Reverb13 prompt: “What word did you select to be your travelling companion in 2013? What gifts did this word bring? What word will you choose to guide you through 2014? What do you hope it will bring into your life?”
2013: Freedom. Just like with my word last year, it wasn’t until almost the end of the year that I truly understood, could see the full measure of the impact of my choice. The way I described it way back in January was this,
Simplicity, space, ease, surrender, clarity, and openness. “The power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint; liberty, independence; the state of not being imprisoned or enslaved; being physically unrestricted and able to move easily; self-determination, open, opportunity, play, joy.” I wish to feel free, to be free from and free to, to let go of habits and ways of being that no longer serve me, to embrace and embody my true nature, to practice radical self-acceptance, to keep my heart open.
In July, I took a look at where I was at, and had this to say,
My experience of freedom right now is strange, mixed, complicated. Yes, I am free from Dexter’s cancer (as is he), released from the worry and the anxiety and the caretaking; and yet that freedom also means a direct and powerful relationship with grief, loss, and sadness, which doesn’t exactly feel free. In terms of my disordered eating, I have a kind-hearted and experienced therapist to help me work through it, let it go, be free from it, but that’s clearly going to be harder than I thought. I have a list of almost 20 reasons I do what I do, which create a resistance to letting go of the behavior, freeing myself from this way of being.
And now, in December, I look back and see a clear path to freedom. It was a combination of the Self-Compassion Saturday project and what I learned, going by myself to California, taking my “seat at the table” as a writer and a teacher, and taking part in the Intuitive Eating book group, which led to things like committing to never dieting or weighing myself again, no more stuffing or starving or smashing myself to bits, and moving how I want to move.
All of these things have led to a particular kind of freedom. I have confidence in my fundamental worth, my basic goodness, which Susan Piver recently described as, “who we are is already completely whole and completely worthy…our basic being is spacious and balanced. With each breath we remember who we really are: decent, kind, sane, and utterly open hearted.” I am honoring my hunger and my fullness. I am trusting my own experience, my intuition, my truth, my basic goodness.
2014: Home. I heard someone say once, “I’m homesick for myself.” This next year, I long for a return home, to feel at home — in my body, my house, my work, my job, my relationships, my life. I long for the sense of comfort, safety, authority, belonging and ease that comes with “home.” I want to nest right where I am, to clear out room, make space, settle in. The process of clearing is related to what Rumi says, “Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” And it’s not just about me, solitary and alone, but as Ram Dass says, “we are all just walking each other home.”
Project Reverb prompt: “30 days | They say it takes 30 days to make or break a habit. What did you start? What did you quit?”
I tried to quit my habit of taking my iPod to bed, looking at Instagram and Facebook, checking my email and blog stats, playing Solitaire until I fall asleep, but that only lasted two weeks. I’m okay with it though, since it’s only about 5-10 minutes before I’m asleep.
The things I started/stopped that stuck are no more dieting or weighing myself, and pulling a tarot card from my The Wild Unknown deck each morning.
