Treat myself like I treat my kids

Like most of us, I’ve made scores of New Year’s resolutions over the years.

I’ve adopted ambitious workout routines. I’ve sworn off sugar. I’ve attempted to teach myself calligraphy. I once gave away half my closet after I became convinced that a capsule wardrobe would change my life.

Every year, I would go through the same cycle — hopeful anticipation, early success, minor roadblock, goal abandonment.

Rinse and repeat come January.  

But after a season of severe anxiety and depression in 2018, I began to see change differently.

The most meaningful changes I made during that year — the ones that helped me find my way back to myself —were small and slow, deliberate but unremarkable. I drank more water.

I paid attention to how I was feeling. I gave myself permission to rest.

These were the changes that stuck, and when I went back to craft my memoir about that season, those were the ones I wrote about. 

Yet even with all this life experience and hard-earned wisdom, I’m still tempted to set unrealistic goals, to jump into January with my typical wild-eyed fervor before I’ve even packed up my ornaments. But this year, I’m trying a different approach.

I’m going into the new year with an idea, an easy guiding principle.

In 2024, I’m going to treat myself like I treat my children. 

I love being a mom to my two sons.

I loved it when they were small and gave sloppy toddler kisses and wore matching striped pajamas, and I love it now, when they start their sentences with “bruh” and argue loudly about which one of them has more rizz (Internet jargon for charisma).

Am I a perfect parent? Um, no. (It’s my first time.)

But I do approach my parenting with intention: When it comes to my sons, I take aim.

My love informs the way I treat them, and I believe it can show me a softer, better way to care for myself.

Here are the tenets I’m aiming to adopt in 2024.

I will assume good intent. When the boys make a mistake, I do my best not to berate them. Yet I enthusiastically chastise myself for my own errors. I occasionally level up this self-flagellation into a larger narrative about my failures, often during the wee hours when I’m reliving all my Greatest Regrets instead of sleeping.

This year, I’ll try to see my errors with a loving eye instead of a critical one. I’ll try to take the advice given to our family by a beloved second grade teacher: mistakes help you improve.

I will do nice things for me. I think of my kids often. I toss their favorite candy into the grocery cart; I make their sandwiches if they’re running behind in the morning. But do I do these things for me? Do I think about what I would like or enjoy or appreciate, and then build that into the day?

This is deeper than the performative self-care we’re sold on Instagram. These are habits, and they remind me that I deserve my own care. Self-neglect has consequences, and I’ll tell you from experience — they’re not fun. 

I will pay attention to my feelings and experiences. The darkest days of my anxiety were marked by disconnection and distrust; I didn’t feel like myself, and it was destabilizing. My new therapist coached me, reminding me that it was OK to feel sad or angry, that our bodies and our emotions can provide valuable information when we engage.

Now, I often ask my boys what their gut is telling them when they’re feeling unsure. Asking yourself these questions involves getting back to basics. Are you tired? Take a nap. Feeling hopeless after reading the news on your phone? Make your bed and get some Vitamin D. Count your feelings as valid, while also knowing they’re designed to pass.

I will leave room for myself to grow. I may appreciate variety, but I crave stasis. It feels safe — if life is generally happy right now, then perhaps we should all stay very still so we don’t screw it up. (This is why I like to watch the first half of “Titanic” and pause just before they make contact with the iceberg.) But adults have growing to do too, and it happens through experience and sorrow and joy.

We can’t mark it on a doorframe, but we can note our own growth in the same way. It’s work that’s worth celebrating — being proud of yourself is good for parents, too. 

If you aim at nothing, you hit nothing.

In 2024, let’s take aim.

Jessica Chavez is author of the new memoir “Everyone But Myself,” released on Jan. 9 by Zibby Books.