There is a version of New Year energy that rarely gets spoken about. The one that comes after the intentions have been set. After the vision has been named. After the declarations have been made out loud.

It’s the quieter stretch that follows the days where the body moves forward, but the spirit lags behind. Where you know what you believe, but still feel offbeat – low, uncertain, fighting thoughts you thought you had already outgrown.

That was me, in the days between the turn of the year and my son’s birthday.

I had written with clarity about not needing to become someone new – about honouring lessons learned and allowing them to carve the road ahead. I had named what I hoped 2026 would hold – intention with grace, growth without urgency, courage without fear and still I found myself in a funk. Not dramatic. Not catastrophic, just quietly defeated.

I share this because it matters to say plainly: being down is allowed. It doesn’t cancel your progress. It doesn’t undo your insight. It humbles you. It reminds you that awareness does not exempt you from being human.

Then came a few days after the new year – my son’s birthday; with it, perspective arrived gently but decisively, because birthdays, especially your children’s, have a way of grounding you in evidence. In receipts. In truth, that cannot be argued with.

I looked at my two adult children — Gen Z, sharp, thoughtful, kind and felt a wave of awe that caught me off guard. Awe that I raised this. Awe that somehow, through exhaustion, mistakes, uncertainty, and improvisation, I successfully shepherded two humans into adulthood.

In that moment, another truth rose up quietly: it takes a village to raise a child. Not just family. But friends. Mentors. Strangers who showed up at the right time. Voices of encouragement when mine was tired.

Speaking up helped. Saying ‘I’m struggling’ helped. Naming the weight lifted is just enough for others to step in, not always to fix, but to hold. And in holding, to remind me that I was never doing this alone.

That’s when I noticed something else. For every doubt I had been entertaining, life presented me with multiple reasons to be grateful. Not all at once. Not dramatically. But persistently. Quietly. Almost conspiratorially.

It felt as though the universe had decided to interrupt my internal narrative. A conversation here. A message there. A moment during a run. Laughter over coffee.

The unmistakable sense that there were angels around me – some human, some unseen, and that even where help could not arrive in physical form, somehow, someway, a path was still being made. Not always clearly. Not always quickly. But faithfully.

It dawned on me that gratitude is deeply underrated. Not the loud, performative kind. Not the forced lists. But the kind that sneaks up on you in ordinary moments and rearranges your perspective without asking permission.

Because for everything you have, someone else has wanted exactly that. A child. A second chance. A body that still moves. A mind that still questions. A future that still holds possibilities.

That doesn’t mean we are never allowed to feel low. It doesn’t mean sadness is ungrateful. It means that gratitude isn’t the absence of pain — it’s the companion that helps you carry it.

It means that perhaps the deeper truth is this: the more we learn to appreciate what we have been trusted with, the more capable we become of holding what comes next. This is not because gratitude earns rewards, but because it expands our capacity. Capacity to notice. Capacity to receive. Capacity to believe that even in the most ordinary days, something miraculous is unfolding.

Lately, it feels like life has been singing that truth back to me — that the everyday moments matter more than we realise. That there is something sacred in the ordinary. Something steady. Something enough.

So if you find yourself low, unsure, or quietly fighting negativity, let that be allowed. But don’t let it be the whole story. Pause long enough to notice what still stands; what still breathes, what still loves you back.

Sometimes the shift doesn’t come from trying harder. It comes from seeing clearer. Sometimes, gratitude doesn’t arrive as a breakthrough — it arrives as a whisper that says: Look again. You are surrounded.

This is not a sermon. It’s a reminder. That funk does not disqualify you. That help often comes through people, and even in the most ordinary seasons, a way is being made — quietly, faithfully, and just in time.

‘See you’ next week.

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