Framing Your Year
Image credit pine watt from Unsplash
How did 2020 call you to grow and transform? What hopes and dreams do you have for 2021? What areas of your life may be searching for healing?
The idea of setting a New Year’s resolution has given me a squirmy and uncomfortable feeling during my adult life. Something about the idea of choosing one goal or practice for an entire year seems daunting and unrealistic to me. And, as I’ve thought about this yearly ritual, I think its roots are found in our culture’s ways of going, doing and expectation, instead of honoring and amplifying our inherent goodness and beauty as unique human beings. Instead of setting a resolution for myself, over the past few years I’ve come to learn of and love the practice of choosing an intention and word for the year.
Holding an intention for the year- one sentence of something your heart dreams or longs to create, transform, heal- establishes a wider framework for growth and practice for the year ahead. It seems to me to connect more deeply and richly with our individual spirituality. In chaplaincy and spiritual care, spirituality is defined as what brings us meaning and purpose. What makes our hearts sing….where and how we find rest….our vocations (personal and professional)…our communities….our religious tradition…the list goes on. In my own practice of setting an intention and holding a word of the year, it’s allowed me to breathe the word + feeling I choose into my daily life and practices with more authenticity and fluidity. Last year my word was wild, and I chose it as a way to identify and own my voice in renewed ways. (For more background on what wild means to me, check out the “Wild grace?” section on this blog, and the first post of this blog. :)
Sometimes our words may choose us. As we listen and reflect on our previous year and look toward the year ahead, we may find that a hope arises within us, or, perhaps a longing for something that was lost or desires healing whispers to us. When you feel that stirring within, that’s a sign that your heart is directing you toward what’s true in you. This was so for me this year.
This year my intention is: In 2021, I will cultivate my home and feel free being myself. The word I’ve chosen is free. And, oh, this sentence and word makes my heart and soul sing with joy, hope, and a bit of fear, too. Next week I’ll share more thoughts on what cultivating my home and feeling free means for my story.
