capacity

Capacity: the ability or power, to contain absorb or hold; the amount that can be contained; the maximum amount something can contain or absorb; the ability to understand or learn; the ability to do or produce

It is crazy how long it has taken me to write this post. To be honest I have been tossing around this word in my head since September last year. I have known what was going to be the word for this year since then. I have even talked about it with close friends, and said it out loud “this is my word, this year”.

And yet, something has held me back, something has stopped me from sharing with all of you, and that is fear. Because, after my year of scaling back, decluttering, clearing out, slowing down, I really feel that my word for this year is “capacity”.

Phew, every time I say it I feel like I need to have a deep breath.

It is huge, and so different from last year it is frightening. I feel almost like I am on a great big pendulum swinging between two extremes.

But the truth is that by intentionally slowing down last year I have discovered that I have  some ways of operating that are in fact just habit. They come from a time when I wasn’t able to handle things so well, when my girls were younger and I was more emotionally fragile. But they have lingered, and even today there are some situations that I just avoid, or plan carefully to manage that in fact I am perfectly able to handle. I am actually more capable than I have been giving myself credit for in a number of areas.

I have recently started following a beautiful new blog, teacups too and Em posted this passage just before New Year.

I can’t tell you how much I long for you to enter this wide-open, spacious life. We didn’t fence you in. The smallness you feel comes from within you. Your lives aren’t small, but you’re living them in a small way. I’m speaking as plainly as I can and with great affection. Open up your lives. Live openly and expansively! (2 Corinthians 6:11-13)

Last year was about slowing down, yes. Clearing out, yes. Forgoing busy for present, yes. And those things are still very much on my heart for this year too. But I honestly feel that it was also a year to get rid of the dross, the extra stuff that was in my life, weighing me down, my clutter. So that this year I could stop living from a place of fear, a small place, but instead live openly and expansively.

So here goes 2014 … Capacity!   (Phew!)