And rather than doing what I used to do, where I would walk around and just try to protect people from it and actually end up creating a space between myself and other people, I'm trying to be open and be curious and not judge myself. And that's a tough one because I didn't want to feel that way today. I I don't feel that way anymore right now as I'm sitting down to talk about this, and that was only a few hours ago. But I definitely was in it for a little bit. And I think I certainly in my life have found myself being frustrated with others when their energy changes suddenly, or when something has pushed them off kilter, and I wasn't expecting to have to deal with that. And that's the same way that I felt about myself. If I'm going about my day and having a beautiful day and something triggers me, or I suddenly feel overcome or overwhelmed by an emotion that's not comfortable, and I don't know where it came from, one of the first things I want to do is control it. And part of controlling it is judging it. Well, you shouldn't be feeling that way, Christopher. This is not good for you to be feeling this way. Why on earth would you do that? Why would you do that to your family? Come on, get your act together. That's how I would talk to myself. And there have been times in my life when I've talked to other people that way in my life, either directly or I've kind of just given them the impression that, hey, I need you to get your stuff together and let's move on. And that's I don't think that's any way to be to ourselves or to others. Every day we wake up and we're just trying to do our best to maintain an evenness. I really believe that. There are certainly people who wake up and, as my kids would say, choose violence. There are people who wake up and they don't move with self-awareness through their day and they're just going about punching at things and pushing at things just to get a reaction, just to feel alive. I've certainly known those people in my life. Some of them have been very close to me. There have probably been times in my life when I've done some version of that as well. Certainly, there have been. But I think one of the gifts of age and growing older is that we have time and perspective, and that's not something I'm willing to do anymore, and that's not something I'm willing to accept from other people anymore, particularly not in my closest relationships. I have a responsibility to look at the moments and think, okay, how do I overcome this, or how do I at least let the people around me in? And how do I stop myself from judging myself? Because that just adds a whole other level of stress. I don't know why I was feeling the way I was feeling today, but it was real. I could probably give you a multitude of reasons that I think I was feeling that way, but I still, even in this moment, at seven o'clock at night, I don't exactly understand why. And my brain, which likes to be logical about things, has to let go of the drive to understand and move more towards acceptance and non-judgment, which then allows me to go to my partner and say, Hey, can I have a hug? I don't know how I'm feeling. And we've had to do a lot of work ourselves in conversation to understand how to get to that place. And we don't always succeed. Today was successful. My husband happened to be in a place where he could actually receive that and he could be there for me and be present for me. And while it's a really minor thing, I was thinking about it more today because here we are on this, on this first day of the new year. And even though we set up this calendar system and we make a big deal out of it and we have New Year's resolutions and all that kind of stuff, I very much believe that what we think is what we create. And on this day, we all kind of collectively agree that we get a chance to start over, to start anew, to start fresh. And I don't want to take things from the past into this new year that are not healthy. And I think where I landed today was it's not bad, it's not good, it simply is. Wherever we find ourselves on any given day, when we wake up and we're working with our emotions and we're working with what's coming at us and we're dealing with all the things we need to deal with, there has to be a place that begins in grace. Once we realize we may not have our whole faculties emotionally for the day or for the moment, there has to be a place where we give ourselves grace. Otherwise, we then can't ask other people for grace. I can't ask for someone to hold me and not judge me if I'm not willing to do the same for myself. And maybe today, when I thought, oh, I don't want to take that into this year with me, maybe the lesson was actually not Christopher, you need to not do that anymore. It was Christopher, what about just giving yourself some grace and some space to feel whatever you're feeling and let people in? And that's what I did, and then we moved on, and then we alchemized it, and now here I am talking to you. But I think the bigger piece for me was that there was a time in my life, not so long ago, when I would have just thought, well, I don't want to do that anymore. I'm just gonna get over it. But that's what happened today is a part of me. What happens to you when you wake up in a brand new year and you're supposed to suddenly be this better version of yourself? Maybe it's not about actually changing overall the things that are coming up for you, but rather how you deal with them. Maybe that's what being better is about because there's also a part of what happened today with me that just makes me Christopher. That's how my system is wired. That's who I am. And there's part of how your system is wired about who you are that may not always feel comfortable for you or for other people. And hopefully you're surrounded by people or you choose relationships with people who give you the space and the grace as well to grow and to learn. But maybe you're a little cranky in the morning. Maybe you're a little cranky in the evening. Maybe you don't like it when you feel like you have a lot of things to do, and sometimes it gets ahead of you. Maybe you don't like it when you feel disrespected, maybe you don't like the tone that your partner uses, or there's a specific tone that people use in your life, and that's a trigger for you. Maybe there are things that once you stop and just observe them about yourself and say, oh, okay, I'm gonna try not to judge this reaction today. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna judge who this person is walking into 2026 as someone who has to suddenly have all of their things figured out and have made every perfect resolution and have figured out exactly how to move forward in life and never making the same mistakes again. Maybe so many of the things that we think are mistakes or that are are showing that we haven't grown are actually not that at all. You know, maybe they are opportunities for us to care for ourselves a little bit more and teach other people how to care for us. Maybe there are opportunities to be in this self-awareness, in a desire to be better as we enter a new year. Maybe it's also an opportunity to become more accepting and kind with ourselves and then more vulnerable and open with others who are willing to stop and understand that we're on a journey to being the best that we possibly can be. But just because there's a date on a calendar doesn't mean that suddenly we're gonna have it all figured out or that collectively we're all going to be able to muster up the courage and the strength to stick to a list of resolutions or to never repeat certain behavior. There's a certain amount of pressure that comes at us at this time of year. The holidays, oh, you gotta be there, you gotta be present, you gotta be present for your family, and then we're coming up on the new year and we're shedding our skin and we're becoming better, and all that's wonderful. But it's also a bit of a trap. It's a bit of a trap because when you go to sleep on the night of the 31st and wake up on the first, you are not magically just another person. You're not a different person. Maybe you've made some commitments to become continually more curious about who you are and therefore show up better for yourself and for other people. But you're not just miraculously going to be another person. You're you're not just miraculously going to want to go to the gym every day if you weren't before. You're not just miraculously going to want to work harder at something. You you maybe you've made a decision, but something didn't change in you chemically overnight. You've just made a decision to become more self-aware. So before I went to bed, one of the things I said, as I often say, is, let me be aware of how my body, my mind, my spirit are functioning, are serving others. And basically that means I'm just always praying for and meditating on self-awareness. And I really think that's what a resolution is, anyway. It's just saying, hey, I'm aware that there's this part of my life that I would like to look at where I'm not showing up in a specific way. But then my experience of that is if you're not careful, then we get on this bandwagon of, oh, it's January 1st. Now I'm going to do everything right. I'm going to do all of this X, Y, and Z exactly this way. And we're not honoring how our body is wired. We're suddenly just trying to change through action and pressure and guilt and shame that we collectively hold because everybody's got these New Year's resolutions, dry January, whatever it is. And I'm not knocking any of these things. You do you. Everybody do the thing that they need to do. I'm just saying I became aware today that I woke up the same person. I woke up with a commitment to myself and an excitement because there is this collective energy of a new year, and there are things that I want to work on, and there are ways that I want to become more self-aware and show up differently in my life. But it didn't just magically change overnight. And nothing does. Everything is a process of uncovering, of understanding, of getting curious, and then incrementally making changes so that we can shift our life in the direction we want to go. And every one of those incremental changes, every one of those moments like today when I can observe myself and go, oh, so that's happening again, without judging myself. Every time you can do that without judging yourself, every time you can go to the gym or make the different dietary choice or commit to following through on a project, you're rewiring something within yourself, even if you don't show up 100% how you wanted to. Just the fact that you're aware that there's something that you'd like to do differently, and you're giving yourself grace and you're looking at it and you're showing up in whatever way you could on that day in that moment, whether it's January 1st or December 31st, I kind of think that's all we can ask of ourselves. And I kind of think that's all these little rebirths that we give ourselves are about. We do it throughout the year, whether it's a birthday or Christmas or the new year or the celebration of some kind of anniversary, whatever it may be, we give ourselves these reset points. Oh, this next year is gonna be great. That we say at our birthday or at New Year's or this this Christmas is going to be different. We set up all these little markers for ourselves. And that's great. I I think that's entirely the point of human evolution to get perspective, you know, to be if you're blessed with with aging, to have that perspective as you get older, to look back and go, okay, who was I, who am I, where am I going? But there's a process to that. Self-awareness also comes with stopping and feeling things in the body, feeling what vibrates in a calm and peaceful way or in the way that feels good to you. And becoming aware of when your body's in reaction, when your mind is in reaction, when you're resisting something, really giving yourself grace. You know, if it's about the gym, why haven't I gone before? What hit what has it been about? How am I wired? What makes me comfortable? Where am I getting input from the outside that makes me feel guilty and shameful? Like I have to do this, what part of me actually really wants to do this? And all of those conversations are ongoing. You know, if you decide that this is the year of you getting physically fit, it doesn't mean that starting January 1st, you're at the gym every day necessarily. It can mean that for you. If that feels good and without guilt and without shame and without pressure, that's going to collapse you later. But I have found in my life it's small incremental changes. It's those small moments of observation and then changing the behavior. You know, today rather than staying out on my walk and just getting more into my own space, I came back and I connected with my husband. Because that's the thing that I want to do different this year. I want to connect. I want to be self-aware of when I'm not connecting. Because connection for me is where I find my peace. It's where I can create the most effectively in my life, in all areas. And so rather than thinking, oh, I was so good this morning and man, I just blew it because here I am suddenly overwhelmed by all this and falling back into a pattern of disconnection, I chose something different. And it was easier in that moment. It wasn't a huge stressor. I I understand that sometimes there are big things that happen. You know, maybe you really are well-intentioned to change your life, and then something big comes in and throws you off course. That's okay. That's okay. Because then you can get self-aware, you can ask questions, and you can, you know, get curious about why you were thrown off in the way that you were, and maybe it's totally justifiable, and that's okay. And then maybe you don't feel like picking up where you left off. That's okay too. There's so much pressure to be and to show up in a specific way. And the pressure sometimes is about acquiring things, attaining things, attaining that body that you want, whatever the case may be. I think the only thing that I want to aim for and that I look for in the people around me is knowing yourself, knowing how to show up and be responsible, knowing how to take accountability, knowing how to connect even in the hard moments, and having that grace, that word that I keep saying, that grace to understand that it doesn't need to be perfect, that it is the process. That's that cliche, it is the journey that matters. Today, I am no different than I was yesterday, but I have taken on part of this collective energy to say, you know what, I'm gonna ride the wave of that, this energy that of a world that wants to change and move into something new. And I'm And however I can show up through this year, I'm going to do my best to remain curious about how and why I do show up that way. Even when it feels like I'm falling short of some goal that I've set for myself. Or some idea that I need to have overcome something by now or be better at something. I guess that means that I'm looking to be more kind and patient with myself. Patience is something that's been coming up a lot for me. Patience and judgment has been coming up a lot for me this past month or two in conversations with my family members. You know, I've come to understand that because I judge myself highly and I'm impatient with myself, that I'm often also judgmental and impatient of other people. Now, if you are directly in my life, you you might know that, you might not know that, because I'm also somebody who leads with respect and kindness, and I'm not somebody who ostracizes people or keeps people out of his life because of judgments about them, you know, in any capacity generally. Like if they're good, solid people. But because I'm constantly judging myself and not and I haven't historically given myself a lot of grace to move through life, I will find myself doing the same of other people because I'm keeping kind of a record of myself in relation to them to make sure that I'm doing the right thing. Like this is something I've learned about myself even more recently, and something that I want to look at and get curious about because in some ways it's certainly saved me and helped me in my life. Otherwise, it wouldn't be repeated and I wouldn't have achieved some of the things I've achieved. But I've outgrown it. And it doesn't feel good for other people. So I've been looking at this idea that I judge myself a little too harshly and that I lose my patience with myself. And then with others when I can't explain to them who I am or what I'm feeling or what this is all about. And sometimes when other people can't come to me and they aren't showing up in the way I'd like them to, I lose patience because I have a certain expectation. And the thing is, I could choose to do all of those things for the rest of my life. I could live my life any way that I want to, but being impatient and judgmental and expecting everything to change quickly and not giving myself grace, that is not how I want to live because those things stop me from feeling peace. They stop me from feeling the calm that I so desire because I'm far enough into my work on my mental health and my spiritual health that I have become very clear that the most important thing to me in life is that centered, calm peace whenever I can find it. And, you know, I'm going to need people around me that I can trust. I'm going to have to work on the relationship with them and let them feel safe and let them know that I'm self-aware enough to call it out when my energy changes or when I'm being impatient or when I'm being judgmental, that I can be self-aware. Because one thing I know for sure is that when people around me are aware of where they are or what they're feeling and they're not projecting or blaming, I can hold space for almost anything because I feel safe, because they're not coming at me and they're not being disingenuous. They're not saying, oh, this is all happening to me without stopping and saying, I understand it's happening, but also this is how I'm reacting, and my reaction is affecting you. You know, when people can do that with me, then I feel safe. So one of the things that I feel is really important, not just for myself, but for the people I love, is that when I find a moment like today, I don't globalize the moment. I don't think, oh, this is a new year. I should have this all figured out. I think, okay, interesting. I made a commitment to my family and to myself to understand this, so I'm going to work on that. And that's pretty cool that I was able to recognize it today and not entirely identify with it, and that I was able to alchemize it with my family and move forward. That's a win for the day. If you wake up and you think, I want to go to the gym, and then you make a plan to go to the gym, maybe you meal prep for it. I don't know, but you don't actually make it out the door. Give yourself grace. You're aware. And then take a moment and think, okay, why didn't I make it out the door today? And how important is this really to me? Am I doing this for other people? Or are my friends and family constantly having to deal with the fact that I don't feel good in my life and I don't feel happy in my body and I don't feel healthy, and therefore my mood is affecting them? Do I love them enough to be responsible enough to really get curious about why that's happening? Or am I just putting this on myself? Do I really not need to do it? And I'm and there's no problem here. You know, really looking at giving ourselves that grace for whatever it is you're moving towards here in this new year or any time of your life. It's not a quick fix. Quick fixes are not a thing. Resolutions, changes, big shifts in our life are opportunities for us to become more deeply curious, more deeply aware of how we're showing up every day. And then weigh that against how it's making the people around us feel, how it's making us feel, and decide where we want to shift. You don't have to do anything different because it's January 1st. You don't have to do anything different any day. You can go through your life and live exactly as you've always been living if it works for you and if it creates the environment you want in your life. It just so happens that the environment that I want in my life requires a lot of introspection. I want that safety, I want that trust, I want that communication, I want to know myself better. I don't want to just be a reactive being. I want to be a conscious being. I want to be thoughtful, and I want to have grace for the moments when I go back into my reptile brain and I'm just reacting. And then I want to get curious and I want to work through it and I want to grow. And I want to be really gentle with myself while I do that. And I don't know where you are today. When you're even listening to this, you're certainly not listening to it on the first because I'm I don't even know when I'm going to put this out. But you can refer back to what the beginning of your year was like, or maybe some other goal that you've set up for yourself is coming up. And I would just invite you to take a deep breath. And maybe patience is not an issue for you. Maybe self-judgment is not an issue for you. But if it is, give yourself that moment of understanding and compassion. And then allow those around you to see your self-awareness, to go on the journey with you when you can so that you can create and foster a safer space for them. And maybe if you have someone in your life and and you think I don't want to be self-aware around them, they're never self-aware around me. Sometimes we have to model behavior. And then people follow suit. Sometimes if you're in an environment at home where nobody is really communicating and expressing themselves and it just gets all jumbled, if you can just do it for yourself, it will change the the dynamic and the energy around you. People will see you showing up for yourself in a different way. They will see you respecting yourself and they will see you respecting them in a different way. I don't know. You know, it's not I'm not really telling you how to do it or what to do, and I don't even know your specific life situation, but these are all things I think about in my life, and these are all things that I've looked at. Because nothing is more important to me with the opportunity to wake up in this new year than to continue to be the best version of myself. And for me, that is being a version of myself where I can be open-hearted and my energy can flow and I can show up and give Christopher to whatever situation I'm coming to. And then I can allow other people to feel safe enough around me to give of themselves in the same way. I don't think there's any other point to life. And if if there is, then I haven't found it yet. So whenever you're listening to this or whatever your resolutions were for this past year or any other moment, or whatever changes you want to make in your life, I feel you. It's very human. And I'm proud of you for even thinking of making the changes. The changes that you want to make yourself happy. Not because the world is pressuring you to, but because you feel that um commitment to yourself and to the people that you love. Give yourself some grace. Show up however you can show up. Find that still small part of yourself that can observe when you're going into reaction and then just get curious about it. Don't try to solve it, don't try to be a superhero. As long as it took to build that voice in your head, it's gonna take that long to unravel that voice too. And then to unravel it from your nervous system. So whether you meditate or you are in nature, or you you know, read a book or with your pets, in those moments, find anything you can do to connect to something. And then be gentle with yourself. Keep your heart open. And it will come. It always does. With willingness, with an open heart, especially with this kind of internal work. Once we really listen to ourselves and ask ourselves questions and show up for ourselves, our self-worth starts to grow, and then it becomes easier to show up for ourselves and easier to show up for other people, and then it just compounds exponentially. The same way it compounds exponentially when we beat ourselves up for not showing up, or when we beat ourselves up for, you know, not being the person, the best version of ourselves we think we could be, or or when we spend too much time judging or beating other people up or being impatient with them. Because we haven't taken a moment to look at ourselves and our own triggers. Anyway. That's what's on my my mind and my heart today. And um I wish you a really, really wonderful, blessed, abundant new space in your life whenever you're listening to this. Whatever's on your mind that you want to get curious about, that you want to change, different ways you want to show up for yourself. I wish you grace, I wish you self-love, and um most importantly, have fun. Getting to know ourselves, getting to know others, it actually is fun. Once we can work through all of the tapes and all of the wiring that may be a little uh wonky. There's real joy and peace in finding that authenticity and in being patient with ourselves, and a little bit less judgmental with ourselves and others. We're all just doing our best. Okay. Thank you for being with me, and um know that I'm always sending you love, and I very much look forward to the next time we are in conversation again. Until then, take good care. Bye-bye. Uncided.