The irony of my One Little Word being open in the midst of a pandemic where it feels like everything is closed is not lost on me. My library? Closed. My favorite stores? Closed. My go to restaurants? Closed.

Guess what’s not closed, though?

My eyes. To the beauty around me . . . the new furniture we bought for our living room, the pansies peeking above my window sills, the daffodils in my garden, the bluebirds at the feeder by the kitchen window, the pictures and videos of Jackie that Jessica makes sure Dale and I see.

My mind. To new ideas about what staying home feels like. To finding creative ways to “see” friends and family. To using books to take me to anywhere I might want to go. To learning new things and honing new skills. To possibility.

My heart. To loving every minute of every day even when it feels tedious or scary or uncomfortable. To feeling grateful for so much extended time with Dale. To being resilient in the face of so much uncertainty. To protecting myself and my family through temporary sacrifice. To accepting hope however it shows up.

Maybe being closed off from the world is exactly what I need to show me what being open is really all about.

I completely missed that yesterday was the 4th Tuesday of the month and hence I didn’t do my monthly One Little Word update on time. The old me would have let it pass by and not blogged about it since I missed the official day to do my monthly update. But. I’m all open and stuff now so I’m doing it today even though I forgot about it yesterday. This being open thing is very . . . eye opening. Ha!

For this last month I’ve been trying to be open to accepting help. I’m generally the person who holds everyone else up, who supports the people around me when they are hurting, who carries the weight of other people’s pain. Randy’s death, though, has exposed a lot of that as bullshit and defensiveness and made me realize that it’s not my job to make sure everyone else is okay, that it’s fine for me to accept help from others and not always be the one who is the helper.

And also,

Being open means being vulnerable and that’s okay.

Being open to love and support and help is very rewarding even when it’s hard.

Being open allows for new ideas and opportunities.

Being open creates space for gratitude.

Being open means being present. And being present is my continuous goal.

Being open means thinking about things from a different perspective.

Being open means being alive.

 

 

I am one month along on my journey with the word Open and I’ve been thinking about it daily and checking in with myself to make sure I am finding ways to be mindful of it’s presence in my life.

Here’s the thing . . . and you probably know this about me if you’ve been around for a while . . . I’m a pretty set person when it comes to my routines, ideas, and approach to life. This attitude works well for me, it keeps me organized and helps me to get things done, both at work and at home. But. What if there are other ways of doing things? What if there are ideas I have dismissed without considering them fully? What if I have closed myself off from things that could improve my life and bring me joy?

In this first month with the word open what I want most is to be open to is new ideas and experiences. One new experience that I mentioned last week is a regular yoga practice. I am truly grateful I opened myself up to that because I have found it to be not only good for my body but also a great way to open my heart and increase my capacity to experience love, compassion, gratitude, and acceptance.

I’m tempted at this point to commit to finding a new experience/practice/craft/etc each month as a way of embracing the word open but I think that would be counterproductive. I think I’d be setting myself up to actually be the opposite of open because instead of truly being free to try something new I’d be pigeonholing myself into searching for something to fulfill a goal. I don’t think searching for something is a bad thing, necessarily, but I also feel strongly that being open means watching and waiting for things to come to me in their own time.

And that’s where I am with open at the end of month one. Thinking a lot about what I want to be open to, thinking a lot about keeping myself flexible to the ideas and opportunities that present themselves to me, and truly embracing the freedom of being open even when it scares the crap out of me.

I’m joining with Honoré today to share my monthly One Little Word journey. If you head over to her blog you can read how others are living with the words as well.

 

Happy New Year, friends! As has been my tradition for the last few years, I am choosing this day . . . the first day of the year . . . to share my One Little Word for you.

And my word is open.

This word first came to me back in the early fall. I was doing a guided meditation and was visualizing a box that was just for me and in that box was a gift. The gift I found was the word open. It just floated right up from that box like a helium balloon.

I immediately dismissed it. I decided it was too early to choose a word for the next year. I decided I didn’t really like that word anyway. I decided that my visualization was just about that moment and not about anything more than that.

You know where this is going, right? The word open just kept coming back to me. And honestly, the more I resisted it the more it persisted. I finally gave in the other day when I read something about how resisting a word can be just as important as instantly embracing a word.

So here I am with the word open. Still feeling pretty uncomfortable with it but also knowing that being uncomfortable is actually good for me because that’s when I have breakthroughs. That’s when I grow. That’s when I find new ways of doing things.

That’s when I open up.

 

I simply can’t let the year come to an end without acknowledging and reflecting on my journey with my 2019 One Little Word: story.

I’m pretty sure I say this every year but it was the perfect word for me for the last 12 months. I feel like I truly connected with it on a daily basis, thinking about what I did and did not want to include in my story, whether that meant experiences or people or just the thoughts in my head. I used it to go back and work through some childhood trauma, I used it to reconnect with the idea of blogging and how much it helps me to share my story with all of you, I used it to remind myself to slow down and pay attention to my life.

In January, when I first wrote about this word, I asked:

what’s my story?

how do I tell my story?

what are the stories that impact my life?

Those questions are as relevant now as they were 366 days ago. They remain open ended because my story isn’t finished yet but I have learned so much about what my story is and how I want to tell it. As for that last question, the stories that impact my life are something I can’t always control and predict and that’s a difficult thing for me to accept. But here’s what I’ve learned this year: even when I can’t control my story, I can always choose how I respond to it.

Since I started choosing a word for the year my words have been: joy, grace, shine, peace, kind, and story. Of those words, joy and peace have truly stayed with me in a very meaningful way and I still reflect on them frequently. I am now adding story to that list because I know it will continue to guide me.