Have you given up on your resolutions yet?

We did. Jen and I (Jena) were sick of the cycle of never keeping to our resolutions and feeling guilty about it, so we decided to just forgo them entirely.

This year, we came up with something a little different called a REBOOT. It’s a ritual, of sorts, to usher in the new year that you can try instead of, or in addition to, your usual resolutions.

We have a video explaining the hows and whys of doing a reboot over on our blog, but to sum it up for you, here’s how it works:

The reboot is a process that has 3 steps, which we call the three “R’s”.

• Step 1. RID
  Write down all the experiences and feelings that you’d like to be rid of from last year. Write them down on small strips of paper, and then burn them! Cie la vie! We like to use Chinese funeral paper, because this is a funeral of sorts, saying goodbye to the old, negative stuff we don’t want to carry with us into the new year.
• Step 2. REFLECT
  Spend some time thinking about what you’d like to bring into the new year. What experiences do you hope to have? How do you want to feel? Give yourself time to really think about what you want to create in your life this year.
• Step 3. RENEWAL
  In this step, imagine yourself coming fresh into the world. Visualize yourself letting go of the old, then write down all of the things you’d like to bring into this year, or make a vision board, or however you’d like to express this. Try to stay focused on feelings and experiences you’re hoping to achieve, not things. Creating a list or visual aid is ideal so you can see it as a reminder and refer back to it again and again.

This is a way of naming what you want for the year, and defining it, so that you can begin to draw those things toward yourself.

We are the type of ladies who like to practice what we preach, so we did the first step of this reboot together last week, with a friend (it’s a great thing to do with friends!), to begin to RID ourselves of all the stuff we don’t want to bring into our lives this year.

Here’s a behind the scenes look at how-to create your own “ritual of ridding” or “good riddance ritual” or “ridfest 2013” or whatever you’d like to call it 🙂

Make a little ritual of it in whatever way feels best for you!

…to recognize those things you need to release from 2012, so you can have space to bring more awesome in, in 2013.

What’s not serving you? Keeping you stuck? Dragging you down? Making you repeat patterns you’d like to change?

Re-read the things you wrote as you lay them onto the fire, exhale, and get ready to release…

Burn baby, burn!

Watch the ashes of all those things that held you back last year float up and away, into the great beyond.

When we did this, there was something about the ceremony of it, the symbolism of the fire, and watching those ashes float away that truly made me feel like a weight had been lifted off my shoulders afterward.

I feel lighter now. And committed to letting go of the things I wrote down on those sheets of paper. Like, fo’ real.

For the last few days, since our time by the fire, when I notice those negative thoughts/patterns creeping in, I’ve been able to recognize them and release.

Holding myself back is so 2012.

What do you think of this “good riddance ritual”? Going to try a reboot of your own? We’d love to hear what you think in the comments!