2025 in one word
I sat on this one for a long time. I mulled it over in my head a lot. I thought about it in the shower, on the plane, in my bed at 4am, in the playpen with my sick baby. I thought and thought and thought and then i decided to ask myself,
‘What would you tell a client to do?’ a question that often helps me get unstuck.
‘I would tell them to TRY IT ON’
If you’re carrying a sweater around and you’re not sure if you’re going to buy it. Where do you go? The dressing room of course.
So, I tried it on. FREEDOM. How does it feel? What’s it like if that’s the word that informs how I am living my life? What I am paying attention to. Who I am giving energy to. What I find appealing. What I am eating. What I am listening to in the car.
FREEDOM.
Felt like cashmere. So, it’s my word of the year. I don’t do resolutions. I’m a manifesting-generator (human design, check it out) which means that I actually do better when I have the flexibility to follow my desire. Which is why I am writing right now instead of updating my practice paper work (oops).
I always kind of thought there was something wrong with me that I couldn’t settle into a routine and stay there. That I can’t just have one job. That I can’t just go somewhere, make the money I need to, and come home and be happy with that. Turns out I am not built that way.
In fact, this is one of my greatest lessons of 2024. My word for the year of 24 was RHYTHM. But what I really meant by that was routine. I was going to try and force myself into a box that would be what other people’s boxes look like. I was going to buckle down and do the same thing every day. I was going to beat the drum the same way and that would create the sense of safety I have been longing for my whole life.
Haha.
What I learned about rhythm (besides how to spell it) was that it actually works best if it changes. If it’s flexible. If it adapts to the current circumstance and works towards stabilization but being open to changes along the way. Afterall, the greatest pieces of music have equal parts harmony and disharmony in their rhythm. Just ask Flea.
I have my own rhythm and that’s ok. I work best in the morning so I wake up and start working at 6am most days. It’s ok that that doesn't match other peoples rhythm. I need a certain environment to get in flow and that’s ok. I accept that my days have a certain amount of chaos. The chaos is what gives me the key ingredient that allows me to be creative and to do the work.
WHICH IS FREEDOM.
Freedom isn't just about doing whatever I want. It’s about creating the building blocks to be able to do whatever I want. It’s about choices and consequences. It's about being more of who I am. Telling the truth about my experience. Walking away when that isn’t honored.
My favorite relationship quote is and always has been,
“The mark of a good relationship is not ‘do you feel loved’ but ‘do you feel FREE?”- Danielle Laporte
I need to be free to be who I am. To have my own quirky rhythms. I need to be free to experience the consequences of taking up that space. Free to learn from my own mistakes. Free to say what I need to say. Free to walk away from things and relationships that don't let me be myself.
Freedom is also an inside job. I want to break free from patterns of being that are holding me back. A big one for me is my relationship with money. So, I'm doing a spending freeze for at least the month of january. I am scared and I haven't been perfect so far (on Jan. 5th!) but I am making a commitment to love my younger parts better than they were loved.
To make them safe so they can be free.
What’s your word of the year?