12/16/2025
How entire systems profit from your pressure, and what it means to choose yourself instead
Every December/January, the world feels like it tilts into performance mode. There’s this collective tightening.....a push to cleanse, reset, become better, smaller, more disciplined, more productive, more optimized. And the message is so loud and so constant that you’d think it was coming from inside you.
But it’s not.
This pressure doesn’t originate in your body. It’s manufactured. It’s systemic. And it’s everywhere.
The New Year is one of the most effective recruitment tools for systems that rely on your self-doubt to survive.
Diet culture. Capitalism. The wellness industry. White supremacy and purity culture. Patriarchy. Medical fatphobia. Hustle culture. The self-improvement machine.
They collude with each other, whispering the same lie in different languages: You should be better by now. You should be fixed by now. You should be new by now.
And if you aren’t? Someone will happily sell you a program, a detox, a supplement, a gym membership, a planner, a reset, a new identity...... whatever keeps the wheels turning.
Your insecurities are not an accident. They are an economy.
🤍Small snippet from my latest blog called “A New Year That Doesn’t Ask You to Abandon Yourself”
Read the full post on my website at Hkcoultas.com or via the links in my bio!