Hindsight is a beautiful thing - offering the perspective that lets me say to myself, "If I had known this then, it wouldn't have been so bad." But if I am willing to take a step beyond that, I see the real gift - that if I hadn't gone through that then, I might not have made it where I am now, and now is a pretty good place. Instead of looking back and wishing I had a certain nugget of knowledge in my past, I can appreciate the awkward steps I took towards that knowledge, and be grateful to have it now.
There have been a number of posts here and there in BlogLand about everyone's Word of the Year, and I'll now throw my hat in the ring on a much smaller scale, and say that my Word of the Week for the week of January 4, 2009 was resistance - resistance to the truth, to what I needed to face, do and walk through. There were other things going on, creating a forceful combination of emotions and uncertainties that sent me into quite a tailspin, but now that the tides have settled down, what stands out the most when I take a peek at my very recent past is resistance.
There is still much work to do, but the darkest clouds have passed - as they always do - and I now have a clearer vision of what, exactly, I want and need to create in my life. The light is coming back in, and I am finally beginning to look ahead at what is and might be in store for 2010 without the fear and apprehension that plagued me from the minute the clock struck midnight on January 1st (not that I was awake, mind you. My husband and I made a simple dinner, enjoyed some champagne, and - I'm not joking around here - watched Star Wars before heading to bed around 9:30. Let me tell you - it was wild.)
And while this feels slightly premature because this word still feels unfocused and not entirely rock solid, what seems to be taking shape as far as a Word of the Year is Non-Judgment. As in, I have lately developed a greater awareness of the labels I put on things and I want to move away from that. Labels such as good, bad, practical, indulgent, etc. create emotions, fears, worries, and anxieties, often times before any action on the topic at hand has taken place. Who's to say what is ultimately good or bad? I have had enough experiences in which what looked "bad" at the outset turned out to be a gift, a blessing...something "good". So perhaps a better phrase than Non-Judgment is Reserved Judgment, as in, don't jump to conclusions, but let the truth of a situation or circumstance reveal itself in its own time.
If I sit patiently, and enjoy the butterfly before me instead of wallowing in what I think isn't working, the truth will always reveal itself. Always.
beautiful!
-- non-judgment is the KEY-- of ourselves, of others, of everything.
Damn. Glad you are gonna do the HEAVY lifting in 2010 and do the hard word-- mine's laughter-- hee hee--
hey, no judging me for that choice, now--
Posted by: Elizabeth | January 12, 2010 at 02:10 PM
Resistance is such a natural response, or maybe it's just such a commonly conditioned response, in any case - I hear you. You are brave, you keep facing even that which you can't help wanting to resist.
Posted by: Marianne @ Zen Peacekeeping | January 12, 2010 at 12:38 PM
everything you wrote here really resonated with me...I too have overcome quite a bit of resistance to climb a mountain with a peak above the clouds (again) and I'm learning not to be so quick to "label" but just enjoy the many colors that can pop up if I don't force black or white on the issue, person, or whatever I am experiencing at the moment. Thank you very much for your wisdom and sharing.
Posted by: elizabeth ~ so wabi sabi | January 12, 2010 at 11:21 AM