How to Set Embodied Mental Health Goals for the New Year
An embodied, trauma-informed approach to New Year intentions for those navigating grief, loss, and life transitions.
A Gentler Beginning: Releasing the Pressure to Fix Yourself in the New Year
The start of a new year often arrives carrying an unspoken demand: do better, be better, fix what’s broken.
For those navigating loss, change, or profound life transitions, this pressure can feel especially heavy. You may be moving through the death of a parent, partner, sibling, or beloved pet. You might be living inside the quiet unraveling of a relationship, the exhaustion of caregiving burnout, or the disorientation that comes with retirement, relocation, or identity loss.
And yet, the new year seems to whisper that you should be further along by now.
If traditional New Year’s resolutions have left you feeling frustrated, disconnected, or quietly ashamed, you are not alone. More importantly—you are not failing.
What if this season of growth doesn’t require pushing harder or reinventing yourself? What if it invites something slower, more intentional, and deeply compassionate?
If you’re already feeling the weight of grief or transition, you don’t have to navigate this season alone. I offer gentle, trauma-informed grief support designed to help you feel grounded, resourced, and supported at your own pace.
Setting embodied mental health goals allows us to honor emotional well-being, nervous system needs, and the reality that grief and healing are not linear processes.
A gentler way of beginning.
Why Traditional New Year’s Resolutions Often Miss Emotional Well-Being
Most New Year’s resolutions are rooted in productivity culture. They emphasize discipline, urgency, and self-improvement—often without considering the emotional or physical capacity of the person setting them.
For someone navigating grief, trauma, or major life transitions, these approaches can quietly reinforce shame.
Common resolution narratives sound like:
I should be over this by now.
I just need more willpower.
If I push through, I’ll feel better.
But grief and trauma healing do not respond well to pressure. Loss lives not only in the mind, but in the body—impacting sleep, energy, focus, motivation, and emotional regulation.
When goals are driven by “shoulds,” they often:
Ignore nervous system capacity
Create unrealistic expectations during tender seasons
Reinforce self-criticism instead of self-compassion
Rather than supporting emotional well-being, traditional resolutions can leave us feeling more disconnected—especially when we’re already stretched thin.
What Realistic, Embodied Mental Health Goals Actually Look Like
Embodied mental health goals focus less on outcomes and more on relationship—how you relate to yourself, your emotions, and your inner experience.
Instead of asking, “What should I accomplish?” These goals invite the question, “What would help me feel safer, more grounded, and more supported?”
This shift is especially meaningful for those drawn to somatic grief healing, body based grief healing, and trauma informed grief support—approaches that recognize healing as a process of regulation, presence, and integration.
Examples of realistic mental health goals might include:
Creating a gentle grounding practice
A few minutes of breath awareness, slow movement, or placing a hand on your chest when emotions rise—simple tools that support emotional regulation.Practicing self-check-ins instead of self-judgment
Asking, “What do I need right now?” rather than forcing productivity or emotional resolution.Setting one compassionate boundary
Reducing over-commitment, allowing rest, or saying no without explanation—especially important for caregivers, teachers, and healers.Allowing grief to exist without fixing it
Making space for sadness, longing, or confusion as natural responses to loss rather than problems to solve.Seeking connection and support
Exploring grief support through grief coaching online, a Zoom grief support group, or an online workshop where your experience is understood and normalized.
Many people find it easier to build these practices with support—especially when grief feels overwhelming or isolating. Shared spaces can offer relief, normalization, and connection without requiring you to explain or perform your healing.
Progress here isn’t measured by checklists—it’s measured by moments of ease, increased self-trust, and a growing sense of internal safety.
👉 Learn more about trauma informed grief support
How Trauma-Informed Coaching Support Creates Sustainable Change
Coaching offers a supportive, relational space to explore patterns, beliefs, and emotional responses—without pathologizing your experience. Through grief coaching online, the focus is not on fixing you, but on supporting your capacity to be with yourself differently—especially during seasons of loss and transition.
Coaching can help you:
Identify patterns shaped by grief and survival
Understand how emotions and stress live in your body
Build tools for regulation, boundaries, and resilience
Set mental health goals aligned with your values and capacity
Many people also find healing in shared spaces such as Zoom grief support groups, online workshops, or immersive experiences like a grief healing retreat—where grief and trauma healing are held within connection rather than isolation.
Sustainable change happens when support meets you where you are.
Choosing Progress Over Perfection During Seasons of Loss and Transition
Healing does not require urgency. Growth does not require self-criticism.
Choosing embodied mental health goals allows you to move at a pace that honors your nervous system and emotional reality. Some weeks, progress might look like showing up. Other weeks, it might look like rest.
Both matter.
This approach invites you to measure success not by how much you accomplish—but by how supported, grounded, and connected you feel over time.
An Invitation Into the New Year: Choosing Support Over Self-Criticism
As you move into the new year, you are allowed to choose New Year intentions rooted in care rather than correction.
You are allowed to seek grief support that honors your pace. You are allowed to be held—especially if you have spent a lifetime holding others.
If you’re ready to explore coaching support as a gentle next step, I invite you to schedule a discovery call. Together, we can create embodied mental health goals that feel realistic, aligned, and deeply supportive—whether through one-on-one grief coaching online, somatic grief healing practices, or future offerings like online workshops, Zoom grief support groups, or a grief healing retreat.
✨ Schedule a discovery call and begin the year with support, not pressure.
Dawn M. Geoppinger, Trauma-Informed Grief & Embodiment Coach
Dawn M. Geoppinger is a Trauma-Informed Grief & Embodiment Coach based in Portland, Oregon, with a strong foundation of over two decades of professional experience in public administration, education, and the nonprofit sector. She specializes in grief education, somatic movement, breathwork, and mindfulness, integrating evidence-based approaches such as somatic practices, post-traumatic growth and woman-centered principles to help clients reconnect with themselves, regulate their nervous systems, and honor the full spectrum of loss and healing. Through her practice, The Embodied Grief Journey™, Dawn provides compassionate, expert support both in person and online—creating safe, nurturing spaces for individuals to explore grief, resilience, and embodied healing.
A Gentle Next Step Into the New Year
This new year doesn’t require fixing yourself. It can begin with listening, slowing down, and choosing support that meets you where you are.
If you’re curious about what it might feel like to be supported through grief, loss, or transition, you’re welcome to schedule a discovery call. There’s no pressure—just a conversation about what might feel most helpful for you right now.
✨ Schedule a discovery call and explore a gentler way forward.
