As January dawns, we are inundated with messages from media, advertisers, and influencers telling us to push harder, be better, do more. These messages thrive on the narrative of “not enough”, profiting from our insecurities while selling endless self-improvement. Yet, in all this striving, we fracture—pulled away from our universal needs, our bodies, each other and the natural world. We chase one thing at the expense of another, and every therapist knows that disconnection most often sits at the root of poor mental health. With this mindset we are destined to fail.
This year, I invite you to pause and reframe. What if, instead of chasing external benchmarks, we centred healing on connection and integration? Hear me out.
I recently read a scientific paper that described cancer cells as cells that had lost trust and communication with the organism as a whole, and had therefore gone rogue. This is what happens when any system fails to make room for all of its parts—it splits. That idea struck me, because trauma responses often function in much the same way: as symptoms of disconnection.
When parts of us stop trusting the whole, they adapt in order to survive. Imagine, for example, setting a New Year’s resolution to work relentlessly toward a promotion. You may centre the parts of you that crave financial security, achievement, and validation, while repressing your needs for rest, creativity, and connection. In pursuing the goal without listening to all of your needs, an inner disconnect begins to form.
The parts of you that are left behind then have to find another way to be heard, often through sabotage. Over time, this single-minded pursuit may lead to burnout, anxiety, or self-neglect—trauma responses that emerge when internal balance is ignored. The unmet parts begin to cry out; your body says no where you have not. What began as a positive intention can quietly give rise to unhealthy coping strategies such as overworking, numbing, addictive behaviours, or physical and mental illness.
When these parts are brought into dialogue, however, a more sustainable and integrated path often emerges—one rooted in connection, responsiveness, and wholeness.
If trauma responses or biological polarisation are symptoms, perhaps they are better understood as adaptations rather than flaws. Just as inflammation signals distress (disease = dis – ease in the body) disconnection signals unmet needs. Ecosystems adapt in much the same way—a flower growing in a dark room will stretch towards the only available window, bending and twisting in unusual ways simply to reach the light. It may not grow straight, but it grows intelligently. So do we. In systems like capitalism, where productivity is valued over relationship and growth is prized over care, disconnection becomes almost inevitable. Adaptations are therefore not evidence of brokenness; they are expressions of intelligence, creativity, and resilience, calling us back towards survival at all costs.
This New Year, then, I invite you not to push harder, but to listen more closely. To notice where you may have become disconnected from your body, your emotional life, your needs, or your relationships—and to wonder gently about why. Perhaps you learned that communication was unsafe, that needing others was a weakness, or that emotion was something to suppress? These are not personal failures; they are symptoms of separation. A flower that denies its own need for water isn’t strong, its dying.
Reconnection often begins quietly. It can look like learning to notice bodily signals rather than overriding them, allowing rest without justification, or cultivating curiosity towards parts of yourself that were once silenced. For many people, this process is supported through good therapy—therapy that is relational and gently challenging, trauma-informed, and grounded in safety, rather than fix-focused or pathologising. When therapy honours the body, the psyche, and the social context we exist within, it becomes a space where communication can slowly be restored, both internally and relationally.
And this matters not only on a personal level. In our current political climate—so polarised, so fractured—the need for connection is greater than ever. The micro and the macro mirror one another: personal healing ripples outward into families, communities, and cultures. Connection is not soft or naïve; it is essential. It is, quite literally, about the survival of our species.
So as this new year unfolds, perhaps the question is not what more can I become, but what parts of me are asking to be met? What might it be like to move towards yourself with curiosity rather than critique, and towards others with presence rather than urgency? Connection does not demand grand gestures or perfect intentions; it often begins in small moments of listening—to the body, to the psyche, to the relationships and landscapes that hold us. If we allow that to be enough, even briefly, we may find that healing does not come from striving forwards, but from gently coming back into relationship with what has been waiting for us all along.
