This week (Monday to Friday), starting today, I am listening to a podcast episode each day to help set me up for the new year. Here is the list:

• From Niall Breslin on the Where is My Mind? podcast (warning: explicit language, he is a former footballer and rugby player in Ireland): Find What You Really Need

• From Dan Harris in conversation with meditation teacher Vinny Ferraro on the 10% Happier podcast: A Radical Buddhist Approach to Making This The Best Year of Our Life
• From a talk by Tara Brach: Radical Compassion: Loving Ourselves and Our World into Healing, Part 1
• From a talk by Tara Brach: Radical Compassion: Loving Ourselves and Our World into Healing, Part 2
• From a talk by Tara Brach: Radical Compassion: Loving Ourselves and Our World into Healing, Part 3

In today’s listen, Niall talked about three things that worked for him in 2024 and what he’d like to continue in 2025. He also invited listeners to think of three things that worked for them last year they’d like to continue this coming year. For him, the three things are: discipline, community, and digital detoxing.

Mine are similar: discipline in my life from home to work, community from family to friends and my hometown, and digital detoxing, especially in the evenings. To start this year, Niall has been putting his phone away at 7 p.m. each night and not picking it up until 7 the next morning for 7 days. It is something that I would like to do too.

The key quote for me from the episode was this:

I don’t think you can find space by creating more chaos or more commitments or more to-dos. I think you get space by seeking out the things that nourish you.

Those things that help me to cultivate my garden.