Childlessness Not By Choice: Key Questions For An Intentional New Year

How do you want 2023 to be for your life?  Big question.  Many of us are stunned we are heading into 2023 let alone thinking about what we want for ourselves in 2023.  To quote one Ferris Bueller, “life moves pretty fast.  If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile you could miss it”.  We think about New Year resolutions and conceptualize these as changing “bad” habits such as, lose weight, stop smoking, stop drinking etc.  The framework is often about decreasing the negative.  For those of us that are childless not by choice we can spend a lot of time, focus, and energy on what we don’t have, children.  This makes sense.  Childlessness is a traumatic loss.  We can honor grief around this loss and then, when we are ready, what if we flip the this narrative when thinking ahead to 2023?   Consider what we want for ourselves.  What do we want to add, gain, focus on, and accentuate in this new year vs spending so much time on what we want to delete, get rid of, avoid, and minimize?  

As you reflect on this past year and consider the year in front of us, here are a few questions to ask yourself to get get you started.  Get out your favorite pen and journal and get comfy.

• How do you want to feel?
• Who do you want to be around?  What characteristics do those people have that make you want to be around them?
• What work do you want to do on yourself in terms of emotional well being?
• What qualities do you have that you want to maximize?
• What fun do you want to have in 2023?
• What are your favorite experiences of 2022?  Can you do them again?  Can you add to those experiences?