The Christmas decorations came down today, and I have changed the rich red and green, for cool blues and white.
Summer holidays mean lazy afternoons in the pool and ice-cream for afternoon tea. The new year has commenced. But in this new phase of my life as a mother of school children (gasp – how did that happen?!), I am discovering that in fact my year doesn’t start properly until February. When the routine of school dictates life for us all. So I have in fact been living in a sort of limbo between the year past and this year starting in earnest.
So between swims, and ice creams, and catching up with friends, I have been writing, reflecting, dreaming and planning. But today it is all about reflecting on my word for last year “capacity” and how it influenced 2014.
Capacity for me meant accepting that I could handle things I had previously deferred or handed on to others. It meant accepting my strengths and embracing them, choosing to grow in them instead of letting them stagnate.
Capacity meant accepting my limits and saying no when I needed too, not no followed by an excuse or qualification, just no. (Still not great at this one by the way, so there were times I said yes, and had to go back and say no – it’s a journey).
Capacity meant embracing gratitude by keeping a gratitude journal for at least half the year. And then not beating myself up when the practice lapsed.
Capacity was doing a writer’s course on poetry and loving it. It was embracing the fact that I am creative, joining a rag rug workshop and loving that too. It was organising two fun women’s events for our church. I have surprisingly even found that I have the capacity for regular exercise (and I enjoy it … who knew?!)
And though 2014 is now over, capacity is still influencing me. I have done a writer’s workshop over the last few days. I have signed up to a poem a day blog for January. I am going to a creative retreat. I am extending myself with reading books on the craft of writing. My exercise is continuing, and so much more.
At the beginning of last year when I introduced capacity as my word I wrote “Phew, every time I say it I feel like I need to have a deep breath”. Looking back over this year, I didn’t need to take deep breaths. Rather the year flowed naturally, one challenge accepted, then accomplished, and then the next. But when I look back at all I have achieved this year and how far I have come I cannot help but say, “capacity 2014 … Phew!”
Jodie
PS – word for 2015 still coming, fill you in on that soon 🙂