“The best climber is the one having the most fun.” – Alex Lowe
For over a decade now, I’ve been choosing a word by which to live for the new year. I left making resolutions behind, and I’ve found this to be a much more productive and meaningful approach.
My word for 2023 was Heal:
But I think I need to reframe activities like exercise, martial arts, and writing in terms of the healing they can bring. I want to make that my focus rather than for the usual “new year, new me” reasons. The latter will still come, just in a different way.
So in 2023, I’ll seek to heal in body, mind, and spirit.
This word, and this year in general, ended up being a tale of two halves. The first half of the year, healing seemed mostly about setting things down and making proper internal and external room for healing. From my mid-year check-in:
The biggest lesson that I have learned (or re-learned) so far this year has been the importance of margins. I’ve needed to remember that spaces on the schedule do not need to be automatically filled. There is already so much happening right now that trying to fit in additional things would take away my peace, and maintaining that peace is a big need for my healing right now.
And that was all well and good. But then the second half of the year happened, and I realized I needed more than margins. I finally went back to therapy, which I’ve needed to do for some time. I found healing from a previous vocational chapter by standing on stage at the UCC’s General Synod. In August my community experienced an incredible tragedy, and I needed to reflect on forgiveness as part of a need for healing. Late in the year I got a concussion, and had to navigate the healing process through that. Overall, I think focusing on healing was worthwhile and brought some important lessons that I am still learning.
When a word began to emerge for this year, I confess that I resisted it for a while. It first came up during a therapy session, but I held it at arm’s length thinking (hoping) something else would eventually come along. This word to me seemed too obvious, too simplistic, too woo woo for me to choose. There’s a certain application of this word that can be toxic and hurtful and minimizing of pain.
And yet it kept appearing to me in books, in articles, in songs, in podcasts. It asserted its presence over and over again, and I finally surrendered.
My word for 2024 is Joy.
I can name many things that I enjoy: my family, my work, writing, music, karate when my brain isn’t bouncing off my skull. And yet when I’m in the midst of doing these things, I can be very susceptible to getting Very Serious about them. I too often slip into approaching them as grave responsibilities, things to check off a list, activities to keep up with lest I let myself or others down. And when my mind, heart, and spirit go to that inner space, my enjoyment suffers greatly. And when my enjoyment suffers, what I am trying to accomplish often suffers as well.
So for me, Joy has several shoots that extend from the same root, and I want to be mindful of each one this year:
- Just remembering to be playful. Much of what I listed above comes with responsibility, but it’s also supposed to be fun.
- Joy is rooted in the senses. There’s a certain quality to it that takes us out of our heads and into our bodies. God knows I could stand to spend less time up there.
- Increased embodied joy brings relaxation, calm, and confidence. And these things will lead to a better performance and outcome.
This is what Joy will mean to me this year. I’m sure it will teach me many other lessons along the way as well.
Jeffrey A. Nelson 