2022

Happy New Year!

Cheers to you and yours!

How are you going to cultivate hope this year?

On New Year's Eve I listened to a year-end podcast, wrote my 2021 blogpost, wiped down my yoga mat and did a yoga practice for new beginnings, cleaned up my house a bit, and set up a little charcuterie and champagne for a quiet evening in. I checked my books read for the year, and I'm up to 81! My scrubs are clean for my 6am work-start. And I've chosen a word or two for my year ahead.

It didn't feel much like a resolution year to me. The things dearest to my heart are hard to quantify or predict. Those things that always make it onto my list, like exercise or writing more, tend to wax and wane regardless of what I decide on January 1st. So it looks like this:

I am a non-professional writer. I am excited about some projects I'm working on.

I am an amateur yogi. I choose to make daily yoga a part of my routine.

And on from there, I have some quiet personal lists to work on.

But I liked the idea of having a single word of the year, and I thought I'd try it out in 2022. As with resolutions, it is impossible to predict how a year may look, and so I am fully prepared to find it humorous in twelve months' time, but I hope it inspires me in the meantime.

As I sorted through words, I landed on one that I had not expected; like a nickname that is first used off-hand and then somehow sticks. I said it over a few times (and I liked the way it felt in my mouth) and it scared me a little. Was it too hopeful? To anyone who has battled depression or anything in that universe, there is a genuine aversion to tempting fate. But the more I thought about it, the more I liked it. I want it to be true, no matter what I have to walk through, no matter what life throws at me. Through the ups and downs, the wholeness and the happiness and the gritty day-to-day. 

So let's do this thing!

My word is   Flourish

It means to thrive. To grow or develop in a healthy, lively way.

It means bold and sometimes extravagant gestures, added flair

Art for its own sake

It has this sense of movement with joy 

It even reminds me of prana and sukha in yoga practice, the meeting of energy and ease

I'm thinking...

bloom where you're planted

show up with soul

overdress a little

take up space

dance unconcernedly

fear not the pizzazz

 What do you think?