Continuing the Tradition - My 2015 One Little Word is.......CONNECTING

Every year since 2009 I have picked a WORD for the New Year—as a sort of beacon to guide me through the coming 12 months. This word will help me focus on what I am looking to be, do, feel and stand for in the next 12 months.

For me, 2015 will be a year about CONNECTING.

Connecting more deeply with myself, my inner truth, my authentic self, others, community, love, passion, my own heart and soul.

Connecting even more with the feeling that not only is being good enough, it’s the only person I can be anyhow. Feeling like I need to be more like others just leaves me feeling like I'm not being who I NEED to be to fulfil my purpose.

Connecting with that deep part of me that can help me let go of some of those unrealistic expectations and external standards that don’t equal success for me.

I feel excited to see where my journey with this Word "Connecting" takes me.

How about you my fellow bloggers.  Do you have a Word for 2015?

My One Little Word from previous years were:
2009 - BALANCE
2010 - SEEK
2011 - SHARING
2012 - PERSEVERANCE
2013 - SURRENDER
2014 - DETERMINATION

“Giving connects two people, the giver and the receiver, and this connection gives birth to a new sense of belonging.”
~~ Deepak Chopra

Newtown, Sydney, Australia 29 October 2014.
I am holding up my "Free Hugs" sign under this wonderful quote.

Connecting Together

In quite powerful ways, this blog is with me a good deal of the time. I think about it - and you (my blog friends) - when I am walking in the early mornings, when I am out and about listening to stories from friends or family, or in quiet times at home.

Lately I have observed that writing and reading are essential to how our lives interconnect. They are particularly part of the tentative, questing conversations that touch on or open up our deepest connections: the relationships, dreams, yearnings, desires, losses and sorrows that matter most.

That's why the quality of what we read matters. Reading can help us think about life more confidently. It lets us benefit from the experiences of people who are otherwise strangers.

It brings us together around issues that matter.

With that sense of conversation very much in mind, I observe, listen, watch, reflect - and then write. But if writing is the "talking" part of that dialogue, there is also "listening". Each of us will read and reflect in our own characteristic way.

As a avid reader myself, I know that reading lacks encounter, but it does give something else. At its best, it gives me the distilled rather than the superficial thoughts of the person who is writing.

Just as valuably, it gives me the chance to "listen" at my own pace, to question, reflect and add my own thoughts and inner commentary, engaging more actively not just with what someone else has said or written, but with what I myself now think, believe or want.

My 87 year old mother and my brother's dog Darcy, connecting on her birthday in March 2009