Setting us up for Success in 2026

You might not want to read a post about the new year or success yet. You might still be soaking in the holidays or trying to dig yourself out from underneath Christmas. This is the week when we eat what we want, don’t check the time, and try to stay in our pjs as much as possible. We all need a week like this. 

In the next couple of days, we’ll be staring down at 365 new days. Days that we can use to do more of the same, or something very different. 

Let’s get into what this might look like for you.

What You Think Matters

Every thought we have becomes the words we say and the actions we take. There are many who want to tell you that you can’t just talk yourself to wellness, safety or healing. Our thoughts have amazing potential as well as unfortunate distress. It all depends on the ones we feed. 

Human thoughts, difficult to define, often feel as if they happen to us, but in truth our thoughts are a type of catalog of our personal life experiences and the meaning we made of those experiences. From small insignificant moments to thoughts that we put deep musings into. 

Our thoughts are not random, they are not intrusive, though they may seem to be. Thoughts are reconstructing experience, or what we’ve come to call ‘memory” as our social reference. Thoughts have various levels of conscious connection to our in real time awareness. Humans are always thinking, sometimes more actively and with more awareness than other times. 

Have you ever driven down the road, lost in thought and then suddenly realized you did not track how you got from that last point of awareness to the one you are currently in?  Or have you ever encountered a smell that brought a thought of someone or someplace in your past. Thoughts can take us on a journey in the mind, of sorts, often out of order, and with no real inherent meaning, except that all those reconstructions are our experience.  

Your catalog of experience will vary from every other human in the world. We may share similar ideas. We may even have had shared moments in life together, but meaning is constructed individually, by that person. This is how siblings can grow up having very different experiences in the family from one another. It is often the explanation for why abusive husbands will not understand the experience of their abuse on their wife.

What Does This Have to do with 2026

You might be wondering what this has to do with the title tag line. Stay with me, this is the important piece. 

The experiences you have constructed about the abuse you’ve experienced have been life altering. Many of you have experienced dangerous conditions, even life threatening. The pain is real. Here’s the issue for every victim — how to address the pain so that you can move forward. It isn’t in the change correction of the abuser. It is not in him understanding your experience – because he probably won’t – even if he tries very hard to become a better human. The path to moving forward is in how you tell your repair story. This story is yours. 

Have you ever said, “I can’t heal as long as I am with the abuser?” I’ve heard many versions of this idea. There may even be those some consider an authority that will say something of this nature, but it isn’t true. It is, however, a potential landmine for you. Here’s why.

The Brain and the Mind

The thoughts you think, especially those you believe very strongly, or those you ruminate on become the action commands for the body. The brain is conducting business for the body based on the instructions we give the brain. 

See, brains do not operate on automatic processes alone. They operate by a perfectly orchestrated combination of metabolic process and human, agentic instruction by the owner of that brain/mind combo. 

Keeping your heart beating, your body fluids and oxygen in the right places, at the right levels is job 1 for the body. The other actions come from your instructions – your thoughts. Like telling yourself it’s time to get out of bed. It takes the thought, and the big shift of cortisol to make that happen so you don’t pass out on the way out of the covers. ( I hear the questions — we’ll clarify the cortisol question in another post – that’s not the topic of this one.)

In like manner, if you think you are not going to be safe unless your husband completely stops the abuse, you are setting yourself up for a self-fulfilled prophecy.

Self-Fulling Phenomenon

A self-fulfilling prophecy occurs when strong beliefs or expectations, even if untrue, influences a person’s behavior to the point of acting upon those beliefs, creating a condition where the belief validates itself. It happens in four steps: a belief forms, an expectation arises, behavior changes to match the expectation, and the outcome confirms the initial belief, leading to positive or negative results.

Securing Safety

To secure your safety, it starts with the beliefs in your own mind. It starts when you construct and architect for yourself safe conditions. Of course, you are not going to be able to circumvent every action of others, especially your husband’s direct targets upon you, but you are responsible for how you respond to his words and actions. 

You are not liable for other’s behaviors, but you are responsible for how you respond – and – the meaning you make of those actions. 

If you say things like, “I can’t” or “I’m not able,” what are you telling your mind? It may be very hard at first to take control of the overwhelming task of navigating life with an abuser, but the truth is – he may say words and do hurtful things – but he cannot put the thoughts into your mind. Your thoughts are yours. 

When he says awful things, we’re not going to tell ourselves what he is saying is fine, but we are going to get up and walk away, protecting our safety and dignity from further abusive words. We acknowledge the wrong, but we also resiliently remind ourselves that his words are lies and cruel. 

Healing happens when we learn to observe our thoughts, discarding those that do not serve us well, and assigning weight to the truthful ones that will help us navigate life’s injuries and overwhelm to the best of our ability.

Mentoring You in the Process

The process of safe thought reconstruction takes some work. Having someone walk alongside you in the initial days can be very beneficial so you develop skills to manage your mind. Center for Peace is offering a 30-day Living Well Course starting the 3rd week of January. If you would like to participate in this process, please email us – for an invitation.

We would love to see victims of abuse take 2026 on as their year for growth.