Two Weeks Late, but It's Still a GREAT Word

 I know, I know. No one is talking about their intentions for 2023 anymore.

But my friend Janice Cunning posted her word for the year – and challenged me to do the same. The fact that I have taken my time suggests how much I still need my word.

Yeah, laugh all you want: my word for 2023 is #focus.

2022 was a time when I very intentionally put the whip of discipline into a drawer, leaned in hard to the energy of my right brain: have tried to allow, to surrender, to soften. Have laid in the soft grass and watched clouds, have laid in my soft bed and watched anxiety and triumph, defeat and joy wash through my body on different days. I have given myself permission to inhabit so much more of what I felt like doing.

You know, kind of like the opposite of focus. Or, maybe the opposite of focusing on the outside.

This has been a giant reversal for me. For years, I was at the gym at 6 a.m., denied myself sweets and carbs, got my butt in the chair to work at a respectable morning hour.

But that voice of motivation and discipline took up all the oxygen I had. When it was barking, it seemed, it drowned out intuition or impulses or urges. Its cheerleader cry was for pain over pleasure, deprivation over savoring. This voice was harsh. It was at war with the soft animal of my body.

Last year was a calibration, or maybe an over-calibration. This time I’ve taken to soften was important – even essential – but I am feeling a call back to more effort, more productivity, more industrious.

And my challenge is: can I avoid the boomerang back to what was? Can I cultivate a new space to power the effort?

So, this year, I am looking for focus. What does that mean to me?

Focus on writing and sitting to write and expressing myself and always always listening for my strong voice.

Focus on love and the sweet relationships in my life.

Focus on being fully present with clients, on being patient and letting their stories unfold. And to focus on being direct and a truth teller when that’s the right move.

Focus on my intuition always, which means I stop whatever else I’m doing to listen fully.

Focus on learning how to keep soothing myself and being with the hard feels – when there is shame or despair or trauma – by focusing on it, holding it, tolerating it.

Focus on sleep, because it matters. Focus on work, because that matters, too.

Focus on who I am with. Focus on my amazing work team and what we can do together.

Focus on contributing my #heart and #humanity to the planet.

I’m looking to cultivate something new in my relationship with motivation, something kinder than I have known before, something that doesn’t leave a mark but is powerful all the same.

How are you looking for integration this year?

Want to find your focus this year? Let’s talk.