When the New Year Feels Heavy Instead of Hopeful

Every New Year, we’re flooded with the same message.

New beginnings.

Fresh starts.

Highlight reels of everything everyone else accomplished.

We scroll and see joy, peace, progress, healed bodies, thriving businesses, perfect routines. And even when we’re genuinely happy for others, something quietly happens inside us — we start looking at our own lives and feeling unaccomplished, uncomfortable, and hurting.

We tell ourselves we should feel motivated.

We should feel excited.

We should be ready to “lock in.”

But what if you’re not?

What if instead of hope, the New Year brings up grief, exhaustion, or a heaviness you don’t know how to name?

Let me tell you what happened to me this weekend in Texas....

When Life You Survived Collides With the Life You’re Building

I recently went home to Houston to visit my grandma — the woman who raised me.

Wherever she is, that’s home to me.

She’s lived in the same apartment for over ten years, the place that gave me comfort, the place my brother lived before he passed.

Going home is complicated.

I’m surrounded by love and familiarity, but also by the reality that his life ended there.

And every time I go back, my body feels it before my mind can catch up.

I get irritable. Short.

On edge for no obvious reason. Then the moment I leave, I miss her deeply and want to go back.

That night, I saw a kid walking who looked just like my brother.

For a split second, my mind went to oh, he’s just living his life. 

And then the truth hit me — he’s not.

He’s gone.

And nothing changes that.

I broke down.

Sitting in the car with my husband before we even left to go grab milk, I told him something I’d been struggling to admit: I don’t even know how to talk to God about this kind of pain.

I know this is the kind of heaviness He asks us to give Him — not the surface-level stress like bills, work, or business problems.

But this? This sits deeper. And I didn’t even know how to begin feeling it, much less putting it into words.

Grief Leaks Out When It Isn’t Acknowledged

What I realized in that moment is something many of us experience, especially around the New Year.

When we don’t deal with what’s really heavy, it doesn’t disappear — it bleeds out sideways.

It shows up as:

• Falling off routines

• Struggling with consistency

• Feeling disconnected from our bodies

• Losing motivation we know we should have

  
  

Fitness, nutrition, and emotional health aren’t separate journeys. They’re intertwined. When one is ignored, the others feel it.

That night, I noticed my chest felt tight. I was holding my breath, bracing myself without realizing it. It took slowing down, breathing, and later praying through it to understand what my body was already trying to tell me.

God Met Me in the Middle of the Mess

After that breakdown, we finally left to go get milk.

On a random street corner, late at night, there were a few people with a karaoke machine preaching the Word of God.

No church. No stage. Just Jesus, the parking lot and these people.

We laughed — not in a mocking way, but in a light, unexpected way that felt like relief.

And I looked at my husband and said,

“That was God telling me He heard me.”

Not because my pain was fixed.

Not because I suddenly had answers.

But because I wasn’t alone in it.

Why This Matters for Your Health Journey

At Shredskiz Nutrition, we don’t believe transformation starts with pretending everything is fine.

The New Year doesn’t require you to erase your past to move forward. It asks you to acknowledge where you actually are.

If you’re starting this year feeling behind, uncomfortable in your body, disconnected from routine, or carrying grief that no one sees — you are not broken.

You don’t need more shame.

You don’t need extreme rules.

You don’t need to “push harder.”

You need support, structure, and permission to meet yourself honestly.

That’s why we focus on:

• Sustainable nutrition, not perfection

• Education, not guesswork

• Coaching that understands life is bigger than macros

  
  

Because healing your relationship with food, movement, and your body isn’t about ignoring pain — it’s about learning how to walk forward with it.

This year, instead of asking: “Why don’t I look like everyone else’s highlight reel?”

Try asking: “What is my body asking me to acknowledge?”

Progress doesn’t always look like before-and-afters.

Sometimes it looks like breathing instead of bracing.

Sometimes it looks like staying instead of avoiding.

Sometimes it looks like asking for help.

You don’t have to carry the heavy stuff alone.

And you don’t have to have it all figured out to begin.

We’re here to walk with you — exactly where you are.