Word Of The Day: ALIVE

When I came up with the list of words on which to hang my 2020 hat and turned it into a word cloud, I noticed that three of the words appeared larger than any of the others.

ALIVE

ENERGIZED

TRUSTING

As it turns out, it’s because those were the only three words that appeared on my list twice. Apparently they are meant to be especially useful this year as I continue to put my daily efforts into crafting a meaningful life. Which, for the record, is why I suspect we are all here in the first place.

Over the next few weeks I’ll focus on a word of the day drawn from that list, taking a deeper dive into what it means, and how it can inform, influence, and inspire me in meaningful and purposeful ways.

ALIVE

Not only did alive show up twice, it was also the first word that appeared on my list. That can’t be an accident. Finding myself in my mid-sixties it is clear that I’ve crested the hill that is my life. Death is closer than my arrival on the planet, and I find myself making friends with that truth. Not in a fearful, wringing-my-hands-sort of way, or a morbid, oh-well sort of way, but in a living, breathing, get-off-your-ass-and-show-up-sort of way.

To be alive is a daily practice, a discipline, a choice. Or as Andy and Redd succinctly remind us in The Shawshank Redemption - …get busy living or get busy dying…

Alive means knowing what and who bring me to life, and spending my time and energy doing those things and in relationship with those people.

Alive means choosing that which sustains, nourishes, and energizes me, rather than settling for what doesn’t.

Alive means finding that when all is said and done, I will drag myself over my finish line having spent every ounce of myself in the service of crafting a meaningful life, loving, helping, and healing the world that is within my reach, and reflecting as best I can, the image of the creative power that is behind it all.

Simply put, I want to be fully alive until I’m totally not.

Only Two Days In

Last year felt like it lived me instead of the other way around. Like the year grabbed me by the hand, took off at full tilt, and never let go. On the doorstep of 2020 I had one recurring thought.

I don’t want the year to get away from me.

I found myself saying it over and over again.

I don’t want the year to get away from me.

I don’t want the year to get away from me.

Did I mention that I don’t want the year to get away from me?

In preparation for the year two-thousand and twenty, I’ve spent a bit of time mulling over how to develop a rhythm that, like our breath and our beating hearts, makes time and space for inhaling and exhaling, for emptying out and filling up. I’ve reminded myself of what and who matter, starting close in and moving out from there. I’ve recommitted myself to the habits and practices necessary to live fully engaged in the year ahead so that I am better able to generously offer what I can, and graciously bow out of what I can’t.

Only two days into the new year, I can already see how easily we fall into familiar habit patterns and ways of responding to what life brings our way. With only two days under my belt, I can see how the year can grab us by the hand, take off at full tilt, and before we know it, year end fireworks are going off and the ball is about to drop in Time Square.

Let’s not let that happen.

Words To Hang Our 2020 Hats On

Yesterday as I wrote about 2020, my first thought was to come up with ONE word for the year. One word that would capture my vision, hopes, and thoughts for the year ahead. One word that would help me make choices in line with the person I want to be, and the difference I hope to make.

That’s a tall order for a single word.

The more I tried to come up with one word, and one word only, the more restrictive it felt, kind of like when you can’t catch your breath. That is when the idea of a collection of words took hold, and as the list of words appeared on the page I began to breathe a little easier.

As I look at the word cloud created from my list, and now displayed nearby for quick reference, it is clear that I will need every one of them. I already know that there will be days when I won’t be able to muster a speck of fierce if my life depended on it, and on those days will be grateful that grace is there at the ready. Some days I will embody those words, and on others only aspire to them. Keeping them close at hand might just help me embody more and aspire less.

We human beings are complex creatures, and the lives we live are equally complex. Every day we make choices that, when cobbled together, create the life we have, and it is hard to imagine summing up a life in a single word.

Going Deeper

If you want to take a deeper dive into today’s post…

Find a bit of time and space to create your own collection of words on which to hang your 2020 hat.

Create your own word cloud. (I used Word Clouds (simple, free, fun).

Hang it nearby, refer to it often, and see what happens.

Putting It Into Words

It feels good for 2019 to be in the rearview mirror. At least it does to me, and so it seems, to most of the people I know. Yes, there were many moments of joy, causes for celebration, and plenty of love and grace to go around, but there was just something about last year that called upon us to dig deeper than we sometimes thought we could.

It was a year that left us ready to begin again.

There is no doubt that this new year will once again call upon us to dig deep, to endure, and to show up, again, and again, and again. Rather than a list of things to do better, I find myself searching for the words with which to travel through this year.

Words that will serve as touchstones for my choices big and small, day in and day out.

Words that describe who I want to be and how I want to show up in the world.

Words like this…

On The Eve Of A New Year

December 31, 2019

What burden is ready to be set down once and for all?

And…

What wants to come alive in your soul?

Planting The Fields Of The New Year

With two days left in the year it is tempting to start drafting a mental list of resolutions for the year ahead. What we will change, do, not do, etc, etc. etc. While that isn’t necessarily a bad approach, it might not be the best approach either. Or maybe it just isn’t the best place to start. Instead of looking ahead just yet, maybe these are the final hours of looking back. Of taking stock of how 2019 has equipped us to step into a new year, and a new decade, more at home in our own skin, and more resolved to connect who we are with how we live. Every experience, good, bad, ugly, or otherwise has the potential of helping us become more true to who we are and what we care about.

Before beginning another trip around the sun, let’s find time to look back and harvest the gifts of the past in order to sow fruitful seeds for the future.

Over The River And Through The Woods

In conversation with others about holiday plans, there is often reference to what could best be called an obligatory trip to visit parents and grandparents. The kind of trek made out of a sense of duty. Maybe relationships have become strained, political viewpoints sit across aisles that seem too wide to cross, or years-old wounds have never healed. Whatever the reason, such trips are difficult at best, and even damaging at worst.

Whenever I hear others speak of making such trips it reminds me of how much I don’t ever want to become one of those people who is the recipient of a visit made out of a sense of obligation rather than connection, one of duty rather than delight.

How do we become the elders that people can’t wait to visit?

Is it by becoming stuck in our ways?

Is it by being certain of what the younger generation should do to fix their lives?

Is it by sticking to our political, moral, and religious guns no matter what?

Probably not.

Photo: Pexels

Making Peace With It

We all have something we wish we could control, but can’t.

We all have something we wish we could fix, but can’t.

We all have something we wish we could change, but can’t.

Whatever it is, it is time to make peace with it.

Photo by Pixaby on Pexels

Is This The ______________ That I Want?

Tom and I had been married about eight years when he spent a couple of weeks teaching at a remote retreat center in the North Cascades, while I stayed home minding the fort. During those two weeks it became clear to me that there was no question that I wanted to be married to Tom. However, that wasn’t the real question. The real question was—Is the marriage we have the one that I want?

It wasn’t.

Those aren’t thoughts one can keep to oneself if one wants things to change.

After he returned we were out running errands one day, and stopped at a Starbucks. I can still see the table where we were sitting out on the sidewalk. I’m sure he was expecting just a nice catch-up visit, so when I quietly told him I wanted to talk about our marriage, a deer in the headlights about sums up his initial reaction. Thankfully, unlike a deer he didn’t disappear into the woods, but leaned forward, and leaned in. That conversation, over lattes, on a sidewalk outside of Starbucks is the conversation that changed the trajectory of our marriage.

Together we began to give voice to what was working, and what was not. We needed plenty of help along the way from therapists who could help us navigate all of the issues that could derail us if we let them. After 25 years together, we still hit brick walls and have to talk about scary things. On any given day, we work hard to bring the best of what we have to each other, with varying degrees of success, but always with the commitment of building the kind of relationship and life we want. Our conversation over coffee that started all those years ago is one that we will probably be having for the rest of our lives. At least it should be if we want to keep building the marriage we want.

The changes in our marriage all started with a hard question, as most hard changes do, and, it is a hard question that can help any of us get to the heart of any matter that matters to us.

Is this the…relationship, parenting approach, community, fitness level, body, friendship, career path, communication pattern, story emotional health, financial reality, team culture, family dynamic, belief system, outcome, home-life, fill-in-your-own-blank…that I want?

If the answer is yes, then we keep on keeping on.

If the answer is no, maybe today is the day to figure out what it is we do want and how to go about getting it.

Photo by James Wheeler from Pexels

Young Love

If I loved Christmas when I was a youngster, I loved Christmas night most of all. That was when the house grew quiet, the fire got another log, and a new world opened up with the turn of the first page of my new book. Every year that new book was the present I looked forward to more than any other. It fed an early love of the written word, which grew into the love of penning my own. It was then, and is now, a love that asks to be fed, and in feeding it, I am the one who is nourished.

What we come to love in life often shows up in our earliest years. Whatever your is, it is a love that deserves to be fed. Feed it well, and you will be the one who is nourished.

A stack of food for thought-Christmas 2019