Life is Pain au Chocolat
"Yes, And-ing" in 2025
If you are a human, you know someone who has experienced unfathomable grief.
If you are a human, you know someone who has experienced incandescent joy.
Maybe right now, at the beginning of a new year, you’re the grief person—clutching the squirrelly insides of your sadness together as it threatens to seep out the cracks of your hurt.
You’ve lost someone priceless to you or you’ve been fired or felt entirely alone. You’ve seen holiday pictures of people in love, in tropical paradises, in Christmas card photos, and you feel a bereft bitterness or a deep sorrow and think “How dare they continue on about their days as if the fabric of the universe hasn’t shifted completely?”
Maybe, right now, you’re the joy person—giddy with a sense of mingled gratitude and possibility as you look toward life to come.
You’re jumping into the cold water for a polar plunge, painting your toenails your favorite color, reading a beloved book under a cozy blanket, coming back from a life-changing vacation, turning your face toward the sun. You feel rested, and rejuvenated, and rearin’ to go.
And maybe, like a huuuuuuge sub-sect of the human population that has complex feelings around holiday and happiness and heavy emotions, you’re experiencing both.
Grief and joy. Gladness and sadness. Bitter and sweet.
If there’s one thing that I think has helped me move forward in life, it’s the bone-deep awareness that life is a mix of both great and shitty things.
Unfortunately, we exist in a culture that is so incredibly pain-averse that we often respond to loss/sadness/loneliness or other “not great and mostly shitty” emotions by trying to change them.
We view joy and happiness as our preferred state and we attempt to bypass uncomfortable emotions like they’re the weird person at the party that we don’t want be cornered into a conversation with.
I think I often come back to reiterating this concept—that life is both super and sucky and we can’t avoid either— because I think I often need a reminder that I don’t have to eliminate grief to continue to experience joy.
And I can think of no better visual for this duality than the following sweatshirt, which please and thank you I would like for my birthday.
I don’t know about other people, but I especially find myself needing a reminder that life is Pain au Chocolat when I’m growing or starting new goals. I get disappointed in my own failures, I realize I’ve been expecting perfection, I get down on myself.
When things feel super fraught or we’re being hard on ourselves, noticing the ways we are continuing to show up is a really valuable tool.
When we’re feeling guilty about enjoying something because we feel it doesn’t honor our sadness, we can dismiss that shame and “yes, and” our feelings instead.
We can say: “Yes, I’m feeling super low about _______. AND I’m going to sit here and look at this beautiful sky.”
“Yes, I feel like a human gargoyle troll. AND I have this delicious sandwich to eat.”
“Yes, I failed at XYZ. AND I succeeded at this other type of XYZ.”
Etcetera, etcetera, forever and on.
Life is full of pain. Life is also full of pain au chocolat.
Let yourself process all of the losses in your life—both big and small—and, along the way, let yourself experience joy.
Annie B.
THREE GOOD THINGS
Tis the season for house clean-outs! It seems like everyone in my online feed is sharing their new year’s goals of clearing out the clutter. I salute all of you! And if y’all are feeling your energy or momentum flag, here’s an article/video about a mouse cleaning up a man’s woodshed every night.
I share this every year, but if you’re looking for a really great way to process 2025 and set the tone for your 2025, get thee to the Year Compass! It’s free!
Please click on the image below to enjoy these two T-Rexes having a snowball fight.
Everything belongs. <3