Words vibrate out into the world each day - some careless, some cruel and unkind, and many simply making noise to clutter the spaces & the clarity between us. So often our words are just a reaction, a buried hurt hurled out without thought.
When we create or evoke a spell - a witching - we speak with clarity and profound intention. And yet when we wish one another Happy New Year, we're all a bit vague about what we're intending for each other, and ourselves. Today I'm choosing to think of words as Powerful Tools I carry into 2022, points on a compass which can define, create and shape my experience, and which I need to choose carefully.
Each word has considerable weight and needs to be carefully chosen, packed and carried.
After a few test packs to see if I could manage the WEIGHT of these 22 (and still get the zipper up! 😆), I think I've finally got a valuable list that will help contribute shape, consciousness, meaning & direction to this coming year.
Here they are:
1. Grace
If there's one thing that brings a new energy to turbulent times it's Grace - that courteous, elegant, goodwill manifested outwardly when shrieking might be more appropriate. We don't fight the chaos and crap in the world with more of the same. We create an opportunity to calmly contribute to a new paradigm and a better level of personal and global dialogue when we exhibit and manifest Grace. And sweet Goddess knows we need more of that!.
2. Flow
Life is what happens when you're making other plans. If there's one thing I would collectively like to do-over from 2021, it's the wasted floundering and pushing against things for the sake of it when plans change. Cancelled tickets? Rebook and change your plans and stop bleating. My intention? To be a master of Flow - of moving elegantly around the rocks, the quicksand and the holes in the road.
3. Courage
Choosing to face things head on, even when they're not on our "Consider This Sometime" list requires courage and a lot of swallowing. Biting back the excuses, and swallowing the resistance, and choosing to put your head up, look it square in the eye and say, "Ok, I'm up for that", even when you FEEL like you're not and your voice shakes. Courage will be a big one for me this year, as I face some big changes.
4. Love
I hadn't even finished the first draft of this post when today, early on New Year's morning, Love called on me. I found our dying cat in the back laundry room, cold and stiff and noisily breathing his last. And love called me to scoop him into my arms and cradle him in my favourite pashmina to warm him, although he was icy to touch already and barely breathing. I sang to him and soothed him and rocked him against my heart to comfort him till his last breath, just 20 minutes later. I have learned already that the Love I will be called on to show and dig deep for maybe won't necessarily be about roses and romance and maybe will be stinky and scared and needing far more from me than I think I have to give.
5. Choice
If Covid has taught me anything, it is that humanity is cleft in two - into those who are "done unto" and those who deliberate and Choose. Whether they choose to co-operate or to create their own, new path really matters not, but the decision to be an agent of Choice and free will is one that I know has my name on it in 2022. And beyond.
6. Vision
Happy New Year wishes feel like they're about all washed up by January 10th... at the latest... as the turbulence of life, as we left it before the holidays, returns. I choose to hold Vision in 2022 - a vision that shines brightly, and far into the next decades.
7. Connection
Covid has shown me how isolated and fragmented we can become when 'someone' takes our toys and our distractions away. The choice towards Connection means the follow-through when opinions clash, when people disappoint us and when we don't quite feel it. Real Connection is strengthened through times of mediocrity and blugh when we allow people to be less than instagrammably perfect and don't cut them loose. I know 2022 is a year in which real connections will be deepened and tested.
8. Release
Letting go of my idea of how the future will look is huge - and needed. Allowing the things that aren't working to simply fail, and not being that person who tries too hard? Release is the step before opening my arms and my heart and accepting something new, and it has my name on it.
9. Gratitude
I want to carry this word right at the top of my 2022 stash, so I can easily access it everyday. For I am so blessed and showered with gifts and opportunity, just by breathing and smiling up into the sunshine. I'm taking conscious time to mark my gratitude, and actively making "thank you" a daily word.
10. Ease
Basking in ease is an idea that we're not too good at in our post-religious-stern-Calvinistic western culture. I choose to consciously carry the idea of Ease into my 2022 day-to-day so I can feel all the smooth flow more consciously. Things will be easier.
11. Contentment
I love this word and it's spoken so infrequently. Contentment. That sense of having enough, of being full and replete. In 2022, I want to feel, and plan to consciously be aware of, more moments of pure contentment.
12. Simplicity
Decluttering my feelings, my dreams, my needs, my social world, my home - the longing for simplicity in me runs deep. I can't wait tomorrow to start removing old energy pieces from my home and my thought life. If you haven't yet found The Minimalist community here on Hive, see you over there!
13. Completion
The 341 half-finished ideas, projects, products in development.... I'm working to FINISH some things off to free up some space in my idea-driven world! I'm gunna remove the term, "I'm gunna" from my vocabulary! 😆
14. Journey
The choice to Journey is always ours, Covid restrictions or not. 2022 will see me posting often in the @haveyoubeenhere Hive community as I explore even small destinations much closer to home, and plan larger forays. I know that the fixed intention and preparation for a journey, will open doors and borders. And so it is!
15. Creativity
2022 is the year will be seeing my daughter off to college in Europe. I plan to start being creative NOW - not that's I'm not already - but basically ramping up my creative self to open new doorways of expression and manifestation. I gifted myself some art supplies for Christmas to begin my Botanical Illustration journey, and I'm excited about calling a piano into my world pretty soon. It's time.
16. Generosity
A happy heart gives from it's overflow, so planning for generosity is actually planning for your own overflowing home-heart-wallet. It matters to me that I not be one of the takers of life, and give from my own overflowing cup.
17. Growth
The idea that only children grow is a sad one. I'm excited by people who continue to grow, and delight in the idea of choosing growth, rather than "growing" by default on the torture rack of challenge, loss and disappointment. Holding the expectation of growth is like holding a door open for a guest whom you know is hurrying towards you.
18. Initiative
Instead of sitting back and saying "Wouldn't it be good if...?", I intend to hold the sacred seed of being an Initiator and to nurture it till it takes root. Doesn't mean I need to do everything myself, but perhaps I will be more of an enabler - initiating an idea and supporting someone else to breathe life into Things That Matter.
19. Abundance
I'm choosing to hold a bigger bucket in my outstretched arms, to receive more of the things which have my name on them. Heck, maybe I'll build a chute for peak inflow periods too! 😆
20. Tenacity
2021 saw so many people just Give Up. Fear, buying into the global doom & gloom, and more fear. It's into that world that I choose to dust off and polish my own Tenacity and to carry it boldly when others tell me to give it up, wait it out or Why don't you do something else?
21. Freedom
2022 isn't about creating more freedom, it's about celebrating the complete Freedom I already have over my sovereign self and celebrating that! Speaking often about my free choices, my right to be, my right to believe. I'm choosing to look at life through this lens, and not the fear-filled, "they said" one.
22. Peace
Mostly, in 2022, I will be holding this word close to my heart. Peace. Peace with what is, with who I am, with what each day brings me as a gift and a challenge. Turbulence, angst, worry.... they are the enemy of Peace. And when we hold onto a deep peace in our hearts, only harmony and real inner wealth can find us.
That's quite a list, isn't it?
I want to thank and acknowledge my long time friend, john Iosifidis, for posting on facebook for the 21 words that had defined his 2021. It left me with the unspoken question of what his 2022 words were, but they didn't come. Perhaps implied and held in the quietness of his heart. When I read his "Happy New Year" at the end of his post, it felt a bit lame and made me realize that for each cringeworthy word that may have defined anyone's 2021, there is a noble and worthy word to balance that and to carry forward into 2022.
These 22 words will be my yardstick one year form now, as I look back. They are words I will hold myself accountable to, and aspire to uphold and make manifest.
The days and years pass too easily when we greet them with only a thin façade of hope and no real intention.
One day, One step, One Year, 22 Words.
Embodying. Grateful. Blessed.
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