By: Lynn Miller, Director of WRAP
The AHP WRAP Team wishes our WRAP community and your family and friends a very Happy New Year and our wishes for a healthy and safe 2024.
As we begin 2024, we also begin the next 25 years of WRAP, filled with exciting opportunities, new members of the WRAP community, and innovative WRAP initiatives.
Many people begin a new year with new goals, such as exercise, smoking cessation, meditation, learning something new, and more. One of the WRAP Values and Ethics is “WRAP is a way of life,” and with the start of a new year, I often start off full of resolutions and new commitments. I consider what I can do for myself and how WRAP applies to my goals for the year.
This year, as I reflected on my life and what I want to do, I realized that the New Year wasn’t really something I needed to ring in to make positive changes in my life.
After much reflection, I realized that I have been making positive, healthier changes simply by applying my own WRAP and taking personal responsibility to commit to a life that encompasses wellness in all areas.
I had no resolutions to make, so I spent time reflecting on the ways that WRAP has impacted my life.
I began with the first Key Concept of WRAP: Hope! I began thinking of what I hope for now, rather than for the future, and realized that my hope is for peace and for family.
Because of my WRAP and taking personal responsibility for my wellness, I took a few difficult but empowering steps to recognize that I had the right to the support I offered to others. I not only recognized my needs, but I also took action steps to make changes that led to a closer connection to family, welcoming people into my life that I consider my chosen family, and an overall sense of peace and connection to those I love.
I spent a snowy Saturday realizing that through WRAP, and because of the gift of WRAP and peers who I’ve met through my WRAP way of life, hope is endless—as long as I take personal responsibility for my wellness.
I also spent that day reflecting on the past year and how WRAP influenced my life. Like so many, my year was full of multiple difficulties, including loss, family addiction issues, moving, and other life challenges. I felt as though 2023 was one of my most difficult years, and I realized I had lived my WRAP more than I ever have. Some days I even did what I call “doubling up” on my WRAP. For example, if a walk is in my Wellness Toolbox or Daily Plan and the day is difficult, I add a second walk. Or I may talk to more than my usual number of supporters that day or meditate twice rather than once.
Because of WRAP, I have new opportunities that I am overjoyed to act on. Rather than adding some of the traditional goals that we often add to begin a New Year, I am challenging myself to engage in new passions that have personal meaning to me and to embrace positivity and gratitude in whatever I encounter daily—no matter how difficult it may seem.
I am choosing to find hope and growth in every situation. I hope you find ways to do the same through your WRAP.
Related Resources
Lynn Miller is the Director of WRAP.
