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We're in 2026, and for today's episode, I wanted to talk about embracing yourself. Embracing yourself and your direction in 2026. As always, there's so much noise out there. It's really important if you want to be looking at your direction and where you're going that you take the time for you. It's really as simple as that. It's not new. It's very simple. This is a gentle reminder about that process.

Today, I wanted to share a few ways that will support you in embracing yourself. This is for understanding you, which is what this podcast is all about, and navigating your changes and complexities in your life, whatever those may be, with a little more ease and grace.

Embracing Yourself by Letting Go of Who You Thought You Had to Be

The first thing I wanted to share is letting go of who you thought you had to be. This is a big one for me because, so much of the time, we are conditioned by so many things in the world around us. If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you know that's a point I make often. With that conditioning comes all these expectations that we put on ourselves, that other people put on us, and so on and so forth. This first piece of embracing yourself is an invitation to focus on letting go of that.

In what ways this year can you gently let go of who you thought you had to be?

What are the ways you can embrace yourself and the ways that you want to be instead?

Following those sparks and moments of joy, or leaning into passions that you have, or whatever it might look like to you, but allowing yourself to shed some of that conditioning that is very much a part of our lives. This is not a process that is simple. It can be easy, but sometimes it definitely doesn't feel easy either. It's something that I see a lot in my work: people start off in a place where the tensions are there, they want to do something different, they're ready for a change, but there's a lot of baggage that comes our way. This letting go process and kind of resetting and tuning into yourself is an important part of it.

The first way to embrace yourself is by letting go of who you thought you had to be.

Embracing Yourself by Embracing Who You Are

The second one for embracing yourself this year and embracing your direction is embracing where you are. It's another version of letting go, letting go of expectations of where you thought you would be.

Give up the shame and the blame and the victim mindset around, "Oh, well, I should have been farther," or "I could have been farther if XYZ didn't happen," or "I could have been farther if ABC did happen." All of those things. Just embrace where you are now. It will bring you so much more peace than to rehash the past.

Now, I'm not saying ignore things that have been painful, of course. Do the work and show up and navigate the healing process, and for where you are right now and setting your direction, find ways that you can actually embrace where you are now.

Gratitude practices are great for this. Journaling and really turning inward, getting to know yourself, are a big part of this. So invitation to embrace where you are now in order to open up your direction for this year. Sometimes it might sound counterintuitive, but I'm telling you, it works.

Embracing Yourself by Trusting Your Timing

The next one is trusting your timing. This kind of piggybacks on the one before, with embracing where you are. For me, trusting your timing is a version of that. Knowing where you are, understanding where you are now. The things that happened before happened, don't dwell on that.

Trusting that you're exactly where you need to be right now, you're exactly there for whatever things happened or didn't happen. What you are proud of or what you wish didn't happen or would have happened a different way, it doesn't matter. Trust that where you are now is exactly it.

I really believe that when things don't go right, it's not that they go wrong, it's that there's a lesson there. Every situation gets used as a lesson in some way. An experience might have taken you further or made you feel like you stopped or went backwards, but in those moments where you feel like you stopped or went backwards, there was something to learn from that. There was something to get from that that you can use now for when you're going forward.

So trust the timing of the things that happened and now, trust the timing that this new place you're in. You're ready to reset yourself and your direction for this year. Trusting that timing, you're perfectly where you are, and it's going to set you up for an amazing year.

Embracing Yourself by Embracing Your Natural Decision Making Style

The next one is embracing your natural decision-making style. If you've been around, you know I talk about this a lot. It ties in also with the mind-body connection, but understanding how you uniquely make decisions is one that will help you to not only embrace yourself for this year but help you set your direction. You'll be more in tune with deciding what's a good opportunity for you, or what feels correct and aligned for you, and what doesn't.

The way you do that is through understanding your decision-making style. This is a process that requires getting out of the mind, back into the body, and using your body to help you decide. We have natural instincts and intuitions and a deep connection with our bodies. When we nurture that relationship, our bodies always know. They're telling us things, warning us of things, they want to help us. So when you pay attention to that and use that with your decision-making, it completely changes how things work out for you and how things open up to be more in alignment for you and your life and your direction.

I personally use human design for this. I use human design as a tool to help people better understand what is their decision-making style and then help them reconnect to that style so they can use it, start to learn about it, embody it, integrate it, and then use it in their lives.

For example, if you have the emotional decision-making style, you need to ride your emotional waves and then feel neutral before you decide. But there's a lot more to understanding—what does it feel like? What do your emotional highs and lows feel like in your body? What does neutral feel like in your body? Before you make that decision, you have to be able to recognize and be speaking with your body, to have that kind of relationship with it.

So that's a big piece of embracing your decision-making style. If you want to learn more about that, I have a Decision Making Accelerator Session where you learn one-on-one about your style and all the details of how you can begin to integrate it.

This, I believe, is a big piece for embracing yourself, not only the embracing yourself part but also embracing your direction. Knowing something like this is going to help you set your direction in a different way, in a way that's more in alignment for you.

Embracing Yourself by Being Honest with What’s Working and What’s Not Working For You

The next one for embracing yourself and your direction this year is being honest with what's working and what's not working. Take a look at what worked for you before, what didn't, and where do you want to go with that information?

How do you want to embrace this new year based on that?

Are there things that worked, either in your life, your business, your relationships, that were really supportive to you?

And then, what are the things that weren’t as supportive, that you kind of want to get rid of?

Permission to get rid of them if it's not working for you. A lot of people try to do new things, which is great, but they either let them go too quickly without giving them a chance, or they hold on to the things that are harder for them or worse for them than good. It's easier to hold on to the things that are hard and it's harder to let go, but it's important to be honest about these things.

Embracing Yourself by Embracing Rest, Limits and Capacity

After decision-making, the last one that I want to share with you for embracing yourself, embracing your direction this year, is embracing rest and limits and capacity for yourself.

What are the ways that you can tune in and pay attention to what you really need in any given moment?

This also goes with mind-body connection, of course.

Is it time for me to rest?

Am I hitting a limit in some way?

Do I have the capacity and the space for something else?

What's the trade-off?

A lot of times, we try to add new things in, but we don't necessarily pay attention to getting rid of things that aren't serving us anymore or just finding that new balance. Getting rid of things to free up space. We just try to hold on to everything. The thing that I'd like to invite you to do is take a look at both.

Where are the places that you have space and want to bring in something new?

Where are the places that you can let go and get rid of some things?

You don't ever want to feel like you don't have the space for rest and the spaciousness for yourself. There's a lot that goes into knowing your limits and not cramming so many things in. I really do believe we're moving from a time of hustling all the time and cramming everything in, having a fear of missing out, to now slowly, perhaps, but starting to embrace a way of living that's much more about making space. It's a lot more about quality over quantity, at least in my book.

With a lot of people I work with, it's the same. Once you have burnout in some way or you've stretched too thin, you don't want to go back to those old ways. You know what that was like. It didn't work out well. To change that, what can you do? You can embrace the spaciousness. You can allow yourself to slow down and say, "You know what? It's okay that I'm slowing down; actually, I'm making space." When you make space, there are more opportunities for really fun, incredible things to happen. If your calendar is jam-packed day after day, there's no spaciousness for other opportunities to come in.

If you have some of those openings, then you might get an invitation to something and—oh, do you want to go check out this? Do you want to do that? It can be so much more, allowing things to come to you.

That's a really big one that I invite you to take a look at for this year and how you see your year going:

Where are you creating that space?

Where are you giving yourself permission to rest?

How can you manage your capacity differently so that it's supportive to you and where you want to go for this year?

Conclusion for Embracing Yourself and Your Direction in 2026

Those are just a few places where I wanted to give you some food for thought for the year. How you can embrace yourself, embrace your direction, without it feeling like you're being inundated with stuff or that you have to have this go-go-go type of mentality. That's definitely not what I'm here for, and you probably know that by now.

If you'd like to learn more about any of this work, I have the Mind Body Connection Unlocked book. It has all kinds of tools, tips, reflection questions and prompts for you to begin or enhance that process of opening your mind-body connection, paying more attention to yourself, tuning into your body, connecting to your soul and the direction of your life and your purpose. That's one thing.

You’re also invited to check out my Decision Making Accelerator Sessions. I'm really excited about these. I've had a couple to start this year already and they've been so good. I'm really excited to be supporting people with helping them to see the direction and figuring out, really, how the mechanics of their decision-making works and getting them into that mindset of tuning into it.

There's an embodiment and integration process with it, but at least the first step is understanding how it works and getting some actions around, "Okay, what can I do next to enhance this or to learn to work with it in some way?" It's very practical, grounded, and useful, because I love to share things people can actually use in their day-to-day lives.

Connecting About Embracing Yourself

Thank you so much for being here, for your time. I truly don't take it for granted. I really appreciate you, and I'm wishing you a great rest of your day, rest of your week, wherever you are.

We'll talk soon. Thanks so much for being here.

Let’s keep this conversation going. Find me on social at the links below, and know that in this busy world, I deeply appreciate your time and presence here. You can find me on LinkedIn and Instagram @mary.clavieres, or check out my website for resources, book info, and Decision Making Accelerator sessions.

Thank you for being here. This year brings big changes, for both this podcast and, I have a feeling, for your own journey, too. Here’s to a year of authentic, intention-filled growth.

Questions? Please feel free to reach out on LinkedIn or Instagram. I'm also on Voxer at @MaryClavieres.

Thank you so much for being here, for listening, and for taking these steps on your own journey. Until next week!

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