It’s the end of the year as we know it

By Dr E K Wills

PS. I wrote this not AI

Sunset on the Year 2025

This year has been one of discovery and difficulty for many and I am no exception.

Thankfully, I have a guide of sorts in my supervisor/therapist (recommended for all psychiatrists and in fact can be helpful for anyone) who suggested a reflection of the year’s highs and lows in order to discover the potential path for next year.

I cheated by looking back over my annual calendar which held some forgotten pearls like marking time when I started to really look at my own self care needs. It revealed how it was a process of gaining momentum to increase available time for exercise and focus on nutrition and how I wove that into my other responsibilities.

My calendar also reflected back the time outs like a trip to the mountains to visit the Japanese baths, and the cheeky work/play trip to the Barossa where I enjoyed my colleague’s conference talks and piggybacked my own talk for the Thrive Symposium on burnout.

Since then, I also realised the imperative for sleep in perimenopause. The brain fog is bad enough without a good night’s rest so I found a way to carve out a room of my own in our busy household in order to meet that fundamental need.

I worked to share my discoveries and research and 'me-search'. The development and progression of the Burnout Rescue Kit and its targeted modules are a culmination of that learned experience tied in with evidence based practice. The intention is for broad reach in order for no-one to miss out. But the reality of lifestyle medicine is that not everyone is ready or able to take these steps in their busy lives. And like a new seed, time and growth is required before growing to bear fruit.

My biggest wish to establish a national ‘wellbeing health retreat’ in the private sector is now coming up to a year of testing different options for how to best to meet people’s needs in these challenging times. Now I’m ready to consider other ways I can facilitate that further. The focus for next year may be to allocate some of this energy to the corporate sector to facilitate psychologically safe workplaces and to provide courses within organisations to make that a reality.

My own wellbeing journey has mirrored this journey with steps forward with fitness, times of stalled progress and even regression with annoying chronic shoulder strain. I have embraced HRT in perimenopause with additional supports like creatine and protein loading for long term benefit. I continue to learn and share new evidence as it comes to bear and have shared some of this journey in the Wednesday Webinar series.

At the end of 2025, I published a parenting guide because of my secret wish for all parents to have a parenting manual (I know I wished I had one). And that was after a year’s delay due to publishing issues.  

These all sound trite in comparison with the world’s woes but everyone has their own frameworks, expectations and wishes. I also came across a delightful foray into a more mellow framework than that of ‘hustle’ and ‘work before play’ when I read The Dalai Lama’s Cat over the holiday break (because I love the simplicity of cats).

The four paws (pillars) of spiritual success (which are essentially life lessons) can be distilled down to acknowledging and accepting these points:

1.     Let go our delusions (attachments to anger and seeking success)

2.     Let go our preoccupation with ourselves (authentically focus on compassion for humanity)

3.     Let go our illusions about the way things exist (you already have all you need and just need to develop it - by practicing creativity with intent)

4.     Have a guide/teacher who walks the talk to motivate and inspire you.

I hope you find this to be useful in your end of year reflections and that perhaps some of my journey can help guide you when you are ready.