Things I'm loving in January

I genuinely love January. Not because I like goals (I’m a coach so I do) and fresh starts (yes pls). I love it because its long, slow, dreary and even boring.

It’s one of the only months in the year where I can really slow down. And when you can slow down, the simple pleasures of life can be more deeply enjoyed. As an HSP (Highly Sensitive Person) I think my nervous system just needs a proper dreary January.

After an Oct-Dec of saying a lot of ‘yes’, in Jan I’m saying no, even to good things. I’m taking this from Kendra Adachi, the Lazy Genius, who has encouraged us to just say a lot of no this Jan - and it’s so delicious!

Here are a few things I’m loving in Jan:

• Daytime connection - on the whole at my stage, a lot of my friends have some flexibility in their weekdays. They can meet for a coffee or walk at the start, end or even middle of their working day - or I might see them at a sports fixture. This week it was rugby and we watched nervously. Even those with more fixed in-person schedules can still do weekend day times. It’s cheap (price of a cappuccino), soul nourishing, and does not eat into the long slow evening.

• Long slow evenings - these feature a lot of silliness with the kids, my spotify ‘rain and soundbaths’ on speaker, real baths, journal, no skincare other than putting on a moisturiser after washing face, a bit of haircare - putting hair into a braid and hopefully sleeping on a silk (or is it satin?) pillow.

  Also I love the smell of Vicks so sometimes I just put it on my neck or feet, and the mouth tape is back. I probably should have remembered to put on mouthtape when I kept getting ill at the end of last year, but with all that gallivanting in Oct-Dec a lot of these little things just.. fell away.

  Oh and I’ve ‘borrowed’ my husband’s blue light glasses so with the braids I apparently look like a school kid! Garmin is generally pleased with my sleep scores unless I’ve had wine - which I am having in Jan (making up for what I missed at the end of december??)

• Audible and good content with the kids - I’m ‘reading’ Here one Moment by Lane Moriarty by myself. It’s high on suspense and a fairly long one, nice for pottering about / doing light home declutters. With the kids we are trying to listen to some more interesting stuff like Ursula Le Guin. Not sure how it’s going to pan out but we have a lot of driving this weekend (despite all my ‘nos’!!) so they are up for a chapter at a time, followed by music, I will update as to whether its a success. We are also watching Percy Jackson. I’m just not that good with more mythical writing but I think its a ‘penetration problem’ and January gives the bandwidth to try.

Also a special mention to:

• Calendly - For me, January is a busy work month but luckily most of it is online and my Calendly is just so well programmed to create brilliant working days for me - thank you Calendly!

• The gym - having had to cancel most gym going for weeks due to bugs, setting foot back in the gym I realised I how much I loved and missed it. This is not how I used to feel. We evolve!

What are you loving in January?

Maya