As we say goodbye to 2024 (our year of Adaptation) and welcome 2025, we have an opportunity to consider our intention for the next 12 months.

While pondering the best resolution given the challenges we continue to face in a world of unrest, distrust, and upset, we can also consider embracing, living, and working compassionately this year.

Suppose we lead with compassion? We filled our days with empathy, courage, and resilience. In the places where trauma and adversity touch so many, what if we were to lean in, acknowledge, and embrace what we don’t understand until we do? What may happen if we lead with heart and consider others’ plight as if it were ours? What if?

We may witness the turmoil not as a story on the late-night news but as a human condition worthy of our attention and time. Compassion is not just about addressing challenges; it’s about creating safe, inclusive spaces where people can thrive despite those challenges. It’s about listening deeply, responding with care, and empowering others to heal and grow.

When we lead with compassion, we invite trust, connection, and transformation in ways that ripple far beyond the immediate moment. It creates a state of calm in our nervous system. We feel part of ‘it’ instead of alone and separate. We invite environments of contribution and acknowledgment, which are needed to progress.

What might be possible if we consider that we are all in this? There is no them and us. We feel and are affected by every ripple in the pond. What would happen?

This year, let us embrace the profound responsibility of working with trauma and adversity. Whether you are a leader in your workplace, community, or home, you can inspire change by choosing compassion over judgment, understanding over assumption, and connection over isolation.

As we embrace 2025, may we find strength in vulnerability, courage, kindness, and hope in every step forward? Here’s to making 2025 a year we lead with purpose and heart.

From all of us at Moving the Human Spirit, Happy New Year. May you lead with compassion and inspire healing and transformation.