End of Year Closure Series: Part 4
As the year draws to a close, take a moment each day to bring closure to all you’ve experienced in this revolution of the Earth around our Sun. This transitional time offers a powerful opportunity to pause, reflect, and prepare for a fresh start. By focusing on reflection, gratitude, and a mindset of growth, we can turn the end of the year into a meaningful ritual of closure and renewal. In this five-part daily series, we’ll use reflection and intention-setting exercises to settle our minds, appreciate all that we’ve accomplished, acknowledge our opportunities for growth, and prepare for a fresh start.
Missed parts 1 through 3? Read Year-End Closure: Reflect with Clarity and start your closure practice with mindful reflection. Then try Honoring Your Achievements, Big and Small and Growing From Your Challenges before proceeding with this practice.
A Practice to Release the Past to Create Space for the Future
Letting go is one of the most powerful steps in creating closure. Whether it’s old habits, regrets, or unfinished business, releasing what no longer serves you helps you clear the slate and move forward with openness.
It’s important to understand that merely breathing out and wishing something away is not the same as letting go. All too often, people say they’re letting go of something when, in reality, they’re reserving space for it perpetually in their minds. This practice is designed as a starting point in a process of releasing old patterns, thoughts, and behaviors, but it is not the end of the process. Honest periodic self-assessment and intentional detachment are sometimes needed when an old pattern has been deeply embedded for a while.
Try this to let go:
To start, sit in a contemplative posture for reflection: Find a comfortable seat where you feel stable and supported, either on a cushion with crossed legs or in a chair with feet flat on the ground. Sit upright with your spine aligned, imagining a gentle string pulling the top of your head upward. Rest your hands on your thighs or in your lap, relax your shoulders, and let your face soften. Lower your gaze to a neutral point or close your eyes, and bring your attention to your natural breath, allowing it to anchor you in the present.
Identify what’s weighing you down. This might be unresolved emotions, outdated goals, or beliefs that no longer align with who you are.
- Write down everything you’re ready to let go of. Be specific—name the feelings, habits, or attachments that no longer serve you.
- For each thing you wish to release, spend a few minutes visualizing it in your mind, seeing the way it shows up in your life. Call to mind a moment when that feeling or habit was particularly strong. Recall when you first encountered or experienced it, and consider how it might have served you in that moment. Honor whatever benefit it may have afforded you, however fleeting or small.
- Turn your attention to the ways this habit or pattern has harmed or hindered you. Recognize the larger pattern of cause and effect, and where this pattern emerges. Visualize the points in your life experiences where the behavior or pattern is most prevalent.
- Now consider alternative behaviors, habits, thoughts, or feelings that you might better adopt in place of the old pattern. Select one that feels most beneficial and visualize yourself adopting that into the flow of experience where the old pattern used to occur. How does this new behavior or thought change the flow of the experience? See yourself responding in this new way, and feel how it changes your outcomes.
- Perform a symbolic act of release. Tear up the paper, burn it safely, or shred it. As you do, say aloud (or silently): “I release this. I’m ready to move forward.”
This act of release is more than symbolic—it’s a deliberate step toward emotional and behavioral freedom. At intervals throughout the new year, reinforce this release by repeating the visualization of the new pattern or behaviors. Honestly self-assess whether the old pattern is repeating, and repeat this process as needed. Give yourself grace in changing your habits and responses, because this can be very hard and can take years to achieve. Taking conscious steps to alter unhelpful patterns is, in itself, a sign of growth.
Want more ideas to help you close our the year and start fresh for the one? Read our guide to recentering and realigning for the new year.
