New Year, New You: A Paper Rain Confetti
I’ll never forget a New Year that I spent in Buenos Aires with one of my best friends. We were riding in a taxicab when confetti filled the streets. What’s going on? He explained that it’s a custom for people to throw out papers from the previous year—to shred them, tear them up, and throw them out the windows in celebration. This flashed in my mind as I felt called to write this post; I discovered this tradition is called “paper rain.” It’s getting rid of all the old to make way for the new, for good things to come in. I loved that. So liberating, so renewing!
As we think about the New Year, it makes sense to reflect on the year we are closing out. For me, I’m thinking about who I was (in my psyche) when I started 2025 and where I am now, closing the year. I’m a very different person because ever so slowly I was growing, morphing, evolving—a subtle but meaningful expansion inside myself. So many wonderful beings along my path showed up just at the right time to present a new message, a new way of being, a new way of expressing or thinking.
Personally, after a week of holiday get-togethers with friends or family, I felt a compelling need to be alone, to go inward, to clear my space—energetically and physically. In fact, I have been going through old notebooks and literally putting them in the shred pile! Of course the BA memory would pop into my brain, and only while writing this do I understand the synchronicity. The clothes I no longer wear (that I really like), I’m purging. Tomorrow I’ll give them away. I’m making space, and I’m not sure for what or who, but for whatever comes my way—for the new year.
We have the opportunity to release the burdens of the past year. It’s a time of tearing up the old year metaphorically and celebrating the progress we’ve made, not in superficial ways, but within ourselves, and making space for a new journey that’s about to unfold (even if we can’t see what it is). It’s about having faith in ourselves that we’ll figure it out, and it might be much better than we ever imagined. In fact, that’s on my New Year’s resolution list that I’ve been making in my head—to envision more every day. We just have to open ourselves to the best possibilities. And we should take time to envision those amazing things that we desire to experience, that we can allow ourselves to open up to—we are so lucky to be alive.
In this cocoon, I find I can’t sleep. I’m writing this at 2:00 am. It’s been this way all week, so I give in to it finally. I might as well write. I hope this finds you on the day before the New Year. I hope you take time to reflect on all you’ve been through—good and bad—but mainly the growth, the natural cycles, the mini-renewals, and the larger step changes. Our inward growth always manifests in our outside world—maybe not at first, maybe slowly, but eventually those green shoots push through the earth and spring magic (aka new life). Electric word, life.
I’m ringing the new year in with you in gratitude, in more rootedness, and in a “paper rain” confetti celebration (I’ll be walking to UPS to shred). Whatever your celebration looks like—even if you are on your couch by yourself—enjoy it! Tear it up (literally!) 😄
Happy...New...Year!
Soul-Prompt: Psychologically, where did I start the year and where did I end the year? How did I grow? Can I throw last year out the window so I can start this year off fresh?!
