Ghosts, Gifts and Growing Braver

By Lisa Healy

Senior Psychotherapist & Accredited EMDR Europe Practitioner

As the end of this year draws closer, many of us will find ourselves reflecting on gifts. Gifts of all kinds, given and received. Ones we yearned for with longing hearts. Ones that left us disappointed, bewildered, or scrambling to find a returns receipt. We’ll wonder what the perfect thing might be to make our loves feel seen, heard, and known. And we’ll quietly nurture that same hope for ourselves. (No pressure, it’s the thought that counts!)

As this year ends, let’s take stock of its gifts together.  

Before we dive in, you might like to grab yourself your favourite cosy drink and a pen and paper. As you read, jot down any reflections, memories, or feelings that tap you on the shoulder. Sometimes noticing is the first gift we give ourselves.

The Sweet Gifts 

Maybe this was a year of precious moments. Maybe you can stand at its horizon and look back to see a landscape dotted with joy, celebration, adventure, accomplishment, or love. Maybe this was a year where the “unprecedented” referred to how well everything went for you. What a gift!  

If this was your year, I invite you to savour those gifts. Bring to mind the sweet moments and hold them on your tongue just a little longer. Let your body and mind become familiar with the taste of joy. Take time to refine your palate so it can detect the subtlest notes of pleasure, fulfilment, exhilaration, contentment, and wonder in a moment. Allow yourself to learn to find these gifts even in their smallest quantities as you take your next bites of life, and you’ll never find yourself running short.  

The Quiet Years  

Maybe, instead, this year felt more like a shrug than a leap for joy. Maybe you chose to play it safe. Maybe you stuck to well-worn paths to avoid hidden dangers. Sometimes that’s exactly what we need; maybe the gift lies in the wisdom of knowing when to rebuild your resources by minding yourself well. A fallow year can prepare the soil for a richer harvest down the line.

If that resonates, perhaps now is the moment to plant seeds in the earth you’ve been tending with such care and intention. I invite you to imagine what you’d like to nurture as you step into the year ahead. What would you want to look back on when you return to a reflection like this next year?  

The Ghosts and the Unled Life  

Still, the absence of something bad is not the same as the presence of something good. Maybe, when you look back at this year, you see the ghosts of chances not taken; laughs that never reached your lips, hands you never held, memories that were never made.

Maybe those ghosts carry wisdom about the life unled. Maybe they whisper invitations to be brave. Maybe there’s a life well lived that’s waiting for you, just on the other side of boldness.  

We can only be brave when there is fear. Fearlessness knows nothing of risk; courage knows exactly what’s at stake. When we go after the life we want, vulnerability always comes along for the ride. What we hope for may be out of reach. The love we offer may not be returned. If we try, we could fail. We could fall. We could get hurt. It’s scary.  

Maybe fearlessness is synonymous with apathy; fearlessness doesn’t care. Bravery cares. Bravery cares so deeply about the possibility of a meaningful life that it’s willing to carry a backpack straining at the seams with vulnerability. Perhaps a gift you can offer yourself in the year ahead is to ask what feels worth the risk.  

The Expensive Gifts

And maybe this year brought sorrow to your door. Maybe there were losses, heartbreaks, frustrations. Maybe you feel as though you’re limping off the battlefield of this year, reluctant even to glance back. I invite you, gently, to see if you can muster the courage to look. There may be gifts hidden in the rubble.

This isn’t an exercise in toxic positivity. We’re not practicing our gracious-loser faces here. As you ponder what gifts might be found in pain, invite all of yourself to the table. Let tears fall if they come. Let anger rise in your chest. Let fear tremble in your throat. Every emotion carries a fragment of wisdom if we’re willing to listen.

When we bring a curious mind to the things that have hurt us the most, they can reveal what matters most. A gift to yourself may be taking the time to ask what your pain is trying to teach you about who you are. Pain may simply be the shadow cast by the glow of what’s most meaningful to you. It may illuminate how deeply you love, how fiercely you defend what is right, how courageously you speak your truth, how passionately you appreciate life.

And maybe, if we’re brave enough to sit with our pain, we can offer ourselves the gift we most long for: to be deeply seen, heard, and known.

A closing wish for you

Whether this year brought joy, quiet steadiness, missed chances, or deep pain, reflection can help us gather its gifts with gentle hands. Every emotion has something to teach us about what matters, what we long for, what we value, and who we’re becoming. As you close this reflection, I hope you feel invited to meet yourself with compassion, courage, and curiosity. Whatever this year held for you, I hope you carry it with you in ways that allow you to grow and flourish.

To read more about Lisa please read her bio on our website by clicking here.