“The butterfly is proof that you can go through a great deal of darkness and still become something beautiful.”

As New Year’s Eve rolls around again, like many, I find myself reflecting on 2025. Last year, I started a reflection process, coined by Mel Robbins designed to dig deep into the year that was, in order to plan for the year ahead. This involves asking a series of questions…

1. What were the low points of this year? What did I need during those low points?
2. What were the high points of this year?
3. What did I learn?
4. What am I going to stop doing? Why? What has it cost you so far? What will it change?
5. What are you going to continue doing? How does it move your life in the right direction? What is one simple way to keep this going next year?
6. What are you going to start doing? Why? What will it add to your life? What’s an easy first step to get things going?

With a red pen and blue pen in my pocket, the list of questions and a journal tucked securely under my arm, I took myself off to a cafe this morning to drink coffee and reflect. I am not going to share all of my reflections here, but I will share a few poignant things that came up for me.

2025 itself, was a challenge, but the back end of 2025 was like navigating the Upside Down from Stranger Things. My Grandad passed away, I was broken into while I was at home, my rental house sold, and I was informed that my contact as a teacher, at the school where I was teaching was not going to be renewed and I was not successful in securing a teaching position due to the fact that my aspirations and skills were too great and too high for a normal classroom teacher role. This happened a week after signing a continuation of my lease for 2026, so I invested all of my energy, or what was left of it after a year of teaching Grade 5/6, into finding a new job. When I finally let go of my white knuckled grip on my teaching career, I did not expect the grief that weighed me down. This I had to process, while also processing a mental health assessment with a Psychiatrist and being officially diagnosed with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, Generalised Anxiety Disorder and Depression.

After six weeks of job hunting, which on top of everything else, pushed me into burnout, I finally landed a good one.

I’ve seen my way through 2025. I start 2026 with a greater understanding of the way my brain works. I am on a journey of learning how to be self-compassionate, how to be gentle with myself and I am developing a greater understanding of my own identity, my own needs and how to be authentically me. This work will continue during 2026.

I start 2026 with a vision of the future. It’s taken two years for me to be able to see the path ahead of me, for it to become clear. It’s been frustrating. The universe called for patience and patient, I was not. In February I start work as a Behaviour Support Practitioner with a holistic, independent company. When fully trained, I will be supporting parents, teachers, carers, and people with NDIS plans to implement strategies that reduce behaviours of concern and reduce the need for restrictive practices. It takes two years to be fully qualified. I start my Master’s of Child and Adolescent Mental Health in January, and that will also take two years for me to complete if all goes well. In two years time, I will be a fully qualified Behaviour Support Practitioner, and a fully qualified Child and Adolescent Mental Health Counsellor/Consultant.

What did I learn from 2025? I have learnt to trust – what is for you, will not pass you by. However, you need to put in the work to start moving yourself forward. Take steps and the Universe will meet you half way. I have learnt that the spaces you belong in, and the people you belong with will never ask you to compromise your values or to shrink who you are. I have learnt that help is there if you need it, but you have to ask for it and that takes courage, trust and hope.

I am going to stop apologising for being me; for being human, for making mistakes, for having emotions, for the fact that my brain works differently, for the boundaries I need to put in place and for taking care of my own needs.

I am going to continue to explore my own identity and slowly stepping into who I am, regardless of whether that meets the expectations of others. I am going to continue searching for enjoyment, exploring and experimenting and finding things that connect me to a sense of enjoyment, happiness and a sense of myself. I am going to continue my studies and continue to learn and grow as a person, and I am going to continue to heal, to work towards self-awareness, acceptance, recovery, compassion and gentleness. I’m going to continue asking for help when I need it.

I am going to start looking at rest differently – not as something to be earned, or as something to get after doing all of the other jobs, but as a necessity. I am going to start celebrating more, acknowledging my wins no matter how small. I am going to start scheduling one new experience every month. For January, I’ve brought a ticket to the basketball, next month I might see a show, or go to the theatre, I might take a pottery class or attend a small group workshop. I am going to keep a record of these experiences in words and through photography.

This last fortnight my focus has been on rest and recovery, on healing from burn out and processing my trip into the Upside Down. I feel like I can empathise with the caterpillar, curling up in the chrysalis, only to emerge as something new.