Have you ever had a season in your life where it feels like you’re moving through molasses?
Like everything just feels heavy and hard?

You’re doing the things—showing up, checking the boxes, keeping the wheels turning—but inside, it feels slow and exhausting. Decisions take more energy than they used to. Joy feels muted. Even rest doesn’t quite restore you. It’s not that life is falling apart; it’s just… heavy.

We don’t talk enough about these kinds of seasons. The ones where nothing is dramatically wrong, but nothing feels quite right either. The calendar keeps flipping pages, but internally, you feel stuck in place.

I’ve had a season like this. It’s been hard. Then Christmas comes. This year, we didn’t even get ornaments on the tree. 

And then comes the new year.

Culturally, January arrives with a lot of pressure. New goals. New habits. New energy. A new you. But what if what you actually need isn’t a new version of yourself—but a new perspective?

What if this season of slowness isn’t a failure, but an invitation?

An invitation to notice what’s been weighing you down.
An invitation to name the fatigue instead of powering through it.
An invitation to stop measuring your life by productivity and start measuring it by presence.

Sometimes the heaviness is telling us something important. That we’ve been carrying too much. That we’ve been running on empty. That our souls are asking for something different than what we’ve been giving them.

A new year doesn’t require reinvention. Sometimes it simply asks for honesty.

As I’ve sat with my ornament-less tree this year, I’ve come to realize that it’s beautiful in its simplicity. 

So if you’re entering this new year feeling tired, unmotivated, or behind—you’re not broken. You may just be in a season that requires gentleness instead of grit. Maybe there is beauty in this season to be noticed. 

Maybe this year’s shift isn’t about doing more.
Maybe it’s about seeing differently.