7 mantras for 2025
"I give myself permission to do what is right for me."
I remember how much I used to love this time of year when I was younger. The holidays have always felt like a kind of period on the end of the year — an opportunity to turn the page, clear the slate, and start again at square one. For the longest time, I needed that fresh start, and clung to the promise of a new year with all that it could provide.
Maybe it’s the wisdom that comes with aging, or maybe it’s just that I’ve lived through so many lives in the past five years, but I’ve started recognizing that I don’t need to wait for the new year to offer myself that new start. It comes for me every morning, the moment I open my eyes. I remember feeling so weighed down by every single action, every single mistake, every single decision. But the older I get, the more I realize that I don’t need to keep score like in that way. If today is a not-so-great day, that doesn’t mean tomorrow will be, too. I can just wake up every morning and try to be a little better. And if it doesn’t happen? Well, there’s always tomorrow.
I’ve always preferred reminders over resolutions around the new year, because resolutions felt more pass/fail than I prefer my intentions to be. But this year, I’ve been reaching for affirmations more often than not. I’ve written about my reliance on Post-It Note mantras before — little missives I’ve scribbled and slapped in places where I’ll be able to read them and get a little hit of spirituality when I need it. These days they live mostly in my office; Lime green squares with pink writing that remind me that I’m open to new ways of being, or that I have time to prepare and decide, or that life usually works out in the end.
There are a handful that I’ve been keeping front-of-mind as the new year approaches: Mantras that I’d like to lean on over the next 12 months when I need them. I’m sharing them here with you without explanation behind them, because I’m very much of the opinion that an affirmation should come to you free of any context that you yourself don’t give it. If you find them useful, fabulous. If not, I encourage you to consider affirmations of your own. I’ve found them very centering and peaceful in this season of my life. Here are mine:
“Centering my own needs and boundaries is not an act of selfishness, but an act of strength.”
“I allow myself to be who I am without changing for others.”
“I give myself permission to do what is right for me.”
“My heart is open to receive.”
“I listen to my intuition and trust my inner guide.”
“What’s meant for you will never leave you. What leaves you was never meant for you.”
“Life is always working out for me, even if I can’t see it clearly in this moment. I cannot lose.”
We’ll be in Paris for New Year’s celebrating with friends — the last leg of what has turned into a honeymoon in three parts. After my last trip to Paris, where I traveled alone for two weeks during an incredibly low point in my life, I wrote an essay for The Washington Post about how the city helped adjust my view on loneliness. While I was there, I imagined coming back with a lover. Six years on, and I cannot wait to show my husband the city that helped bring me back to life in that incredibly trying time. And when the clock strikes midnight, and we clink our glasses, through my champagne haze I hope to remember these affirmations as we enter the new year.
And if they seem to slip my mind? No worries. There’s always tomorrow.
Wishing you the loveliest of holidays.
xx MDR