2020: The Year of Possibilities

Last year, I introduced you all to my One Word Resolution for 2019 and gave a quick synopsis of my previous One Words. You can read about all of them HERE. Making a One Word Resolution has been a tradition for me since 2016 when my former principal encouraged our whole staff to do it. For some reason, the whole idea of it really resonated with me. I liked the idea that they were more general and could fit into multiple areas of your life instead of one specific resolution. Also, as someone who doesn’t like to fail, I liked the idea that it’s pretty dang hard to fail a One Word Resolution (even though, shocker, I’ve been pretty sure that I have failed each year).

As the authors of “One Word That Will Change Your Life” say, your One Word should choose you instead of the other way around. You’re supposed to pray about it and meditate on it, and it will be revealed to you. I’ve always struggled with this. I think of a couple good ones and then I don’t have any ‘magical feelings’ about whether they are right or not. I’ve always struggled with the praying and then listening to what God has to say. It’s a lot of, “Wait, is that a sign?” and never truly knowing. I’ve tried meditating on it too, and although I’ve gotten a bit better, meditation is still ridiculously hard for me. So in 2016 and 2017, I just went with whatever words sounded good at the time. It wasn’t until 2018 that I truly got the feeling that I had picked the “right” word.

I won’t completely retell the story, if you’re interested in hearing it (it’s a good one!) I wrote about it HERE. In short, my word of 2018, TRUST, started popping up around me everywhere. One of my favorite people made me a TRUST canvas, and then when I went to treatment for the first time in Arizona, I was bombarded with TRUST references. I was being told to trust other people, to trust myself, and I was feeling like I needed to do a better job at trusting God. I flew home with a new bracelet with the word TRUST on it, something my therapist planned before she even knew about my One Word. It was quite amazing honestly, the way it all fit together perfectly. Throughout that experience, I worked a lot on TRUST and felt like, for the first time since making One Word resolutions, that I had finally not only picked the right word, but made good progress toward it.

Something else happened that first time in Arizona. In treatment, you’re forced to slow down to rest and heal your body. No exercise, lots of rest, very little movement at all. After breaking my back, I was forced to slow down even more than what was forced upon me. I realized that I use busyness and movement as a way to distract and numb. When I was forced to truly be STILL, I slowed down enough to truly see and hear the people around me. In that STILLness, I could be more in tune with my soul and God’s voice, two things that had been largely ignored for a long time. In reflecting, that word, STILL, kept popping up in my journals. By December, I realized that my word for 2019 had chosen me.

This past year, I’ve really focused on bringing the STILLness that I felt in Arizona back to my everyday life. I started doing three deep breaths before every one of my social studies classes because it’s good for kids and learning, but also because it’s good for me too. Deep belly breathing in the morning and at night before I go to bed and when I’m feeling really anxious has been transformative for me in my daily life. I’ve dabbled in some meditation and yoga practices, two things that I’m still not good at but want to continue to work on. I spent some afternoons in my hammock doing deep breathing during a really stressful spring. I made myself sit still to journal. I took a lot of naps. I sat in waiting rooms, in checkout lines and in the airport without my phone in my face. Anytime I could sneak a minute or two of STILLness, that’s what I tried to do. Admittedly, I wasn’t always very good at it. But I continued to make it a focal point in my life and feel like I definitely made some good leeway in realizing that it’s ok to just sit and BE instead of always having to be productive.

That brings me to 2020. For the first time, I was relatively sure of my word for the next year before December. In fact, I think God had been planting seeds in my brain since this past summer. I’m telling you people, there’s nothing like being in the middle of the desert with all your independence taken away from you to give you some good thinking time. A lot of you know this, but I maintained meticulously detailed journals each of my times in Arizona. As I went back and started looking through them, a word started sticking out to me. That word that popped up in my journal over and over again is what my new word will be for 2020. I’ve been dropping little hints here and there, check out the end of my previous blog post and a post on my FB page from December 29th. Sneaky. 😀 My One Word for 2020 is...POSSIBILITIES.

This journal entry from 7/17/19 really made my decision pretty easy:

The two things that have been running through my mind are the word POSSIBILITIES and the thought of just seeing people as perfectly imperfect with so many stories to tell and just the desire to meet people wherever they’re at, love on them and be a light of hope for those around me that may need it……

And possibilities. I get glimpses of this hope, excitement and anticipation of the future. How literally anything is possible if I seek it out and put effort into it. I can be what I want to be, live where I want to live, and do what I want to do...if I’m healthy. That’s so motivating to me that I have this blank slate in front of me and I can make my life into what I want it to be. So I think I’m getting closer. Philly told me to have faith, that life is waiting for me, to go all in, you never know what’s possible until you try. The worst things that can happen is failing or being told no. Neither of those things are the end of the world, just learning experiences. Looking at life in this way is so freeing and so exciting. Yeah, it’s not going to be easy. But if you really think about it, this life is a beautiful, beautiful thing. It’s time for me to not just exist within it, but to truly live it.

I don’t think I could sum it up any better than I did on that day this summer watching the purple, red, orange sunset out over the mountains and cacti. Those realizations that I had been making, that my life is my own and that the POSSIBILITIES are endless, those were new realizations for me. I’ve always lived my life under rules. Whether it was my parents’ strict rules, my own perfectionistic rules, my eating disorder’s rules, or the natural rules that settle over you when you’re the daughter of the school board president and later, a teacher in the town you live in. All I’ve ever known was rules and expectations. This summer, I finally realized that although I’ve felt really stuck, that’s all it is. A feeling. I’m not stuck. I can go, be, and do anything I want to. That pretty much blew my mind for a few weeks to be honest. Then, I started dreaming. I started hoping. And for the first time in a long time, instead of nothing when I looked ahead, I saw glimpses of my future. For someone that hasn’t been able to do that for a really long time, that was a really pivotal moment.

One of the goals from my intention list I wrote about last week is “Do what makes me feel scared. Anxiety and excitement feel the same.” That’s my focus this year. Instead of feeling stuck, I’m going to make steps in the direction of my hopes and dreams. It will probably mean change, it will definitely mean taking a chance and putting myself out there, but like I learned from a really wise woman, “You never know what’s possible until you try. The worst things that can happen are failing or being told no.” I’ve never dealt with those two things well. But, now I know, to truly be the person that I want to be, those things are going to have to be things I overcome.

Before I left Arizona, my favorite nurse prayed over me. She said a lot of things, a lot of powerful things. I had been begging God to talk to me for a long time, and in that moment, He used her to speak to me. Remember my journal entry above? About being a light? He told me through her, that I was a light for others, how my story was going to change people. And that book I really want to write? I hadn’t told this nurse about it, but guess what she brought up? Yep. Call it what you will, but that last interaction I had in the desert continues to sit in the back of my mind. Some of the last words she left me with were, “Not many people get a new lease on life, and now you’ve had two. Use it. You’re a light in this world and God wants to use you. You’re starting brand new and you have so much life in front of you.” A year ago, I wouldn’t have believed anything she said. Now, well, I’m opening myself up to all the beautiful POSSIBILITIES this life has in store for me.