My therapist and I spent a fair amount of time untangling my ideas of failure the other day.

It’s something I have been wrestling with since emerging onto this floating hunk of rock in the universe in my current form. I come from a family of origin whose mottos included, “Failure is not an option!” And “Fail to plan, plan to fail.”

So yeah, no wonder I don’t want to fail at anything I do.

I understand failure in the scientific sense, as in, a failed experiment isn’t on its own, only a disaster. Failure is simply data that informs the next study.

And while I can definitely connect to that idea, failure still isn’t something I am rushing to try to do in my daily life. It’s not something I relish in.

In fact, probably like the five B’s I earned in college that ruined my 4.0GPA, I could name the big failures of my life right now for you. But, why wallow in that misery? I am trying to figure out what is the data to inform the next study.

My long time readers will know that it is my practice to choose a word for the year and use it to guide my way of being. At the beginning of 2025 I wrote down Ease - nice and big in my planner.

Perhaps I should have filled out the questions for myself - because the fact that it’s December 18th and still a mostly blank page says SO MUCH.

Dear reader, 2025 was not a year of ease for me. In fact, it was the complete opposite. Comically so.

I had more panic attacks this year than I have had since leaving my toxic academic job.

Despite me going into the end of 2024 saying I was “booked until 2026,” I routinely took on things that were way beyond my capacity, leading me into the stress and danger zone (hence the panic attacks).

I failed at ease being my grounding and center. I fell back into my bad habits of overestimating my capacity and overcommitting myself.

But, while that was definitely a fail, I am still very proud of the work I did this year. AND I’m committed to looking at my data points for a do-over next year. I’ve learned some very valuable lessons about myself in 2025.

The good news - I do think that I am better prepared for a year of ease if I chose to try again.

Is it even possible to be at ease in a world such as ours in this time? Was I bound to fail so spectacularly from the start?

I don’t want to be burnt out like this again. So, the times they are a changing.

I’m grateful for the moments of ease I felt in the transition between the end of yoga class and back out into the world. I honor the ease I had this year of making it to Studio Utopia. I give thanks for the ease that met me that I didn’t even notice because my mind focuses so much on the times when it’s not easy breezy.

I’m also sending gratitude to my Ko-Fi members who help make my pursuit of art and connecting my art with others more easeful. Seriously. Thank you. Your support means the world to me.

I’ll leave you with these questions to ponder if you’d like to join me in reflection: as we head into 2026, what word might be your guiding star for the coming twelve months? And how will you know you’re living it?

I’m aiming for balance in 2026 - stay tuned to see how that goes in one year’s time.