Do you choose a word at the beginning of each year to be your travelling companion?
Which words have you chosen and how have they served you?
In 2011, I chose the word worthy. It was a word I kept hearing over and over, a word that helped explain why I was so miserable, despite having "the perfect life" and the life I'd always dreamed of.
A couple of months into the year, I decided to share the things I was learning as I journeyed with this word, worthy.
Over the course of the year, I learnt that:
* leaning into pain went against everything I knew, but it brought me closer to healing.
* talking really could change things.
* numbness was a real response to real or imagined threat, and that it actually made me more (rather than less) vulnerable.
* I was more afraid than I really needed to be.
* it actually was possible to let myself off the hook every now and again.
* talismans actually do work.
* failure offers tremendous gifts, even though it rarely feels like that at the time.
* every creative and worthwhile endeavour has an ugly phase, and that's it's just a phase but probably the most important one.
* I actually was the one I was waiting for (dammit).
* I am a lot less alone than I think I am.
As 2011 drew to a close, I made my peace with the word that had consistently whupped my hide for twelve months and made space for a new word to guide my path.
But, of course, the worthiness work will never really end.
So, each week on Wednesday, you are warmly invited to spend a little time in this space considering how you might nourish your own self worth. I will post a question, prompt or musing inspired by something I have learnt during the course of the week. And I will invite you to share your response.
Your response might take the form of a scribble in your journal, a witnessed moment of synchronicity, a photo, an affirmation, a poem, a treat, a piece of art or craft, a quiet moment, a quote, a plan, a fledgling idea, a challenge, whatever takes you outside your self so that you can see the extra in your ordinary.
You are warmly encouraged to leave a comment sharing a link to your blog or flickr page or wherever you commune online, or if you don't have any such thing, you are most welcome leave a comment sharing your experience.
I look forward to learning more about your own dance with worthiness. Because this I do know for sure: you are not dancing alone.
