Choosing My Word For 2020
Do you choose a word for the year? It is a practise that I have done for several years now and I cannot recommend it enough. It helps to ground you, to keep you coming back to your intention for the year and can give you support when times are tricky.
If you have never chosen a word for the year, then pop over to Susannah Conway’s beautiful site and download her Unravelling The Year workbook and it will help you to find your first word for the year.
Last year my word was Hope, and it is a word that will be coming with me into this new decade. It sure is a powerful one and I have it on a ring that I wear each day.
But this year I am choosing a new word. RECEIVE. I have known for a while that this needs to be my word for this year and it feels good to now really be owning it.
I have chosen this word for several reasons. I want to get better at receiving help. I am not always very good at that and as a result I sometimes struggle when I don’t need to. I also know that by blocking help at home I am not enabling my family to learn how to help me. It is so often easier for me to just do all the things. I am sure you can relate! But I know that if I have patience and receive the help in whatever way it comes, that over time the help will become more valuable and I will also be enabling my family members to feel empowered and helpful.
An important part of a relationship is being able to receive love and friendship, and that includes offers of help. If someone is trying to give you help and you are refusing it, that will hurt the other person, especially if you are continually saying no. It is a joy to be able to help someone, whether you are a little four year old wanting to help or a grown-up. Allowing people to help you is not just good for you, it’s great for them too.
Over the past year I have really been observing myself and my family members in these interactions. I know I have often pushed help away because I may just want to do it myself because it’s quicker and easier (in the sort-term), or because I feel I do everything anyway, so I might as well just carry on or because I feel like I don’t deserve the help. None of these reactions make me feel very good about myself and when you combine that with not receiving the help either, it’s a double blow! I have also observed how my children and husband look and feel when I reject their help and I have realised that although sometimes they might think “ah great, I can go back to the thing I really want to be doing”, most of the time they look sad that their help has been rejected.
Very often my daughter Rudi struggles to receive help or support too. She knows she needs it but it can often take her quite a while to come round to accepting it. It is strongly connected to her feelings of overwhelm and panic. She is learning little by little to ask and receive the help she needs in these times but I feel that it’s so important that she hears and watches me ask for help and receive help when it’s offered. I can’t expect her to something that I struggle with too!
So, this is the year that I will begin my journey into Receiving more. I will keep you posted with how it goes.
