My word for the year

It’s been my practice lately to pick a word at the end of the year that will accompany me throughout the following year and will help me to focus on some aspect of my life that needs to be improved, changed or thought over. I can tell you that it’s quite interesting to watch how this practice evolves and how these words come to me.

For this year the scheme hasn’t changed. A few days before Christmas I was driving on my way to work and paying attention to the traffic when suddenly a photo appeared in front of my mind’s eye. It was a photo I took last year when I was trying to fulfil a task from a course focused on still life photography, a task asking us to add “human touch” to our still life photos.

I saw the photo in my mind and “heard” the word EMBRACE and I knew right away it was my word for 2017. I need to embrace who I am and who I am not and that says it all. Hugging a ladder and embracing my personality seems a funny connection but the message got deep, I felt it to the core. For me it is a difficult word to accept, a painful challenge to face, I’m sure it will stay with me till the end of my days.

We are often our own worst enemies and place unnecessary obstacles in our own path. It would be fair to add that we usually place them subconsciously but anyway, they don’t have to be there forever, many of them could be moved if we cared to strain. Life would be easier then. So I welcome this new word to join those that stay from the previous years. Humour – Persistence – Gratitude. They are all powerful in their own way.

Do you pick your word for the year? Do you find the practice enriching? I would be pleased to hear.