My Word for the year

Hello 2023! We made it! While the majority of people will start the new year with a resolution, for the last couple of years I have chosen a word for the year. A word that is a deeply infused intention for the year ahead. It becomes part of the energy I bring to the year itself, the guidance I follow, and ultimately it stretches me, and more often than not, cracks me a little more open each year.

My word and intention for this coming year is ACCEPTANCE. As I was out with family late last month I was talking and all of I sudden as I heard myself say the word acceptance, regarding a completely different topic, I felt it, the knowing that this was the word. I immediately cringed inside and went into resistance. You know, resistance, like when something seems really big and you turn and run away or completely avoid it?

I know that when I set my word for the year it comes packed with inner and outer growth. Acceptance sounds like a difficult lesson to learn and honestly, I’m tired. I was sincerely hoping for something light and fluffy. I also thought to myself that, maybe, this would be the year I forgo an intention, but then I sat with it long enough to know that I wasn’t going to be let off the hook that easy.

Acceptance doesn’t have to be a bad or hard thing, it can be easy once you release resistance to the flow of life. Things are neither good nor bad, they just are, and this is acceptance. It can be as hard as accepting that something is out of your control or as easy as receiving. While I don’t have a crystal ball to tell me how this will play out, I do have a knowing that I will have to rise in one way or another to meet it and in the end I will have to breakup with resistance. For whatever reason acceptance is at my doorstep and I have to learn to dance with it. What a year it is sure to be.

May we all move towards greater acceptance of ourselves, others, and life in 2023.

What’s your intention or word for this new year?