My word of the year

I definitely kicked off the new year in a new way!

First, by choosing a Word of the Year and, secondly, by participating in an art workshop where we decorated a board with our chosen word. It was a simple but powerful process that made me realize why “art therapy” is a real thing.

So, my word is RECLAIM. And my “helper word” is DESERVE.

I had been mulling over word possibilities for a few days before the day of the workshop, without feeling drawn to any word in particular. Then the word RECLAIM popped into my mind while I was driving to the art studio and, after I shared it with the group, I could feel that it really resonated within me.

So, before I started working on my board, I just sat for a while to tune into what RECLAIM actually meant to me. What was I reclaiming? And how? This is what came to me:

What = My power / How = Own it
What = My body / How = Move it
What = My time / How = Honor it
What = My joy / How = Embrace it
What = My willpower / How = Befriend it
What = My self / How = Accept it

Then it was time to tune into the lettering and how the word would fit on the board. This is what I did at first, by hand…

It didn’t feel right, so I asked Sarah (the Ananda Village artist who was offering the workshop) if there were stencils or something that could help me get the letters right, as I wanted them to fill out the space more. And she immediately pointed out to me the connection between “filling out the space” and my word! I was wanting to RECLAIM my space. Interesting, no?

These are the letters that I then decided to use.

Next, she suggested tuning into the chakras in order to feel the color that best matched the energy of my word. Because my word feels very powerful and strong, I chose yellow, for the third chakra (power, self-control).

And because my “helper word” had to do with the fact that I DESERVE to reclaim all the elements of my self, I found myself gravitating toward royal purple for the letters.

Then an important memory suddenly resurfaced, of a time when I felt reassured by the Universe that I was, indeed, deserving (I wrote about it in this blog post). And I marveled at the power of this process once again.

The end result is that I absolutely LOVE my word and feel it’s already helping me start this year strong.