Feeling Roomy with my Word for 2025

In 2023, my word for the year was focus … but it took me until the third week of January to find and then write about it. My word turned out to be more aspirational than predictive.

Last year, I didn’t bother. Maybe, in the midst of a big writing project, I couldn’t play favorites with just one word.

But most years, like many of you, I try to have a word or an intention in hand for the coming year. And this year, I’m back to it.

But there’s a rule: the word has to feel like it comes to me, rather than me choosing one. So here’s the word that “downloaded” for me for 2025: spaciousness.

(I tried to negotiate for sparkle instead, but no dice from the Thesaurus in the Sky. Spaciousness it is.)

It’s not meant to be a resolution … it’s more like an intention. A way I want to BE as a human, a partner, a coach, a writer and a leader in the months ahead.

What, I wondered, are the gifts of spaciousness?

Spaciousness is a perspective to reach for when things feel tight or stuck. Such as, can I find more spaciousness for this person or situation? It is a request to my heart to be open to love, to hard conversations, to gifts of pain or aging or illness.

Peace lives inside of spaciousness.

When I feel spacious, I am in a place without noise. It can feel like a room lit sunshine or warm firelight – a room I am happy to be in with myself for company.

And then, I wondered about the opposite of spacious, which is contracted or cramped. What is it that makes me feel contracted? Here are a few:

When I feel someone’s judgement of me – like when I find I’ve been tried and convicted and found wrong – well that’s a pretty quick suck of oxygen out of a conversation.

Also, when someone in a conversation decides that they need to be right. It could be me or the other person. Either way, that kind of means the end of listening, right?

So for the year ahead, the word spaciousness is, for me, an invitation to keep the space open. To do the thing that keeps things flowing:

• To reach for curiosity.

• To find acceptance, rather than wishing something or someone were different. Rather than wishing I were different.

• To value kindness and gentleness over harsh and mean.

• To see what might grow if I can keep the weeds out.

So, I’m going to give this one a go.

Do you have a word or intention for the year? Please feel free to share it with me – I’d love to know what you’re thinking about.