Okay, You've Picked Your Word of the Year... Now What?
What to 'do' with your words or themes or magical intentions for the new year.
WHEW! We’re through! We’re through into the wilds of the first month of the new year. We’re through the stimulation and fascinating ups and downs of the holidays and we’re through the clamour of preparation for the NEW YEAR!
Now what?
Sometimes I wonder if the fatigue and the need to hibernate the comes in the first months of the year actually comes from the weight of expectations that we carry around with us in December.
I have a few poems that I carry with me because my first encounter with them changed my life. This is one of them:
MERRY
by Shel Silverstein
No one’s hangin’ stockin’s up,
No one’s bakin’ pie,
No one’s lookin’ up to see
A new star in the sky.
No one’s talkin’ brotherhood,
No one’s givin’ gifts,
And no one loves a Christmas tree
On March the twenty-fifth.
You might be surprised to see that this is one of my life-changing poems, but when I met it, it deeply challenged the way that I move after making any Big Plans for my future. This poem made me stop and ask: now what? How can I take all of the magic of the season with me into my days? How can I truly let what I know to be true for me change me?
Now what?
You have arrived in 2024, possibly with a Word or a Theme or an Intention or a Plan or two for the new year.
What are you going to do with them?
How are you going to honour the you who spent the time choosing or deciding or intending them?
How are you going to keep that magic alive for yourself, whether that be today, or two-weeks-from-Thursday, or on March the 25th?
Because that, my dears, is what actually makes magic happen: showing up for it.
How can you create a very small, very do-able practice of honouring your Word/Theme/Intention?
If your word is expand, how can you notice, see, practice, honour, and cultivate expansion today?
If your theme is wonder, how can you participate in creating more - and noticing and being grateful for - wonder today?
If you have a resolution or intention about money, how can you practice a better relationship with money today?
What are you going to do to commit to your word as a sacred, beautiful practice?
I’m not Giving You More To DO, I am, in fact, giving you LESS. Because when you make your word/theme/intention into a daily - or even weekly - practice, you will already feel like you are in your own magical zone. You will begin to have the shifts, and see the glimpses, and make the tiny changes that will add up in ways you won’t be able to fully appreciate until you Arrive in ‘25 (hahah: # and TM) and look back.
And that you will be so grateful to this you.
Show up for your own self.
Make the longings of your 2023 self the practice of your 2024 self. Actively participate in the creation of what you want.
No matter what.
Wishing you so much magic in this new turn around the sun.
With so much love,
P.S. I have a newly revamped and about-to-be-very-exciting newsletter. I’d love to write to you and share all of that magic with you. If you are interested, it’s here.
If you aren’t already subscribed on Substack, I hope you will stick around. I’d love to keep sharing the magic with you.
If you enjoyed this, I would be so grateful if you would share it. Creating connections with other people who ‘get it’ is one of the most beautiful, ripple-creating magics of all.