What is your "word" for the New Year?

Childofmine

one day at a time
Every two or three months, two business-related friends come over and we have a three-hour "session."

We talk about whatever is going on in our personal and professional lives, and what our goals are, and our problems and frustrations and things we can't figure out. We pledge complete confidentiality.

Monday night they came over. One friend said that instead of making resolutions, last year she chose a word to try to live by. Her word was gratitude. She talked about what that had meant to her over the past year, focusing on the little things that are good in her life, writing notes to people who might not expect a note, etc.

The word she has chosen for 2015 is Joy.

She challenged the other two of us to chose a word, and then, she gave us a list of possible words that she had put together, like Peace, Serenity, Happiness, Compassion, Challenge, etc.

One of the words was Silence. That is the word I am choosing for 2015. Now, get this: I am an extrovert. I am a talker. Talking it out is how I make sense of the world. Sometimes I have to say the same thing four times just to process it---and I joke to my friends that woe be to them who walks by twice before I've gotten it out four times. Lol.

Anyway, during the past five years, I have flirted with silence. I have tried it on for size a bit. I have resorted to it. I have succumbed to it, because there were no words left to say. I have been completely and totally without any resources (that I knew of) at times over the past five years. I have been spent and empty and...silent.

What a good thing that has been for me to experience. All my life, I have been a person of action. Get it done. Take care of it. Solve it.

My son's addiction has turned all of that history and pattern and habit and MO on its head. None of that works with addiction. I have been shown that, inch by inch and failure by failure that I have experienced in trying to get my son to just....stop....it.

So I am choosing Silence for 2015. Right now here is what that means to me. Keeping my mouth shut. Going inside myself to find peace. Sitting without stimulation. Just being. Cut down on complaining. Like my momma said, "If you don't have something nice to say...."

I'm sure it can mean much more and I want to find out what Silence can mean in 2015.

What's your word for 2015?

Warm, compassionate, loving hugs to each of the Warriors on this site. You are the true heroes of life. You continue to choose love, in the face of tremendous uncertainty, loss, grief and pain. You come back again and again to the table to try once more, each of you in your own wise, growing, knowing way.

You have taught me so much and I am very grateful. To a great 2015 for each one of us, regardless! Regardless of anybody and anything. We can do it! We can create a wonderful year for ourselves, and together we are unstoppable.
 

recoveringenabler

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Presence.

I'm practicing this now. I look back and can see the ways in which I was not present. I was stressed. Or worried. Or thinking. Or tired. Or anxious. Or trying to be perfect. Or...................anything but right here in my body, in the moment, accepting what is.........I have to keep bringing myself back to presence, it's a continual process of remembering.......and yet in the moments that I can do it, peacefulness, serenity, stillness, gratitude and a calm joy emerge.

Thank you COM, you continue to bring your beautiful insights and deep compassion to all of us........I hope your New Year is filled with not only silence but all that you wish for.
 

BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Peace.

This will probably always be my word for every year. I had so much chaos for so long that I just love peace, boredom, serenity, consistency, you name the humdrum word that means "lack of drama" and I pick that word :)

Great food for thought COM :)
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
Every two or three months, two business-related friends come over and we have a three-hour "session."
We talk about whatever is going on in our personal and professional lives, and what our goals are, and our problems and frustrations and things we can't figure out. We pledge complete confidentiality.

What an incredibly valuable practice. I am happy for you that this is so.

My word: KFCD

KFCD is an expression coined by the writer Anne Lamott. KFCD are the call letters for the always-tuned-to-negative radio station playing in our heads. Right there, beneath the cares and the triumphs and the losses of every day, beneath the wisdom and the magic of the writers and musicians we entertain and spinning through every beautiful intention we find and hold for ourselves...there is KFCD, playing away.

I don't know how this will look or what it means, really, to hold awareness of that word as my intention. It has something to do with Brene Brown's "lean in."

It has something to do with simple acceptance ~ with not making things okay, and being okay with things that are not, and never will be, okay.

And something to do with that quote I like so much about faith, and about the Eternal Now.

I love that you chose this topic for us, COM. I knew KFCD was my "word", but writing about it here for you clarified its meaning for me.

Thank you, very much.

:O)

Cedar
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
One of the words was Silence. That is the word I am choosing for 2015. Now, get this: I am an extrovert. I am a talker. Talking it out is how I make sense of the world. Sometimes I have to say the same thing four times just to process it---and I joke to my friends that woe be to them who walks by twice before I've gotten it out four times. Lol.
Anyway, during the past five years, I have flirted with silence. I have tried it on for size a bit. I have resorted to it. I have succumbed to it, because there were no words left to say. I have been completely and totally without any resources (that I knew of) at times over the past five years. I have been spent and empty and...silent.

So you are leaning in; choosing to.

"I have succumbed to it, because there were no words left to say."

Cedar
 

Scent of Cedar *

Well-Known Member
Lucy, what does "bastion" mean to you, if you would? Is it tower of strength and silence, or more in the sense of a beacon to bring everything home, or...meaning, maybe.

Cedar
 

nlj

Well-Known Member
It's both Cedar. It's a position of strength and safety from where I can send out defensive fire in several directions. It's also a tower of enduring principles against the onslaught of chaos, prejudice, suffering and evil. It's a safe place, in all its meanings. The Welsh word cwtch (pronounced cutch as in butch), is used to describe a loving hug, but literally means a 'safe place'. Bastion sounds like a stronger word than cwtch though, so bastion is my word for 2015.
 
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BusynMember

Well-Known Member
Jabster, I forgot to add to the "it's-not-my-mother" post that MY mother also probably would have added to the "I can't afford to feed you" that "You're getting fat anyway. You don't need to eat." Often the girls in our family heard "You're fat."

We were skinny. Both of us, but we both believed we were fat.

My sister has had a lifelong battle with anorexia/bulimia. She is 5'4 and if she weighs 100 lbs., she diets. She also works out for an hour at 4:30am( before work) seven days a week. She runs. She thinks she has licked her eating disorder.

It almost happened to me too, but I stopped it very quickly. Not sure how. My mom was big on "guys only like skinny girls with long hair." And getting the guys meant a lot to my mom!!!

I won't even tell you what she said after I had my hair cut to my shoulders.

I wish I had had a mother like yours.

I hope you and Lil had a really peaceful, nice, serene New Years Eve and I wish you two a wonderful 2015. You two can make it happen. I believe in you.
 

Tanya M

Living with an attitude of gratitude
Staff member
Blessed

I am reminded to count my blessings. No matter how bad or chaotic life can become we all still have so many things in our lives that are good.
 

Lil

Well-Known Member
Jabster, I forgot to add to the "it's-not-my-mother" post that MY mother also probably would have added to the "I can't afford to feed you" that "You're getting fat anyway. You don't need to eat." Often the girls in our family heard "You're fat."
We were skinny. Both of us, but we both believed we were fat.
My sister has had a lifelong battle with anorexia/bulimia. She is 5'4 and if she weighs 100 lbs., she diets. She also works out for an hour at 4:30am( before work) seven days a week. She runs. She thinks she has licked her eating disorder.
It almost happened to me too, but I stopped it very quickly. Not sure how. My mom was big on "guys only like skinny girls with long hair." And getting the guys meant a lot to my mom!!!
I won't even tell you what she said after I had my hair cut to my shoulders.
I wish I had had a mother like yours.
I hope you and Lil had a really peaceful, nice, serene New Years Eve and I wish you two a wonderful 2015. You two can make it happen. I believe in you.

I believe you put this on the wrong thread. :) Now that I've seen it, I'll tell Jabber.

I think my word will be content. Not content - as in "some adult content", but content, as in "I'm content with my place in the world."
English is hard. :)
 

JKF

Well-Known Member
My word is acceptance. Acceptance of my difficult child for who he is. Acceptance of myself. Acceptance of the fact that life isn't always perfect. I want 2015 to be the year that I stop worrying and trying to control things I have no control over. So for me acceptance is the perfect word.
 
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