It’s the last Tuesday of the month and that means it’s time for a One Little Word update.

Honestly, I feel like I could just repost what I wrote for October and be done because I’m feeling the same way. In other words, I haven’t done the Ali Edwards prompt and I’m still dealing with chronic pain and my ability to create is, as a result, still very limited.

In an effort to cheer myself up, I have considered other ways I can create . . .

I can create hope, as I’m seeing a new doctor today

I can create comfort, as I decorate for Christmas

I can create a safe and loving home for Fred and George.

As I’ve learned these last few months, create is a verb but it’s not always about things.

It’s the 4th Tuesday of the month and that means it’s time to join up with Carolyn and share how I’m doing with my 2021 One Little Word: Create.

My update this month will be slightly different than what I’ve been doing since I haven’t done Ali Edward’s prompt yet. I fully intend to do it, but circumstances lately have relegated it to the back burner. In fact,most of my creative energy has been relegated to the back burner lately.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot and wondering what to do about it. And here’s the thing . . . having the desire and drive to create comes from a place of growth and in order to be in a place of growth you’ve got to have a lot of other things in place, too. It’s like Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs . . . you can’t get to the place of self-actualization (creativity, in this particular scenario) if you haven’t already had your basic physical and emotional needs met. Now, I’m not saying my needs aren’t being met, but I am saying that the chronic pain I’ve been living with for this last little while has sort of sapped my creative energy and kept me at the bottom of the hierarchy of needs and it’s been a struggle to move towards the top.

In all honesty, this has been a really valuable lesson. Not the pain, because that just sucks, but the realization that being able to create is not automatic but is, instead, a process that comes from a place of privilege. It has also pushed me to consider ways to create that don’t involve art or words on a page or something tangible and that, interestingly enough, is why I chose this word in the first place. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love the prompts that come from the class each month, but sometimes I think they make it easy to focus on the doing and not the feeling. Turns out, even if I can’t do, I can still feel. And what I want to feel is authentic and purposeful in this life I am creating daily.

I do have to point out, before I close, that I can’t help but notice the deep irony of my word choice and circumstances once again. In 2020 my word was open and the world, my world, literally closed down. In 2021, I chose this word create and my ability to create (at least with yarn and needles) was taken away in this last quarter of the year due to some physical limitations I had no way of predicting.

I think that I need to consider my 2022 word very very carefully.

The prompt for this month over at Ali Edward’s was to write a poem. Ummmm. You can bet I had a bit of trepidation surrounding this process. However, Liz Lamoreux was running the program and she created 2 documents that made writing a poem a pretty simple and ultimately fun thing to do. I’m sharing mine with all of you today.

I am new colors, trusting myself and living an authentic lift
I hold pain and gratitude at my center, honoring all of my feelings
I reach toward sunshine, old books, and the serenity of a forest, seeking peace
I am joy and sadness, wonder and confusion
I am writing, building community, and embracing the routines and rituals of each day
I hold love in the highest place, knowing I am worthy of all that comes to me
I am inspired

It’s the 4th Tuesday of the month and that means it’s time to join up with Carolyn and share how I’m doing with my 2021 One Little Word: Create.

This month in the Ali Edward’s class was all about identifying and considering the stories we tell ourselves. The concept stems from the work of Brené Brown, mostly in Rising Strong, but she also talks about this in her TED talk and in other books, too. The idea is that our brains are wired to protect us and often that first line of defense against any sort of attack is our brain making up a story about why something is happening. It could be as simple as wondering why your friend didn’t text you back or as complex as wondering why your father got sick with cancer and didn’t reach out to you before he died.

You may recall that story was my One Little Word a couple of years ago so this prompt was right up my alley. I’ve thought a lot about my story, how I want to shape the story of my life, and how I want to react to the things that impact my story. I’ve learned that I will probably always have a tendency to catastrophize something, but I’ve also learned to recognize when I’m doing it. I’ve learned that the stories I tell myself have a common theme, and it is that I’m not worthy. Not worthy of love, friendship, money, attention, good experiences . . . you name it, I’ve decided I’m not worthy of it.

Here’s a recent example that might help illustrate this. In order to travel to Iceland, we all had to have a COVID test with a negative result less than 3 days prior to the flight. I was convinced that I would be the only one who would test positive and then I would miss my daughter’s wedding. I was also convinced that this was my punishment for not being 100% on-board with the Iceland wedding plan from the beginning. I was so stressed out about this test and the outcome and I finally mentioned it to Hannah a day or so before we were getting tested and she said to me, “Mom. If you test positive we will postpone.” I was so relieved and completely verklempt that it mattered so much to Hannah and Mikey to have me there . . . and Hannah on the other hand, couldn’t understand how I could have ever thought they’d go ahead without me. Hell of a story I told myself, huh?

I think my word, create, is perfect for this prompt, because I can use it to remind myself to not create those sorts of stories. To not create a spiral of doom, to not doubt my worth to the people in my life. The story I want to tell myself, the story I want to create, is that I am good and worthy, that I bring joy to those in my life, that I make the world a better place.

As the saying goes, that’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

It’s the 4th Tuesday of the month and that means it’s time to join up with Carolyn and share how I’m doing with my 2021 One Little Word: Create.

It seems unreasonable to me, but we’re at the halfway point of the year, and the prompt this month was all about reflecting on where we are with our words. I spent some time considering the questions, which ranged from simple ones like in one or two words, your OLW experience so far has been to more complex ones like three challenges you’ve faced related to your word. And after considering . . . a lot . . . over a period of time . . . I sat down and wrote out my answers in my OLW binder.

Another part of the prompt was to go back and read what we wrote in January and consider whether those thoughts still apply, whether we’ve forgotten some of our intentions with regards to our word, whether we need to make adjustments to help make our word fulfilling for the second half of the year. I found this to be helpful as it reminded me of some specific things I planned for this word and I made a note of a few things I want to accomplish.

The thing that comes back to me over and over again about create is how different it is from open, which was my 2020 year. That word was so emotional for me, in a year that was pretty emotional to begin with. The word create is much less fraught with feelings and I’m glad I chose it for that reason alone. It’s a word that feels tangible and manageable after a year of chaos and stress and it’s just what I needed.