Word of the Year

“What I’ve found is that our true home is a place of fearlessness in the heart—your heart, my heart, every heart. Furthermore, and much more importantly, home is not some fixed point toward which we aspire; it is steadily expanding state.” – Elena Brower

So far 2011 has not had full participation from me. I have spent the first two weeks of its life full of cold and feeling quite disconnected from the whole thing.  That’s the problem with a new year: if you don’t leap in and take it by the hand and stick with it, you feel like a failure before it is even out of infancy.  But the sun was shining this morning, and I thought I’d give it another try.

Seeking inspiration I started poking around a few blogs.  About half an hour in I realized that I was beginning to feel worse again.  It wasn’t until I got to a colourful blog (which will remain nameless) that sparkling light dawned on this cold-addled brain and I realized that I was doing it again: comparing.

This nameless blogger had made a list of all of the wonderful things she was doing to make sure she was healthy and happy in the new year.  I’m not exaggerating when I say that this list was extensive.  And while I am so happy for her that she is able to cleanse her colon regularly and run miles and do yoga and eat raw vegan food and raise her perfect raw vegan kids, and do a pilgrimage and publish her books and and and, I was not able to pull my head out of my own insecurities enough to just read the list.  All I saw in front of me was: not good enough, not good enough, not good enough.

Opening my email box a few minutes later I was confronted with a sea of ways that I could become good enough if I only gave this person or that company my money.  While I know that there is some wonderful stuff out there, it is becoming increasingly difficult to separate it out because of all of the people wanting to cash in on that culturally pervasive not-good-enough fear.

Thinking about it, there are three things I know for sure:

• Fear packaged up in a big shiny red bow is still fear.
• Comparing ourselves to other people’s public sides is extremely dangerous.
• We will never live up to that unreal ideal.

So here is this blogger’s list of the things she is going to do to be happy and healthy this year:

1. In every way, every day attempt to choose nourishment.

Yep, that’s it.  On my birthday I chose kindness, for 2011 I chose the focus on my pelt, and if you add those together, it’s all about nourishment of body and soul.  There will be no comparisons, no toxic waste, no fear of not being good enough, and no anger if I don’t manage it. It will be about beginning to see other people as souls also in need of nourishment and getting to know what nourishes me.

And no, I don’t want to buy your box set of DVDs on the subject for $197.00.  But thanks for thinking of me.

xo