Shifting into 2025
Embracing my word of the year with new projects.
I’m not really an advocate for “new year, new me.” In nature, growth and renewal don’t begin until the spring. Winter is nature’s time for rest, which is why it often backfires when we try to push ourselves too hard to be productive or kickstart new habits in January.
To honor this time of slowness while also working to build something new for 2025, I took my time, allowing a lot of space for contemplation and revision. The goal was to create something that tied all of my various projects together, gave me structure but was also considerate of my time and energy, and provided value beyond a relaxing mandala visual.
With that, I have three announcements to share: my 2025 word of the year, the upcoming release of a new project, and changes that will be happening to this newsletter.
MY 2025 WORD OF THE YEAR
I don’t think I’m alone in feeling like 2025 is going to be a difficult year. We’ve been living through tumultuous times for a while now, and it seems that this year is unlikely to be any different.
When it feels like everything is on fire, it can be hard to connect with anything positive. I wanted my word selection to convey that pausing to recognize the good things is not an automatic denial of what’s terrible. We can hold both things together.
My word of the year is SHIFT.
Admittedly this year’s word selection was difficult and came right down to the wire. At the beginning of December, I chose transform as my word and patted myself on the back for checking it off the to-do list so early. The more I thought about it, however, the more I became unsure about whether or not it was the best choice. I wanted a word that felt more flexible and less concrete. Transfigure seemed like a strong possibility, but it’s not a word I would naturally use. I decided to let it simmer on the back burner to see if anything else came to mind.
On the morning of December 31st, I had yet to come up with a word that felt better than transfigure. In a minor panic I decided to revisit my draft of this newsletter and noticed that I had used the word shift repeatedly throughout. It was obvious that needed to be my word, and it had been right in front of me for about a week, just waiting for me to notice it.
EMOTIONAL SHIFT MANDALA PROJECT
In alignment with my word of the year, this new project connects my mandala animations with my writing and gives them a specific purpose—to help shift difficult emotions into more beneficial ones.
Shifting emotions is something I worked through a lot in 2024. As I navigated grief throughout the year, I found that I couldn’t just will myself into feeling peace. There were two things that really made a difference: staying focused on the present and allowing myself to feel the overwhelm instead of pushing it away. This approach helped me regain clarity and keep moving forward.
When I was reviewing the mandalas to determine what my next steps should be, I gave a lot of thought to the original goal—to create peaceful landing spots in a hectic world—and it didn’t feel like it was quite enough. Relaxation is necessary, but again we can’t just will ourselves into feeling peace. Learning to flow with our difficult emotions and release them is one of the best and most useful ways for us to deal with our frustrating and unstable world, and I wanted to incorporate that into the mandala videos.
They will now begin with a visual depiction of a challenging emotion that then transitions into the unfolding mandala, representing a shift of feelings. Included will be a suggestion for how to interact with the content to help foster a mind-body connection and move into a more positive state.
I’ve selected 4 emotions that have come up frequently in recent years: anger, dread, grief, and defeat.
Each quarter (January-March, April-June, July-September, and October-December) will focus on a different emotion and explore ways to shift into its opposite.
The first quarter (January through March) will begin with shifting anger into calm.
Every video will have an accompanying PDF guide that features a brief essay related to the emotion of the quarter, additional suggestions for how to work through difficult feelings and reconnect with the beauty around us, and helpful reading and/or audio recommendations.
Two mandalas will be released on YouTube every month (except for January) and will always be free.
The PDF guides will be available for purchase in a variety of ways (per video, month, quarter, and year).
To tie in projection mapping, once the temperature warms up (likely sometime in the 2nd quarter), I’ll be adapting one of the videos each month to be projected outside. The day, time, and location will vary, and I’ll announce the details as they become available.
More information to come when the project launches on Monday, January 20th!
CHANGES TO THE POSITIVELY DISINTEGRATING NEWSLETTER
In my 2023-24 project review, I discovered that my difficulty with writing this newsletter stemmed from a lack of theme and structure. While I carried over the name “Positively Disintegrating” from my Substack, I didn’t carry over the theme of writing about topics I was exploring for personal development as I wasn't quite sure how to link that to my art.
With the Emotional Shift project, the theme now connects. On the first Tuesday of each month, I’ll be sharing how I’ve “positively disintegrated.” In other words, how I was (hopefully) able to shift back into a sense of balance after encountering something difficult, such as a recent current event, a personal experience, or a topic I’m learning about.
In addition I will announce each month's mandala guide essay topics and share an exclusive coupon code for newsletter subscribers to get a discount.
Finally, all of the newsletters going forward will be free. I’ll be eliminating paid newsletter subscriptions as I will be shifting my writing focus to the mandala guides.
I’m incredibly excited to share all of these new things with you, and as always, I’m very grateful for your continued support!
Until the next newsletter, be well.
Giesla
