End of Year Emotions: Nostalgia 🥲 + Bittersweet đźŽ
Background
Emotions can be so dynamic and create ever-fascinating experiences. When I lived and worked at Kalani Retreat Center on the Big Island, a dear friend and I collaborated to lead an Emotional Intelligence workshop series. Our workshops aimed to creatively and experientially allow for the exploration of different emotions—and we did that through introspective and somatic practices, art and film. The idea was to inspire meaningful dialogue and surface rich internal conversations, co-creating this in a way that allowed everyone to learn from and with each other. It ran weekly for 6 months.
New Inspiration
While the in-person experience can be lively, interactive and memorable, I’ve always wanted to find a way to bring the introspective activities to more people. We focused on two emotions at a time in our original series. Continuing that format, we’ll focus on two emotions that feel especially tied to this time of year.
This Winter: Nostalgia 🥲 + Bittersweet đźŽ
The Winter holidays can often inspire a complex range of emotions. This time of year marks the extremes of bringing people together and inspiring reflection and solitude.
Let’s dive into the emotions Nostalgia + Bittersweet. Each of these invites in some time-traveling, in different ways. Nostalgia ties us to the past. Bittersweet, connected to impermanence, has us in conversation between before & after chapters.
Nostalgia is defined as “yearning for the way things used to be in our often idealized and self-protective version of the past.”
Here’s an activity for evoking nostalgia:
Bring to mind a personal belonging that you’ve had for some time, one that has recently surfaced in your memory in the last couple weeks, or one that you often remember or revisit during this time of year. If this is something you still have access to, where you live or in the home of a loved one, consider saving this exercise for when you can hold it in your hand(s) or see it directly. If it’s something that’s no longer with you or accessible, bring it to mind.
As you make contact with the memory of the item or the item itself, ask the following questions:
What does this tell me about this past version of me? Close your eyes if you wish and wait for a message or visual (could be abstract, could be a memory) to come to you.
What do I now know about this that I wished I’d known sooner? (could be its significance in your life, could be its connection to another place or person)
In what ways might I be idealizing or self-protecting, as I allow myself to explore my relationship to this item? Perhaps there are none, though perhaps the connections will be surprising.
Bittersweet, contrastingly, is “a simultaneous experience of happiness and sadness, a recognition that joy and sorrow are deeply intertwined, with themes of gratitude for what was and sadness about letting go, but also finding beauty and connection through longing and acknowledging life's impermanence, often seen in moments like graduations or goodbyes, where light and dark are forever paired.”
Journaling prompts for connecting to bittersweet:
Find a quiet place to think and spend a few minutes writing on the following:
When was the last time you felt bittersweet? Where were you and who were you with? Write about the tension between the joy and sorrow you experienced.
Now, as you tune into the memory, write about what this recent experience wanted you to remember or to know deeply in your heart.
If you’re contemplating working with me (or if we work together already!), my hope is that this offers a small dose experience of the types of open-ended questions that can reveal what’s happening in your inner landscape.
Thanks for making some time to be with yourself and these complex emotions. If you try either of these practices and would like to share about your experience, I’d love to hear! Wishing you a custom blend of exact-right-parts restoration and introspective conversations to direct your next chapter at the outset of the year.
