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On November 30, 2017, I received a Facebook message that my mom had died. I had just arrived in Morocco, and earlier that day confirmed with my phone company that my number was being forwarded to my Moroccan SIM. Apparently it wasn’t. So that’s how I found out.
I was grateful that I’d spoken to her on a video call earlier that day. It was more brief than I’d wanted, but a connection nonetheless.
My year-end-review that December was brief and simple: how did I LOVE.
Prior to that I’d spent years doing year-end reviews that were basically sophisticated self-attacks: all the ways I wasn’t enough, all the habits I didn’t nail, all the launches that didn’t hit my goals, and all the meditations I didn’t do because of… Netflix. It was less about “awakening” and more “annual performance review with my inner tyrant.”
Frankly, who the fuck needs that with everything going on right now? Pas moi.
The collective field is turbulent and loud, and our individual “self-optimization” projects can easily become a way to numb out from the grief, fear, and rage we feel about what’s happening in this country. To distract.
Eventually, I realized that if my year-end review left me feeling smaller, contracted, and more disconnected from myself and the world, it wasn’t a spiritual practice. It was self-gaslighting with a pretty journal (even though I love me my journals!).
So let’s try something different this year. Something with a Buddhist flair, even. Something that lets you walk into the new year not as a “better project,” but as a freer, truer, more alive version of you. Because you are not a self-improvement project!
I feel an important way to do this is to take a decent time reflecting, learning, and absorbing what the hell we’ve just been through in this past year, this most recent trip around the sun.
The truth about looking back is that it’s supposed to crack us open. It’s about sitting in the fire of reality with compassion. Being willing to SEE it all. ALL of it.
So where can we start? In the dharma, we talk about the three marks of existence; 3 qualities that all phenomena possess: impermanence, unsatisfactoriness, and not-self.
When we bring those three things to our year-end review, everything changes.
Impermanence reminds us that nothing stayed the same this year. Not our bodies, our relationships, politics, climate. A year-end review with Buddhist perspective asks us “How did we relate to all that change? Where did we cling? And where did we let go and find unexpected freedom?”
Unsatisfactoriness teaches us that no matter how “good” the year was, it didn’t permanently satisfy us. That’s not failure – it’s how conditioned reality works, my friends. So the question isn’t how to make next year perfect. It’s “How can I suffer less, unnecessarily, by relating differently to what is?”
And not-self reminds us that we are a living process, not a product. So then the inquiry becomes where did we mistake our roles, identities, or wounds for the truth of who we are? And where did we catch even a glimpse of something vaster, kinder, and more spacious?
This is the energy I want to invite you to bring to this review: soft, honest, uncompromising, and deeply human, inclusive, compassionate and fierce. REAL, because we’re rebels here… cutting through the bullshit with a sharp blade of truth – like Manjushri.
In my journal for the year that my mom died, I had pages of things I wanted to “work on” in our relationship. How I wanted to be more present. More patient. More kind. I had so many plans for “doing it ‘better’ next year.
But there was no next year.
For a while, I weaponized that grief against myself. “See? You never show up enough.” But as I sat with it on the cushion, breath by breath, something softer emerged. Memories of her joy. Her capacity to forgive. Her love that looked so f*cked up sometimes, but was love nonetheless. Her willingness to listen, even as she aged.
How, whenever I’d apologize for not calling sooner, she’d say, “It’s OK, we’re here now. That’s what matters.”
In the stillness, her voice came back to me not as a ghost, but as a dharma teacher. “We’re here now. That’s what matters.”
So my year-end review that year became about asking myself who I loved and whether they knew it. I asked where I had withheld love. And I asked whether, if I died next year, I would be at peace with how I showed up.
Now, Buddhism, at its core, is about liberation from suffering. And if our reflection focuses only on our own suffering, our own personal goals and ignores systems of oppression like racism, patriarchy, classism, heteronormativity, ableism, then our practice is incomplete.
So when we look back on your year, it’s important to also ask ourselves where we might have benefited from systems that harm others and the more-than-human world, the environment.
And where maybe we chose comfort over courage.
And again, this isn’t about guilt or shaming. Shame freezes us. It makes us smaller. But the point of this honesty is to widen the circle of our compassion and responsibility.
So our year-end review can be an act of resistance: a refusal to forget the world, a refusal to reduce our life to personal achievements while the collective body is bleeding.
Then ask what support we need to stay engaged without collapsing, right?
Now it’s time to actually do this review. Check out the full episode for an in-depth walk-through, one you can actually do along with me if you’d like. But I want to highlight here the 6 things I recommend you do throughout the review:
// Honor the heartbreaks – the ends, losses, the dreams that didn’t unfold how you hoped.
// Name the moments of aliveness – those times this year when you felt vividly, undeniably fucking alive.
// Reflect through the Three lenses: self, other, and world.
// Practice forgiveness and compassion – both for yourself and for others.
// Bow to your teachers – not just your official ones, but the mentors, children, activists, and parts of nature who changed you and the way you saw the world.
// Take a moment to reflect on how you related to the earth this year.
Once we’ve done these reflections, we can look toward the new year. But differently. Instead of hard-edged goals, try intentions that feel like prayers.
You might say, “I intend to let my body rest before it collapses.”
Or “I intend to return to my breath when I’m spiraling, even just once more than I did last year.”
Or “This year, I intend to speak up when I witness harm, especially in rooms where I’m safe and others are not.”
Let your intentions be specific enough to guide you, but soft enough to allow for mystery. Remember, you aren’t promising to become a different person. You’re committing to relate to your life with a little more awareness, compassion, and courage. That alone is radical.
This is the rebel Buddhist year-end review: We don’t bow to perfection. We bow to truth. We bow to each other. We bow to a world that is burning and blooming at the same time.
And then, we rise.
You will learn:
// Why conventional year-end reviews often turn into spiritualized self-attack, and what to do instead.
// How to use Buddhist teachings like impermanence and not-self to soften, not harden, your reflection.
// A simple way to honor both heartbreak and beauty, inspired by Mark Nepo’s “Adrift.”
// How to bring a social justice lens into your inner work so your practice isn’t separated from the world’s pain.
// Questions that reveal where we abandoned ourselves this year, and where we showed up bravely.
// How to recognize your own moments of aliveness and decolonize the dreams you’re chasing.
// Why remembering lineage is a rebellious act
// Ways to honor the earth as a living relative in your year-end reflection, not just a backdrop.
// How to set intentions that feel like prayers rather than punishments, and one simple ritual you can do today.
Resources:
// Episode 154: Off the Cushion – Activism + Spirituality
// Episode 174: Decolonize Your Mind – A Story of My Mother and Me
// Episode 184: The Power of Intention, Ritual, and Ceremony: Rediscovering the Sacred in Everyday Life
// Episode 260: Wild + Woven – Why We Need Both Nature and People
// Episode 286: The Concept of No-Self (and Greater Intimacy) – Off the Cushion Part 7
// If you’re new to the squad, grab the Rebel Buddhist Toolkit I created at RebelBuddhist.com. It has all you need to start creating a life of more freedom, adventure, and purpose. You’ll also get access to the Rebel Buddhist private group, and tune in every Wednesday as I go live with new inspiration and topics.
// Want something more self-paced with access to weekly group support and getting coached by yours truly? Check out Freedom School – the community for ALL things related to freedom, inside and out. We dive into taking wisdom and applying it to our daily lives, with different topics every month. Learn more at JoinFreedomSchool.com. I can’t wait to see you there!
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