What course are you setting for 2022?

By Adrien Chauvet, nurse, and Romina Duca, neuropsychologist at La Roseraie Psychiatry and Medical Psychology Unit (UPPM)

As the new year gets underway, we’re full of good resolutions, but the various phases of the pandemic that we have lived through together and the other problems that seem to be piling up can sometimes make it difficult to keep our spirits up. We all experience times when we might notice an increase in negative thinking about our future, dwelling on things we don’t have, or no longer have... so why not think about what we can change in our lives now to help us feel a little bit better?

The first step is to take a few moments to identify which activities have been the most absorbing this week or over the last month. You can even write them down on a sheet of paper. Now, consider which of these were intellectually “nourishing”, motivating, a source of wellbeing and accomplishment, and which, on the other hand, were a source of exhaustion, fatigue and discomfort.

The act of remembering these moments allows us to reconnect with our feelings and to observe, even from a distance, the impact that these activities have on our thoughts, our morale and even our bodies.

The second step then involves observing your two types of activity.

• Those associated with pleasure – calling a friend or family member that you haven’t seen in a long time, creating a sense of belonging. Or it could be a walk along the seafront with your dog, watching a sunset, a long hot bath, a massage, playing sport or a board game, etc. These are activities that provide an immediate sense of joy or contentment.
• The second type of activities are those associated with accomplishment. These provoke a feeling of satisfaction or control: building a wardrobe, doing the housework, managing to change a tyre, doing the recycling or completing a task you’ve been putting off, etc. They do not initially spark joy (sometimes quite the opposite!), but once we’ve completed them, we have succeeded in changing or improving something in the world which surrounds us, at the same time provoking a feeling of pride and accomplishment.

More than ever before, 2022 is an opportunity to engage with these sources of accomplishment and joy, and – where possible – to leave behind the things which exhaust us.

Through gentle, deliberate action, we can change the colour of our inner life through our influence on external things, and vice versa.

1. Sources:

   Segal Z., Teasdale J., Williams M. (2016). Manuel de méditation anti-déprime. 219–225