Hi friends,
How are you doing? I hope you are finding your way into the new year gently and supported by the things that make you feel supported. I personally love the energy of the new year; the opportunity for reflection, a taking of inventory, a rebalancing… but I also understand how it can feel overwhelming if it’s not your cup of tea. To be clear, I don’t make a resolution to wake up at 6 everyday to get to the gym and stop eating carbs. I take what I feel is a gentler approach and over the course of a week or so, I journal a lot and marinate on some words that feel aligned with what I’m needing after some time spent reflecting on the past year.
I make a list that has three columns: 1) things I’d like to maintain 2) things I need less of 3) things I need more of. I ask myself who I am I becoming? Do I like her? How can I like her more? I find this is a healthy place for me to start the calendar year and a way to feel just a little more comfortable leaning into the darkness of January. The shock that sometimes comes with slowing down after speeding along and ignoring your needs in the spirit of just make it to January can take a while to wear off.
My word for 2023 is buoyancy. If 31 years on this earth has taught me anything it’s that there will always be circumstances I wish were different, people I find challenging to work with, characteristics even in people I love that I wish were a little more this or a little more that. What I am seeking to do this year is to remain buoyant above the fray. Allow the mess to take the form it will take regardless of how hard I try to intervene. I’d like to challenge myself to maintain my dignity and sense of calm and way of being when I am my best self even in spite of the presence of something I dislike or find difficult. It’s a form of don’t stoop to their level with a little more elegance and less focus on what the other person is doing.
I am no scientist but this diagram and summary illustrates it perfectly. The forces at work in buoyancy. The object floats at rest because the upward force of buoyancy is equal to the downward force of gravity. (Wikipedia)
The potential value I see in adopting this attitude is a feeling of peace and serenity. I anticipate a lot of failure, by the way, but all I can do is try to become more of who I want to be. Just because I am stressed from dealing with objectively stressful circumstances (leaks and heat problems that are preventing us from opening the new space and generating revenue) doesn’t mean I need to take my whole sense of self down too. I can reply to emails non-emotionally with indisputable facts. I can nod my head in acknowledgement when someone says our coffee is disgusting and I can laugh the following day when someone says it’s the best cup of coffee they’ve ever had. I can try to remember that the landlord is a human being too who just got back from vacation and as much as I don’t agree with him, he also is trying to save money and protect his own interests. How can I really fault him for that? Though this isn’t an exploration on compassion or greed…
One of my favorite teachers, Elena Brower, frequently speaks about the value of having a strong back and a soft front. The architecture to support oneself must be strong but it’s also important to maintain a soft front so that the nice parts of life are able to get through to us. Being totally soft or totally hard all of the time is no way to be. A level of protection to live in this world is necessary but if we become too calcified we miss out on the good stuff. When I roll my shoulders back and lengthen my spine I literally become 2 inches taller than my usual default hunched self and the area around my heart becomes more spacious because it isn’t shrouded by excess skin and bone. It’s so simple and I love it.
You can’t stop gravity from pushing down on you. You can’t stop life from being shitty sometimes but you can face it with optimism and courage so that it doesn’t take you out with it. Floating at rest, held in place by opposing forces, is where I’d like to be. I don’t need to be soaring through the sky above it all because that doesn’t seem realistic either (plus the inevitable crash isn’t worth it!) but if I can maintain my footing it seems likely that my head will remain above water. There’s even a quality to the word buoyant itself, that feels brave and bright and positive. It’s almost like using the resistance as an unexpected ingredient in the recipe for what you’re creating that nobody else could bring to it because the resistance they’ve been dealt is of a different varietal.
Basically I don’t want to feel like I’m constantly running around playing defense which is how much of the second half of 2022 felt. I wrote something, but have yet to publish it, about feeling gaslit by contractors and tradespeople who constantly had a reason why something couldn’t be fixed, wasn’t their fault, or would cost more money and I really let that get to me. I felt like a chicken running around with my head cut off. I learned so much in the process about literal building and construction but I also learned how to better handle a problem when it comes up and even more on how not to. The main take away is don’t react. Pause. Do your research and return when you are calm.
I forgot how much I write these essays for myself. I was feeling rickety, cranky, insecure and doubtful that I could write something this morning but about 100 words in I remembered that this is a form of therapy for me, much like it always is. It’s an added bonus that some of you like it. Thank you for being here.
It’s not too late to think of your word(s) for 2023. Some resources I’ve used to focus my efforts are Susannah Conway’s “Unravel Your Year”, which is long (and free!) but she also invites you to skip the parts that don’t resonate with you which makes it less intimidating.
I’ll leave you with this simple message. “I’m so lucky. Everything works out for me”.
Cheers to a buoyant 2023!
Love this Lula!