52 - How to avoid pushy resolutions to live in gratitude and intention

What if gratitude wasn’t about pretending this year was fine and intentions weren’t another thing to get right?

As the year comes to a close, many women feel an invisible weight: to be grateful, to celebrate, to set resolutions… even when something inside feels off. 

In this episode, Kena invites you into a quieter, deeper reflection — one that moves away from external achievements and toward what actually shifted inside you. Those inner moments no one applauded.

Kena explores why traditional resolutions often fade and offers a different way of approaching the next chapter, rooted in intention, self-trust, and inner alignment.

If you’re done performing gratitude and ready to feel at home within yourself again, this episode will meet you exactly where you are.

✨ In This Episode You’ll Learn

• How to redefine gratitude without bypassing your truth
• Why inner achievements matter more than external milestones
• What happens when you drop resolutions rooted in fear and comparison
• The truth about intention as a daily embodied practice
• How coherence creates self-trust, safety, and alignment in midlife

🦋 Reflection Questions

1. What inner shifts am I proud of, even if no one else noticed them?
2. Where in my life am I ready to choose intention over pressure?
3. How would I feel in 2026 by living in coherence? 

If you’re ready to stop doing this alone and want support living with intention and inner coherence in 2026, you’re invited to reach out.
Email me at hello@midlifebutterfly.ca and let’s start the conversation.

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✨ First You: Boundaries for Joyful Holidays

The holidays don’t have to drain you. Step into a space where your peace comes first, your energy is protected, and your joy gets to lead.

Inside this on-demand masterclass, you’ll learn how to create loving, guilt-free boundaries that keep you grounded, present, and actually enjoying the season — without overgiving, overextending, or abandoning yourself.

- Watch the Masterclass: http://midlifebutterfly.ca/firstyoumasterclass

Song: Reborn by Alexander Nakarada

Chapters

• 0:00 Reframing Gratitude And Year-End Pressure
• 2:38 Celebrate Inner Wins, Not External Metrics
• 5:10 Boundaries, Self-Prioritizing, And Nervous System Peace
• 8:19 Thank Yourself And Honour Hard Choices
• 11:20 Drop Resolutions And Live With Intention
• 15:07 Start Small: Body-Led, Safe Actions
• 17:44 What Coherence Really Means
• 20:20 Two Prompts For Honest Reflection
• 23:05 Naming Your Growth And Allowing Emotion
• 25:05 Daily Intentions For Aligned Living
• 26:04 Love, Creation, And What You’ll Build Next Year

Transcript

Kena Siu: 0:00

What if gratitude becomes a way of inner reflection, an intention, a way of living? Welcome, beautiful soul. This is Midlife Butterfly, the space where you remember who you truly are beneath all the roles, responsibilities, and expectations. I'm your Empowerment guide, Kena Siu, and I hold this space for women in midlife who are ready to rediscover themselves, reclaim their joy, and live fully aligned. If you are new here, welcome to our cocoon. You just entered a place where choosing yourself isn't selfish. It's sacred. As the year ends, we're told to be grateful and set new resolutions. A word that I don't like anymore. But too often, gratitude becomes a way of bypass truth, right? And resolutions become another form of pressure. Are you feeling it? In this episode, I'm inviting you to do something different. Honest gratitude and celebration. And intention as a way of living. If you're done pretending this year was fine and ready to move forward with more self-trust and alignment, you are in the right place. Yeah, it's the end of the year, it's about reflection, it's about celebration, it's about gratitude, and all these things that at the same time, because we are so busy, they create a lot of heaviness, a lot of stress in ourselves, isn't it? But what about if we start like facing this end of the year or reframing it, better say, with gratitude and celebration, but not as a collection of things that you did. Because usually it's about these achievements, whatever is it out there in the external. And when we didn't see results out there, it's when we start comparing ourselves, or we think we were a failure, when for me, failure doesn't exist anymore. It's either I learned or I win. And most of the times it's about a learning lesson. And if you are here, most likely you have already noticed that, right? So it's about this internal success, it's about the inner work that you keep doing, that you are doing, that you did during this year. So it's about reframing this gratitude for really something about celebration and achievements, but from the inner work that you've done. It's about the times that you say no without an explanation, you know? It's about taking it easy when someone cut you off while driving instead of getting triggered and arriving to your destination all stressed and frustrated. You know, it's setting up more boundaries with people so you honor yourself more. This is about the gratitude and achievements that I'm talking here. It's not about the whatever is outside, it's whatever happened inside of you that you can only notice. And you have to be proud of that work that you have done, even with other people who have not noticed it. Because this comes back to prioritizing yourself, to putting yourself first. It doesn't matter if other people don't see it, they don't have to see it. It's about how you feel inside yourself. It's about that. It's about the peace, it's about how your nervous system is working, if your levels of stress has lowered through this year, and how you're feeling at this moment. Yeah, it's the end of the year, also, there's a lot of things happening, you know, family gatherings and stuff, but if you really focus about every month, like what have you achieved every month in different spaces here and there, but about the inner work that you are doing? Did you decline an invitation because you didn't feel like attending an event? You know? Did you prioritize yourself more and more? Did you listen to your body and rest it when it asked you for? And you actually went dancing when your body wanted to express itself? Did you choose not to worry about things that you really cannot control? Did you notice when the guilt and the shame show up, and then you say, like, okay, you are here, and I'm choosing to release you. You know, again, it's about those inner shifts that actually make the difference in your life day to day. I want you to really celebrate this because I do believe with my experience, these are the best achievements you can do in your life. Because it's about coming back to you, it's about coming back home, and it's about to remember who you truly are, and every time you choose yourself, every time you do something for you to feel better, or even sometimes when it feels uncomfortable because there's somebody else, you know, involved, and you know they are reacting, or you know, you they can you can between codes make them feel bad or not good or whatever, which is out of your control. That's the kind of gratitude that I want you to express to yourself. Remember this video of what's his name? Sloom Dog. I can't remember his name. This actor, this singer, where he was actually just thank him himself. That's what I want you to do. Take that honor and that pride to say, I thank myself because I said no. I thank myself because I set this boundary, I thank myself because I choose to leave this relationship that it didn't honor me anymore. I thank myself for taking this decision, even though it hurt a self, but and to the other person as well. But I know this was the best thing. Because the truth is, life is to experience any emotion, whatever we call positive and whatever we call negative, it's just they are just emotions that they are guiding us. So trust your body if you are able to listen to your body and follow what your body is telling you more and more. Fuck, I celebrate you big, big, big because it means again you are coming back home to yourself more and more. It's remembrance, it's not about becoming someone else. This is who you are. Honor who you are, but at the same time, when we come here to this life, there's so many programs, the collective, it's so many things happening, and you know, you're up bringing that we come with all these things that they don't belong to you. That's the truth, they don't belong to you. That's the human experience that we come here to do. It's about removing those layers so you can come home to yourself, to that you, to the true you, that person that is behind all these patterns and beliefs and programs that they will inherit. That's the truth. And at the same time, because of all this, we have this aim of having these resolutions of the year that we get to drop after not even two months. Why? Because a lot of these resolutions they have nothing to do with you again, they have to do because you want to lose weight to look like somebody else, or because you want to earn or make all this money to have the house that do you really want to have that house? Or is just because a friend of you has it and you want to compare yourself? A lot of resolutions are based on fear, are based on comparison, are made are based on goals that if you don't know who you are, if you don't honor yourself, your truth, all those resolutions that's what they fade away because they have nothing to do with you. So my point here is fucking drop them, just drop them, and my invitation here is for you to start living in intention, yes. So, what is your intention for next year? Is your intention to lose weight for health, for longevity, to be there for your family and your kids many more years? Do you want to lose weight for mobility, to be independent as long as you can? Do you see how the intention for this way from this position is different and you don't feel this pressure of I have a resolution of losing 20 kilos this year? It's different because you're doing it from a place of love to yourself, of love to others as well. It's different. And when I'm talking about intention, yeah, it could be different things, but I'm calling you to call your inner voice, I'm calling you to sink in with them. So that intention comes from your heart, it comes from your soul, it's not coming from a resolution of a shiny object that it's out there, on the contrary, it's about something that is going to create coherence in your life, and I'm gonna extend about this a bit later. So it's like it's your intention to feel home within yourself this year, and of course, you have that intention, and to achieve that, you gotta take action. It's not gonna come just by having that intention or by having the willingness to manifest. Here, the human experience is about action, but also where is that action taking place? From where? What is the aim of that? Is your intention this year that you want to speak your truth more and more? So, what kind of actions you have to take in your day-to-day? What's gonna be then the intention of every day for you to speak your truth? Do you get what I'm saying here? It's at a deeper level and it's at something that the idea here to check in with them, with your body, it's about setting that intention from a safe place, from a calm nervous system. It's not about setting a resolution when you're already frozen thinking that you need to lose 20 kilos, and then you don't want to go to the gym, or you don't want to eat healthy foods. Right? So it's from this place of okay, what do you feel safe to me? Probably just going for a walk around the block. One of your meals is gonna be a salad, and then the rest of your day is gonna be any other meal that you want. Just that those little things make the difference, and you are already living in that intention. And the cool part is that your body is so wise that, of course, the more you give that little like achievement, you know, every time that you can, the more safe you're gonna feel, the more truth to yourself you're going to feel. Because the problem is that when we said all those resolutions that are not aligned with who you are are based on someone else or in the belief of someone else, or whatever the collective is telling you. And if it's not coherent with you, well, you're gonna just reject it. Your body is gonna feel threatened. So that's why the intention is from inner, it comes from inside of you, and when it's coming from this place, it's more likely that you're gonna have this coherence. And what's coherence? It means that what you are thinking, what you are feeling, and what your action is are in alignment. That is living in coherence. Because if you are feeling off, and usually or many times we do, it's because what we are thinking and what we are feeling are completely opposite. Or probably you are thinking something and your action has nothing to do with what you are thinking, and then you have a feeling of frustration or of guilt or sh or shame because what you are thinking and what you are doing have nothing to do with what you are actually feeling, so it's about this, it's about having that intention that is coherent. So your life is coherent, and the more your life is coherent, the more you're gonna feel safe within, the more you're going to feel at home, the more you are going to speak your truth and live your truth, and trust yourself because it means that what you are experiencing in life, it's more coherence, it's really with that person, with that you that keeps remembering, that keeps remembering. It's about remembrance, it's not about becoming someone else, as I mentioned before. And as a reflection that you can do for this year, is just take these two steps, just pause a bit. So next year I choose to. So let's say this year taught me to set better boundaries with my siblings. So next year I choose to be more loving with them, whatever it is that it works for you. Or let's say, I don't know, this year taught me to live a relationship and leaving this chaos, and it also taught me to stop self-abandonment. So next year I choose me, or I choose to take more self-care to myself, or I choose to start exercising, and it's about being honest here, it's not about impressing anyone because if you're trusting again, you're coming to outside if you want to impress someone, it's about going inward. This invitation, it's about going inward. So be honest to yourself, and I know it was a tough year for many in different ways, in different ways, so it's about also being grateful for those things that hurt like hell that you learned things the hard way, and at the same time being grateful because you're still here, you're still alive, and you have the privilege, we have the privilege of ending a year. And be proud of yourself, bragging. Even if it's only with you, or if you have beautiful friends and family where you can share it with, do it. And allow them to do the same. Because sometimes we feel ashamed of what we went through, and sometimes we don't even have to say the whole story, you know? But it's just about I'm really proud of myself that I freaking raised my standards. How much work that took you to raise your standard, to raise the boundary. It takes a lot of effort, it takes a lot of energy. It cost you probably a lot of freaking hard situations when you didn't dare. Right? But then you did it. So name it. Name it because so many times we just pass by and we think that we didn't achieve anything. But believe me, the time that you say no was huge. The time that you decide to leave a relationship because it didn't work anymore, despite the love that you might have for this person, it was huge. Celebrate it, and sometimes those celebrations come with pain. And allow yourself to live to experience every emotion because this is the beauty of life. Experiencing the emotions, it doesn't matter what they are, and sometimes we are not even able to name them, and it's okay, it's okay. So this is my invitation for you to reflect about those inner achievements, that gratitude that came from that inner work that you have done this year, and start living with intention. Every day, every moment, every task you do, set an intention for it. You know, if you're going to a gathering and it's like, oh no, I'm gonna see people that I'm not really aligned with them, and like, okay, but I choose love. My intention is to be there with love and not judgment. So are those little things by approaching life with a different attitude, your life is gonna shift. And the more you're gonna feel aligned, the more you're gonna feel coherence with what you're thinking, what you're feeling, what you're doing. And that's how you come home to yourself, you know. So this is my share today. And I know sometimes this kind of work, it needs support. And that's what I want to invite you as well. If you know that your intention is not enough, that you know that you need support, you know, to have this consistency, to have this accountability, or to go deeper in how you can live in more coherence, how you can feel at home within yourself, with your mind, body, and soul, and here for you. This is the kind of work I help my clients do. This is my expertise, and I would love to share it with you if you are open to it. So you can book a call with me, you can send me an email. I would like to connect first with you, and I'm wishing you a beautiful end of this year. I really hope that despite the struggles, challenges that you might have gone through, I really hope that you are ending this year with hope, with a heart full of love, because love is what makes the difference. Love is what you are, what we are here to give and receive. When we choose to see life from that place of love, which it's in coherence with honoring yourself, with honoring others, with respecting yourself and respecting others, and life itself, that's what it makes the difference in your life at a deeper level, and how you can embrace more this life that it has been given to you to experience. And the truth is, you are the creator. So, what are you aiming to create this new year, this next 2026? So, with a lot of gratitude and intention of sending you so much love and peace and alignment, closing this 2025. Take care and have a blessed year and end of the year. Thank you for tuning in to Midlife Butterfly. I hope this episode empowers you in some way. Share the love by hitting follow whatever you're listening and leave a review if you feel inspired. I also love to connect with you. Come say hi on Instagram at MidLife Butterfly. I love to know you. Until next time, keep spreading those wings and leave enjoy growth and pleasure.