My therapist knows how to tell me the hard things, and I need that. I share about all areas of my life in our sessions and I would venture to say a vast majority of what I share, I am powerless to have any control over. I want to see change, but the only person I can change is me.

I initially met with my therapist to ask for coping skills. And she informed me that she doesn’t give coping skills to her clients.She doesn’t believe in coping skills, she believes in flourishing. Not gonna lie, I felt panicked when she said that. I wasn’t sure it was possible. That’s because life is one big group project.(Sigh.) I’m only one person in the equation. As I see it, we are living out a big group project. I have to admit, when I heard about this theory that is floating around about all of us on planet earth living in a simulation — a computer-generated environment, as characters in a virtual world…I gave it more than one pause for thought. Because sometimes, it sure does feel that way.

When I was in school, whether first grade or my doctoral work, I hated when the teacher/professor assigned group projects. Although I enjoy leading teams and team building, I loathe school group projects. The reason is because in a school group project, your personal grade is in the hands of a group of people who might be lazy, apathetic, procrastinators and more. Their diligence or lack of it impacts you but you are powerless to change these people. All you can do is the best you can do on your portion of the project. I have done group projects with people who refused to answer my emails, wouldn’t take the time to meet up to work on the project, etc. Some of them could have cared less. And I just wanted to scream, and sometimes I did. Appealing to the instructor in these cases usually does little to help as most of them feel like part of the point of the group project is learning how to work together, although some people just aren’t interested in doing that. Now that I am an adjunct professor, when I am given a syllabus that includes a group project and I can’t change that and must have my students do it, I am extremely mindful of the people I know to be conscientious students, who are stuck in a bad group. I will give them a good grade anyway because I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that they tried.

I want to flourish in every area, and at the same time it is often challenging for me to see the path forward when I am dealing with situations that I am powerless to change. My therapist repeatedly reminds me that an expectation for anyone or anything else to change is unrealistic, and may never happen. You can never count on another person changing. She says that all I can do is “show up as a different person,” and let things unfold as a result of that. And apparently when I show up as a different person, everything around me can’t help but shift. I guess that is because when you show up changed, people around you have to give some response to that change — good or bad. And, she tells me it usually gets worse before it gets better.

So you and I, we have decisions to make.

We are in a group project called life, but we still have a choice on what WE will personally do regarding our part in the project.

It’s almost January 1.

Are you just going to let the calendar roll over, and have a repeat of this past year? Or worse? Or are you going to show up a different person and flip the script in 2025?

Nothing outside of you may change to your liking this coming year.

Not a darn thing.

I know, that is a depressing thought. At times it can take you to a scary and desperate place in your mind.

But the fact that others may not change doesn’t mean that there can’t be sweeping change because you and I have a choice to change ourselves.

According to my brilliant therapist, that’s what it’s really all about. It starts with us showing up differently than we do now.

It means changing ourselves, and setting boundaries.

And it’s what I’m going to try to put into practice.

I think it goes without saying but I’ll say it anyway. Showing up differently than we do now isn’t a cosmetic change. This doesn’t have to do with how we look on the outward, although we may go through outward changes. The heart of this change goes to the core of our being.

I was assigned a book and it might be helpful to you as well. It’s called Set Boundaries, Find Peace: A Guide to Reclaiming Yourself, by Nedra Glover Tawwab.

I know this can be a lonely road. If this resonates with you and you are on a similar path as we go into 2025, know that you’ve got someone in your corner rooting for you. Whatever you do, don’t give up. When you show up differently in the room, I’ll be the one clapping the loudest.