One Little Word 2015 – January

I’ve been taking Ali’s One Little Word class for as long as she’s offered it and this year is no exception. The January prompt is usually my favorite one as it sets the intentions and tone for the whole year and then I find myself referring to it all year long so I take it pretty seriously.

Here are my January pages:

The front is a print out of the text I wrote here about why I picked this word.

The back is beautiful graphed paper from Margie’s beautiful The Girls’ Paperie.

The next page is a 2×3 pocket page. It has a definition and a quotation:

The definition is from the blog post too. It’s what brave means to me. The quote is from the wonderful A. A. Milne: “You are braver than you seem, stronger than you think, and loved more than you’ll ever know.”

And here’s the back with let go, invitation and reason why:

Let go says: I want to let go that things always have to be the way they are. That things can’t change. in fact the only thing we are guaranteed in life is change. I want to let go that this person I am is concrete. I am fluid like life. I can be whatever I wish to be. I can feel however I wish to. I get to choose. I can define every part of my life and how I live my days.

Invitation: This word is an invitation to question everything. It’s an invitation to get out of my comfort zone and look at all the things that come my way with a new filter. A Beginner’s Mind. Anything is possible. I want to be alive. This is an invitation to learn what that means for me. What makes me come alive? What does it mean to be brave? Where in my life can I use more of it?

Reason-why: I chose this word because I realized that brave begets more brave. It gives me energy. It shows me that I must question everything. Assume nothing. Take nothing for granted. I want to fully live all the days of my life. To do that I must be brave and bold.

And here’s the next page which has more sections:

I’ve already talked about what I’ve done so far so I won’t rewrite that section but here’s what I have for more and less:

• More kindness, less yelling.
• More generosity, less worrying.
• More responding, less reacting.
• More doing, less procrastinating.
• More exercise, less sedentary.
• More healthy food, less garbage.
• More self-care, less postponing.
• More daring, less settling.
• More celebrating, less bashing.
• More time, less rushing.
• More thinking, less talking.
• More new things, less fear.
• More open, less unwilling.
• More alive, less “the same.”
• More love, less impatience.
• More joy. More joy. More joy.
• More taking chances.
• More vegetables.

What do I fear the most:

• I fear not changing, not trying the new.
• I fear not speaking up when I need to.
• I fear not asking for help.
• I fear failing.
• I fear disappointing the people i love.
• I fear yelling.
• I fear regret.

The back of the form is all about my intentions:

I made sections for health, serene, abundance, open, and alive. Here’s the snippet of what I wrote:

• Health: Exercise daily, eat fresh veggies daily, feel stronger, take care of skin, teeth, hair. drink water.
• Serene: daily journaling, beauty around me: flowers, declutter, read, down time, nature, respond not react
• Abundance: be generous, give more time, attention, money, volunteer. spend weekly dates with each kid + jake, say yes. there’s enough of everything.
• Open: receive, say yes, assume people’s intentions are good, let others take care of me. go visit people.
• Alive: do something brave daily, go out daily, talk to people i see, walk with the kids, going on adventures.

And if you’ve read this far and aren’t totally sick of me, I have two more things. Ali asked two questions to keep in mind all month:

• What are you filling your world with? I thought about this one a lot. Wasn’t really sure what the answer was here but finally here’s what I settled on. Drawing: i’ve been sketching daily and loving it. Vanilla: I’ve burned a french vanilla candle almost daily and my table smells like dessert 24/7 now. And, finally, my kids: I’ve been giving a lot of my time to David lately.
• Where are you going? I am going in the direction of prioritizing my kids and my husband. This is what I’ve wanted to do for a long time. I’ve been balancing it better this year so far. I can do even more here. I’m going in the direction of courage.  Trying new things. Saying yes. Stepping up. Having faith.
• What one little thing can you do? Well, I did one big thing. At least big for me. I’ve said yes to my son’s project. Yes to spending a lot more time working with him and helping him. So I did that. One thing I did for Nathaniel is get him a gratitude journal so he can write a sentence daily like David did back then. One little thing I can do for my little one is read more with him one on one. One little thing I can do for Jake is be more patient. Kinder. I can always be kinder.

So there we are. Not all months will be this huge but I wanted to make sure to preserve January since I know I will refer to it a lot.