Word of the Year

I've gone back and forth over the past few years with choosing a word. I would think and think and force and force and decide on one just to forget about it or come to hate it. I picked words I thought I should pick, ones that would push me to be better or more. I think that's the exact opposite of what I was needing. Last year I didn't really choose a word, I think if I were to choose one now for then I would say "through." As in, keep pushing through, don't make another big change, don't move because it isn't what you thought it would be, keep going. If you're going through hell, keep going.

It wasn't the most fun of years, and if I had known that was my word at the beginning I might have felt sad about it, but now it's the end and yay, I went through!

This year I wanted a word again, I wanted to find one that inspired and held me but didn't push me rudely. A want and even more so, and intention instead of a should. I thought and though (like years past) and I let a couple sit that felt good, and as the clock struck 9pm on New Years's Eve I thought I had it. There were two words, Reach and Nourish, and they were good. They felt good, but they didn't feel good without the other. I know that with these practices you can make the rules as you go and there was nothing wrong with having two, but it still didn't feel quite right.

I sat down to watch a movie and brainstorm for the new year, I sent a couple texts and felt a little discouraged about something else, and it was in that discouragement, while walking from my room to the laundry (yes I had a wild New Year's Eve) that my word popped in.

Listen.

The discouragement I had been feeling, it was towards an exercise I had tried to do multiple times and couldn't complete. The exercise: a visualization of meeting my inner mentor. I couldn't meet her, I would get to her house and when I would look in her direction it was like a white fog. She didn't tell me her name, she didn't give me a gift, and what was this beam of light shit? I want to meet my inner mentor, I want to connect better to my intuition, I want to move forward connecting better to myself. I was trying to get at that with Nourish. Nourish my body, nourish my mind, take care so that my inner mentor could be seen.

But Listen... man, Listen was even better. That one popped in as the best ideas do. It felt like intuition and not force. It felt right. I put my laundry in the wash and I went back to my movie and felt better. Listen. It's time to listen.

I don't know exactly how I'm going to live that out this year, I don't know what practices I am going to put into place, but I know that when things feel right and when they feel wrong I am going to listen. I'm going to listen to what is really being said by my mentor and my critic, not just the exact words that are played over and over, but why they are being played over and over. I am going to listen and see who's doing the talking, trusting the calm voice over the anxious one.

In 2016 I am going to Listen and in doing so, I believe I will be able to reach and nourish.

Here's to a good year.

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