My 2016 word of the year

Many years ago, thanks to initiative from Susannah Conway and Liz Lamoreux, I gave up setting New Year's resolutions in favor of selecting a "Word of the Year."

I've really come to appreciate how focusing in on one word provides guidance for how I want to orientate my days, and, more broadly, live my life.

Last year my word was courage. And, boyhowdie, in looking back, I can see how courage flowed through the entire year.

As I wrote back then, I knew I wanted a strong word. Something to push me to take challenges, to have tough conversations, to leap sometimes without looking.

Courage, also, to me spoke of approaching challenges with heart. Not ignoring or stuffing any fear involved, but intentionally moving forward through compassion, both for myself and for others involved. Taking the risks necessary to grow and change, and come out the other side a better woman.

I'm proud to say I did a lot of that. And I think I am a better woman for it.

Having courage as my word of the year was so beneficial that part of me wanted to hang on to it through 2016. And when I consider the signs around me, I can see how courage is still playing a major role. (Of course, I'm not sure you ever really "get rid of" any of your words.) But I also know I have somewhat different needs this year.

Courage was about overcoming fear — an internal issue, yes, but in many ways, externally motivated.

For 2016, I have chosen to come back home, literally and figuratively.

I have chosen "nourish."

Nourish allows me to focus inward. To take care of my body — from what I eat, to how and when I move, to honoring this form that carries my heart and soul as it is, here and now.

Nourish allows me to focus on my home. From mindfully caring for the space where I spend much of my time, to taking into consideration the "stuff" inside — Do the things within make me happy, are they beautiful, do they bring pleasure?

Nourish also allows me to focus on healthy relationships. Am I nourishing those around me, my husband, my friends? Am I being nourished in return? Am I giving Lucy the care and love that she needs?

I know that nourish is not going to be easy for me. But then courage was not easy for me from the get-go either. It's all just part of this thing we call life.

Did you choose a word for 2016? I'd love for you to share it in the comments below. And of course, just because it's now February doesn't mean you can't still choose a word.

(If you'd like some guidance, it looks like you can still get in on Susannah's free "Find Your Word" 5-day email workshop. I highly recommend this process.)

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P.S. Thanks to Jo of The Darling Tree for the nourish art above. She does beautiful web design work and art. Check her out!

Sunday sadhana

To me, sadhana is a daily spiritual practice allowing time and space for an individual to turn inward.

As Yogi Bhajan (of the Kundalini yoga tradition) says, "Sadhana is self-enrichment. It is not something which is done to please somebody or to gain something. Sadhana is a personal process in which you bring out your best."

Sadhana could be taking a walk in nature, doing breath work or yoga asanas on a mat, spending time meditating or chanting, reading and reflecting on a poem, or simply watching the sun rise.

Please accept this post as a possible starting point for your own practice today.

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Faith, by David Whyte, from Where Many Rivers Meet

I want to write about faith, about the way the moon rises over cold snow, night after night,

faithful even as it fades from fullness, slowly becoming that last curving and impossible sliver of light before the final darkness.

But I have no faith myself I refuse it even the smallest entry.

Let this then, my small poem, like a new moon, slender and barely open, be the first prayer that opens me to faith.

A constant buzzing of self-blame

A friend called yesterday and left me a voice message.

It was a pretty straight-forward, not-at-all-detailed "Could you call me? I need to talk to you about something" message.

My brain did what I'm realizing it always does. It thought:

What did I do wrong?

Did I say something wrong?

Is she upset with me?

My instinct was to avoid calling her.

Stuff my fingers in my ears and sing, "Lalalalalalala."

If I don't call her, I won't ever have to find out (or deal with) what my brain says I did wrong. Because, you know, obviously I'm to blame for something.

But for the first time, I heard my brain as if it were separate from me. I observed this talk happening as if my brain were another "friend" berating me. And I thought,

Well, isn't that interesting?

Are you familiar with this pattern of self-doubt? Of self-questioning? Of negative self-talk?

I'm rather familiar with it. And I'm pretty sure it fuels and feeds bigger issues — such as my perfectionistic needs, and therefore my tendency to procrastinate. If I don't start something, I can't do it wrong. Of course, if I wait to start something (because inevitably at some point I do have to begin) and attack it close to deadline, then I drive myself batty because I know I can't produce "perfection."

So my brain turns that frustration inward.

Working last-minute again?

Now you'll never get it right.

Stupid.

I'm really tired of this pattern my brain and I have got going. We need a new relationship.

While I could spend hours (in or out of therapy) bantering about the reason why my brain does this, I'm not sure that's actually helpful here. No matter the "why," in the end, I have to make a choice to react differently. To relate differently.

As Sharon Salzberg wrote in her recent On Being blog post, "The Proliferation of All That Will Ever Be," it's easy to blame ourselves "for things we cannot control, rather than being empowered by what we can control, and how we relate to those thoughts that have arisen in our minds."

She adds:

While we might have some control of our lifestyle choices, relationships, jobs, and more, we can’t actually create or stop certain feelings from coming up. The real sense of freedom and empowerment in our lives is not from the fact that we can think or feel whatever we want, but that we can relate differently to the things we do think or feel.

It's not an easy task. But for right here, right now, I think I'll start by calling my friend.

"41 before 42" — three months left

Counting down the months to my 42nd birthday. And once again running through my "41 before 42" list. I still can't believe it's 2016 already. I just took down my Christmas tree!

Anywho ... notes added and italicized where I've started or completed an item.

Read on, friends.

• 41 Before 42 •

1. Choreograph a country line dance (and see if Barb will teach it at Cowboys) — I've picked the song I want to use. Time to start working.
2. Plant and grow garlic — Hmmm. Not sure this will happen. Can I plant in the spring?
3. Watch every episode of MASH — G's watching with me, and — SUPER EXCITING — my parents bought us the entire collection for Christmas so we're moving faster now that we don't have to wait for the library. We're into the second disc of the third season. 
4. Try aerial yoga and/or aerial silks — Done! May also take some local classes this spring.
5. Plan my next trip to France (perhaps running a retreat at Little French Retreat)
6. Attend a Switchbacks match — Ugh. Missed out because I wasn't paying attention to the calendar. Next year!
7. Try kayaking — Done. Not just once, not just twice, but three times. I've learned how much I love water sports.
8. Learn barista basics — Done! And I wrote a story about it too. Find it here, in the premier issue of Springs Magazine.
9. Plant flower bulbs this fall — Also missed the ball on this. Maybe I'll get some in-house early bloomers.
10. Take a birding and/or bird banding class — Pitched a story on this, so hoping for it to happen in early spring.
11. Continue to reduce my wardrobe, a la Project 333 — Progressing. Gonna post another update in the next week or so.
12. Take French language lessons
13. Read at least 75 books — To date: 63 books done, re-read one, and in progress on four.
14. Take classes on how to use the manual functions on my DSLR camera — I'm actually looking at purchasing a new, much smaller and lighter camera to use on my travels, so this goal may shift some over the year.
15. Have at least one item of clothing tailored to fit
16. Learn to bake croissants — Done! The fabulous Stephanie from Steffi's Bakery & Confections taught me. Now I gotta make them on my own at home.
17. Get will and living will in order
18. Have a bouquet of flowers in the house, fresh once a month — I've had flowers in the house about every other month. I'm good with that.
19. Attend a fest in Telluride — I had this on the calendar and then we had some family issues that meant I had to cancel. Perhaps in the spring...
20. Take performance driving lessons
21. Add a piece of original art to my collection from an artist I have not yet met
22. Stay up once all night until sunrise
23. Perform at a poetry slam/open mic
24. Learn to bake French macarons — My croissant-baking friend is going to help me with this as well. Lots of baking this winter!
25. Attend the Santa Fe Opera — Going, again, on the not-gonna-happen list. Missed the summer season. Sigh. Next year.
26. Be involved with a stage show in some way
27. Bake a fruit pie, with homemade crust, from scratch — OK, I have NOT baked a fruit pie yet, but I did bake a pecan pie from scratch (see photo proof above). Thanks, again, to Stephanie. (See #16.) I learned a ton, and I'm planning to tackle a fruit pie later in the spring.
28. Visit at least one new-to-me museum — Visited Taliesan West in Scottsdale. Absolutely beautiful. Also, visited the Museum of International Folk Art in Santa Fe. Visited the Portland Museum of Art in Maine; Ministers Island in New Brunswick; the Canadian Museum of Immigration at Pier 21 in Halifax, Nova Scotia; the Maritime Museum of the Atlantic in Halifax; and the Sherbrooke Village Museum in Nova Scotia. Also the Pinball Museum and the Taubman Museum of Art in Roanoke, Virginia.
29. Watch one new-to-me movie and one classic film a month — Saw Pitch Perfect 2! (Laughed and cried.) Tomorrowland, and Mr. Holmes. Also watched Frances Ha. At the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival earlier this month, I viewed the classic A Woman Under the Influence, as well as a bunch of New Mexico shorts and the documentary The Seventh Fire. G and I re-watched all of the Hunger Games movies, and then went and saw the final one in the theater. (So good!) Others we've seen: Spanglish, Packed in a Trunk (doc), Her, and The Way.
30. Play Settlers of Catan — Found friends who have the game and want to play.
31. Stay at the Beaumont Hotel in Ouray
32. Take an oracle card-making class — Took the awesome Inner Alchemy Fire Cards class, taught online by Mindy Tsonas.
33. Research and read more about walking the Camino de Santiago — Picked up a few books and watched The Way.
34. Travel (again) with a girlfriend — Travelled to Santa Fe with two girlfriends. So much fun. Visited Brush Creek Ranch with another friend. (Story on this trip ran as the cover piece for the November/December issue of Springs Style Magazine.)
35. Fly a kite
36. Send postcards to friends once a month just because — Doing.
37. Try fly fishing — Ah! Done! And enjoyed more than I expected.
38. Visit Shambhala Mountain Center
39. Do a Georgia O'Keeffe tour around New Mexico (Ghost Ranch, Abiquiu, etc.) — No tour yet, but I did get back to the O'Keeffe Museum in Santa Fe, and saw a great O'Keeffe exhibit at the New Mexico Museum of Art.
40. Do a not-just-head-shot photo shoot (with Becky)
41. Get off my ass already and pitch the nun story to Oprah Magazine

Other accomplishments not on this list: Tried archery for the first time. Played paintball. Rode a horse. Stayed at a dude ranch. Learned to stand-up paddle board. Hiked a chunk of the Appalachian Trail. Learned to make tortillas with Chef Mica at the Santa Fe School of Cooking. Sat a few rows away from George R.R. Martin as he honored Gena Rowlands at the Santa Fe Independent Film Festival. Acquired a ukelele for Christmas and have started online lessons. Indoor rock climbing — top-rope and bouldering — a few times a week. Learning, slowly, to walk a slackline. Taught my first two yoga/writing workshops. Started working on a documentary. Learned to make sauerkraut at The Brinery and cheese at Zingerman's while visiting Ann Arbor, Michigan, for the first time.

What's on your to-do-that-you've-never-done list for this month or this year?

Sunday sadhana

To me, sadhana is a daily spiritual practice allowing time and space for an individual to turn inward.

As Yogi Bhajan (of the Kundalini yoga tradition) says, "Sadhana is self-enrichment. It is not something which is done to please somebody or to gain something. Sadhana is a personal process in which you bring out your best."

Sadhana could be taking a walk in nature, doing breath work or yoga asanas on a mat, spending time meditating or chanting, reading and reflecting on a poem, or simply watching the sun rise.

Please accept this post as a possible starting point for your own practice today.

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