SUNLOOM | Feelings First -Designing a Year 2026 That Holds You...

Djemillah Mourade Peerbux

Dec '25 • General discussion

Every December we’re handed the same script:

Make goals.

Work harder.

Transform.

Become a shinier, more optimised version of yourself by January 1st.

Underneath the glitter and motivational quotes sits a quieter, heavier message:

“Who you are right now is not enough. Try harder. Push more. Make it count.”

But with Sunloom, we do not want to build our lives from pressure.

We build from presence.

So this December, we’re stepping away from resolutions and stepping into something more honest, more spacious, and more sustainable:

Try feeling-led goal setting. Not surface-level, not “choose your word of the year” and move on. But a deep, grounded redesign of how you choose what matters.

Let’s begin.

1. Your Body Remembers the Year You Survived

Before we talk about next year, pause.

When you think about the year you just lived, where do you feel it in your body?

The tightness in your chest. The constant alertness under your skin. The numbness that settled somewhere you stopped paying attention to. Or the sparks, the aliveness, the softness, the small moments of clarity.

Your body is honest in ways your mind isn’t.

So ask:

What is my body clearly done with?
What is it quietly asking for more of?

Let this be your starting point.

Not productivity. Not ambition. Not “shoulds”.

But the state you want to live from.

2. Choose Your Feelings-North-Star

Instead of writing resolutions, choose 2-4 core feelings you want to experience more often next year.

Not vague affirmations - visceral states.

Here are a few that often emerge for people who are done with hardness:

Creative
Brave
Soft
Grounded
Light
Joyful
Rooted

Your feelings aren’t a reward you get after you achieve your goals.

They’re the criteria your life must meet.

So complete this sentence:

“Next year, I want my life to feel more ________, ________, and ________.”

And then:

“What does an ordinary day look like when my life feels like this?”

3. Let Your Feelings Become a Filter

Every project, responsibility, invitation, ambition, opportunity...let them all pass through this filter:

“If I say yes to this, will it create more of these feelings or less?”

If it creates less...that is not alignment. That is self-betrayal.

This is where we unlearn the cultural addiction to “hard”.

Hard is not a virtue. Hard is often a sign we are working against ourselves.

Your yeses must honour your feelings-north-star. Your noes become acts of self-respect.

4. Replace “Goals” With Projects of Care

Instead of resolutions, choose Projects of Care :

Small, season-based containers that look after the version of you you’re becoming.

Each feeling gets 1-3 projects.

Example

If your feelings are Creative, Rooted, Connected:

CREATIVE

A weekly “Play Session” - one hour of making with no output requirement.
A monthly creative experiment you try simply to spark something.

ROOTED

A gentle weekly money check-in: compassionate, honest, and shame-free.
Protecting one morning a week as “non-negotiable slowness”.

CONNECTED

One nourishing conversation a month with someone who lights you up.
Joining a community space you actually want to belong to.

No metrics. No deadlines. Just conditions that support your becoming.

With Sunloom, I believe in this :

Don’t chase outcomes. Tend to conditions. If the conditions are right, the outcomes follow.

5. Plan for Seasons, Not Constant Output

Your capacity will shift across the year. Your goals must soften around that truth.

For every Project of Care, define three levels:

Minimum version - What is the smallest expression of this practice when life is heavy?
Reality version - Your typical rhythm on a normal week.
Overflow version - How you expand when you actually have energy, not because you “should”, but because it feels good.

This removes the all-or-nothing shame spiral.

It honours the seasons in you.

6. A Necessary Counterweight: The No-List

To detox the pressure, make a No-List: