What is Your Word for 2021?

A Daily Word Practice

I stopped doing resolutions a few years ago when I realized I started to feel shame when I wasn’t able to live them out and be consistent throughout the year. Don't get me wrong, resolutions are meant to help us improve no doubt. We come up with resolutions to save money, to lose weight, to make healthier choices, basically to be better. All of those things are great for sure. But how crappy do you feel if you fall off of the wagon? Sometimes I would last a few weeks or a month. There were a few years I actually got through the first quarter sticking to a consistent plan but after a few days or weeks of falling off of going to the gym, eating badly, or not saving money I just threw it all away which made me feel disappointment and shame in myself. Why do we put ourselves through that year after year? In 2019 instead of adopting a resolution I opted to select a word that I wanted to explore more in the new year and man have I learned so much. Selecting a word allowed me to have grace and compassion with myself daily. It also allowed me to expand practicing the word to all parts of my life. Everyday I had a new chance and opportunity to decide how I want to practice the word which provided so much gratitude and freedom.

A Word To Live By

“Words have energy and power with the ability to help, to heal, to hinder, to harm, to humiliate, and to humble.” ~Yehuda Berg~

The same year I decided to adopt a word to focus on daily I created an IG page to hold me accountable for living out the word I selected. My word that year was self-care. Coming off of a year of consistent therapy and discomfort in addressing some difficult things that were showing up in my life I wanted to explore self-care and what it could look like for me. I spent the whole year starting my day asking myself “How can I practice self-care today?” Sometimes the answer was easy. It was as simple as taking myself to lunch or getting some extra rest. Other times it looked like having difficult conversations, grappling with cancelling all of my sessions to take some time for journaling and reflection, or creating boundaries with people I was once close to. This year (the beginning of 2020) I led an intention setting workshop for an amazing group at a yoga studio in town that focuses on mental health and wellness. At that workshop I adopted the word self-love as my intention to live out for the year. I had different ideas for the ways I wanted to live out self-love but the pandemic happened. Honestly, this year's lesson in self love was hard but beautiful. I learned to love myself the way that I would want someone else to love me and it has been life changing.

So many words. How Do I pick one?

So maybe you are trying to figure out where to start in selecting your word for the new year. How does one select their word? Well let me first say this is a great time to start thinking about it. We have a few weeks left in 2020 which gives us time to think about a word that aligns with ways in which we can be better people and live it out daily. I encourage you to meditate daily and pay attention to feelings and thoughts that come up for you. As you go about your day, pay attention to any recurring thoughts, feelings, and words that come up for you. A few questions to consider when selecting your word would be:

-What is it I want to feel?

-What do I want more of in my daily life?

-What do I want to feel when I wake up in the morning?

-What do I want to feel when I go to sleep at night?

-What do I want to be more of to my family/friends/co workers/social circles?

-What is it that I need to achieve my short term goals?

-What is it that I need to be to achieve my long term goals?

-What do I see in others that I would like to be too?

-What do I need to feel so that I can BE more?

-What do I need to feel so that I can DO more?

-What do I need to be my truest, authentic self?

Reflect and Select

“When you do things with your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy." ~Rumi~

Spend time with your thoughts as you are searching for a word. This will be a word that you try to find ways to live out daily. And if you don’t live out that word that day you flood you give yourself all of love, grace, and compassion you can muster until you can reevaluate how you may demonstrate your word that day. Words have power. Words give life. What words do we want to live out in 2021? We have a few weeks to figure it out. I will reveal mine on the IG page soon! Go forth and find your word! And remember La vita è Bella!