Every year around this time, I choose a “word” for the new
year. It’s not a goal or a resolution;
it’s more like a theme. And most years,
the word chooses me, rather than the other way around. The idea is that you open your mind to what
life, the universe or God seems to be telling you; a whisper or an intuition
about the direction you might take this year.
I started this tradition with my friend Karen about 15 years
ago. We’d read about it in some otherwise
forgettable “chick lit” novel.
There was something magical about it, we
found. We’d adopted our words at the
beginning of the year, then promptly forgot about them for the most part. But as New Years pulled around again and we
got our words back out for inspection, we found that the year just past, while
nothing like what we’d expected (they never are) had somehow managed to be all
about the words each of us had chosen.
We told other people about our New Years words, and
gradually more people began to adopt their own words for the new year. One of my favorite activities is to get
together with friends at New Years and review the year just past. Very often, the experiences of their year
were somehow colored by the word they’d chosen.
I remember a friend who chose the word “followthrough” one
Jan. 1. In the summer of that year, he was hospitalized with a rare illness and
required a long period of rehabilitation.
As he tackled therapy to start walking all over again, his followthrough
was epic. How did he know that the
quality he would most need that year was followthrough?
Another friend chose the word “sacrifice” once. During the year, she was called upon to share
her home with a runaway, and she did so with grace. She was somehow prepared
for what was asked of her.
One year, I chose the word “focus” as I’d noticed that my
attention was often fractured by doing too many things at once. That may have been the year I turned 50 and
started hearing all the jokes about mental middle age. During the year, I developed strategies like
note-taking and review to keep my attention focused. And I stopped believing that middle age was
some sort of inescapable disease of the mind (still working on this word.)
The year I chose the word “light” was the year of my pilgrimage
in Spain. I had no idea that my
experience on the Camino would be such a bright light in my life.
This year I have chosen the word “free.” I’m done with my
foot surgeries, and the most obvious freedom of this year will be the freedom
to walk and work and carry things and move about at will (which I will never
take for granted again!)
Even greater than physical freedom, however, is my yearning
for freedom of spirit.
The children of God are
free, but I often live as though I’m not.
This year, I want to live in the reality of my freedom. Free from fear and negativity, because
perfect love casts out fear. Free to
choose the good. Free from encumbrances
that I place on myself.
Granted, freedom does take a bit of work. The freedom to do anything well takes
discipline and training. Mental freedom
requires the ability to say “no” to the things that try to crowd the mind. Spiritual freedom can only be experienced in
an atmosphere of love and quiet.
It’s like running.
When you first begin to run, it feels crummy, yes or yes? New runners think that an elaborate hoax has
been perpetrated on them. “THIS is what all
those people do for FUN!?!?” Your breath
stutters, your legs are heavy, your mind is sluggish and you want to go
home. It takes everything you’ve got to
keep going. But if you persevere, if you
discipline yourself to follow a schedule of gradually increasing load, you get
to the point of freedom... you’re free
to run as far as you want, up and down mountains, fast or slow. It is an exquisite freedom, but it takes hard work
to get there.
I believe it’s the same with mental freedom, for instance,
freedom around food. So many of us have
“issues” about eating. We eat what we
don’t really want, we regret our choices.
Food has some sort of power over our better judgment.
I think freedom around food might require the same sort of
training that running does. Eating
healthy may not feel good at first. Our
lazy old habits still call to us.
(“Kale? Is it even food?? Or is there a Candid Camera in the produce
aisle taking pictures of how many people are falling for the Kale Hoax?”) But we can put ourselves on a program of
gradually increasing load (like substituting a vegetable for a snack food each day for a while,
then another, and another.)
At New Years, the national diet holiday, we tend to go
all-out on a new program (which is great, YAY for total commitment!) It
also helps to remember that human beings tend to operate on a training principle, so
changes take hold gradually, not in an instant.
We actually are
free. This year, I’m training myself to realize it.
