A New Year Doesn’t Change You

But One Thought Might

Most New Year messages tell you to set goals, fix yourself, or become a whole new person by midnight. Let’s be honest: if that worked, the world would look very different!

I want to offer you something simpler and far more powerful.

You are not a self-improvement project. You are a human being with innate mental health, clarity and resilience — right now, as you are.

For many years I’ve sat in cold prison group rooms and draughty halls with men and women who believed they were broken beyond repair. Again and again, I’ve seen that the moment someone gets even the smallest glimpse of their own wellbeing, something shifts inside them.

And I want you to know, as we start this new year, that it’s not because they are special or have something magic that you don’t have.

It’s because they are ALIVE and for a moment they felt their aliveness!

We spend so much time in our heads or trying to not feel that we forget what that aliveness feels like.

So, as you step into a new year, instead of trying to force change. I invite you to see something that’s already yours.

A moment can change everything

It was a warm sunny day in 2018. I sat in the library with a man who had been in and out of prison more times than he cared to count. The sun streamed in through the barred windows to light the multi-coloured books on the shelves. We’d had a few moments of quiet. Me - looking at him and holding the space for him to open up. Him – head in hands, finger nails bitten to the quick.

He looked up at me with his big blue eyes, “I’m done. Some people are just built wrong. I’m one of them.” He said.

He wasn’t angry. Just tired.

We talked about how our experience comes from thought in the moment, not from our character. I read to him some of the Missing Link by Syndney Banks

He stayed quiet. Real quiet. I wondered if he was still listening.

Then he said, “You know what Miss, it seems to me that if my mind can scare me with thoughts, maybe it can show me something else too.”

That tiny shift didn’t change his circumstances, but it changed his relationship to them. Over time, he found a steadiness he didn’t know he had.

In that moment he had felt his aliveness. The quiet. The warmth of my gaze. The words from Sydney Banks. They brought that young man home. To his essence. To the truth of who he was in that moment.

And that’s all that’s needed to re-spark the aliveness.

Reflection Moment:​
​What if the way you feel right now is coming from thought in the moment — not from who you are?

You don’t need fixing — just noticing

People often think they need a new year to become a new person. But nothing outside you has ever had the power to strip away your value, your wisdom, or your wellbeing.

In all my conversations inside and outside, I’ve seen the same thing:

· Even in the darkest times, people have moments of clarity.

· Even in grief or frustration, people recognise kindness.

· Even in prison, people have insights that change how they see life.

These moments don’t come from effort. They come from what is built into all of us. Have you ever considered that your resilience shows up in ways you don’t always notice?

A story from the wings

One afternoon, as I was walking along the main corridor at HMP Onley, when a guy shouted at me through the gate of D Wing.

“Miss, Miss,” he said. I smiled to recognise one of the guys from our group. We’ll call him Charlie, a slender guy who looked much older than his 25 years. He’d been homeless most of his life and had taught himself to read and write in prison.

The previous week I’d spoken to him during the break as he was admiring some of the inspirational quotes on the wall of the Healthcare Group Room.

I moved to the locked gate of D Wing “What’s happening?” I said.

“I’ve written to me Mum and me Nan and told them they need to make up.” He said. He grinned a wide toothless grin as he held out the letters for me to see.

“Wow.” I said. He wasn’t expecting a reply. He didn’t write it to get something back. He said, “Something inside me settled, and I knew I needed to say sorry. I sent them one of the quotes from the wall Miss. That’s what got me started.”

That “something inside” wasn’t pressure. It wasn’t guilt. It wasn’t something I’d told him to do.

It was wisdom, the quiet intelligence that guides us when our minds settle enough to hear it.

He looked at me and said, “This is the first time I’ve acted from a calm place. It feels new, like I’m not dragging the old me along.”

That’s what real change looks like. Not forcing yourself to be different but seeing differently.

Reflection Moment:​
​When have you followed a quiet instinct and surprised yourself?

A different way to enter the new year

Instead of resolutions or pressure, here are three gentle suggestions:

1. Notice, don’t judge

Your experience changes all the time. That alone shows you’re not stuck. When you notice thought rather than living inside it, something loosens.

2. Look for the small moments

You don’t need a breakthrough. Sometimes a few seconds of quiet show you something fresh.

3. Trust the resilience you already have

You have lived through things many people never will. There is a strength in you that doesn’t come from effort: it comes from being human.

You’re not alone, and you’re not invisible

If I could sit with you as you read this, I’d say:

You are not the worst thing you’ve ever done.
You are not your mistakes.
You are not your thoughts on a bad day.

You are a human being with innate wellbeing, humour, courage and heart.

And if you’ve ever thought, “No one sees the real me,” let me say this clearly:

I see you.
Your humanity.
Your potential.
Your wisdom.
Your goodness.

All of it is still intact. Still reachable. Still yours.

Final reflection

If nothing needed fixing, and you trusted your own wisdom just a little more this year, what might open up for you?

Whatever your answer is, hold it lightly. Insights come when they come.
And the truth of who you are is never lost.

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With Love and Activation, MamaJ 💫

p.s. this was also posted in the prison newspaper Inside Times

p.p.s reply and let me know what resonated

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