Going Back To My Word of the Year.

This blog post was written in January but for some reason was never posted. Now that half the year is over, I decided to revisit my word of the year and see how far it has been working and dug this up. So I am going to do a couple of posts of my journey this year and this is the first.  

Struggling to find a word 

This year I really struggled to find a Word of the Year. My word or rather phrase for last year was “My Way” and as the year progressed, I realized that while I was able to apply my phrase of the year to some part of my life, to a large extent, I failed.

The last year was chaotic with covid visiting me twice; once in  April and again at the fag end of the year and into the new year. My maid decided to go to her gaon for a month in June and has not yet returned. I want to create a place to put out my crystals and candles and have a nook for my writing, but my daughter’s cats were with me for a lot of the time and I had to put every thing away and deal with litter instead.

I had promised myself I would not look after her cats again, but the mother in me and the adult in me pulled me in two different directions, and the mother won. It didn’t help that Benedict is a cuddle bum who has to follow me all around the house and curls up on my feet as soon as I go to bed. 

Last year also saw me having more anxiety attacks than ever before and more spells of withdrawing into myself, shutting off from the world for days on end. I had more sessions with my counselor and my doctor changed my meds which proved a boon. 

I was upset and felt really low. In fact I was really, really overwhelmed by everything around me; the things I had to do, the people I had to interact with, even my classes and my writing. This really hit me badly because I love teaching and I love writing, but now the thought of doing that made me want to cry.

I felt like I was facing a flood and I was backed up in a corner, with no way to escape. I am a person who generally finds a way out of a bad situation. I will not allow myself to be held down for long, but this was different.

It was a vicious circle. I couldn’t do things my way because my life was a chaos and because I couldn’t do things my way, I ended up creating more chaos! Does that make sense?

I felt so trapped that I wanted to lash out at people, throw and break things just to feel the satisfaction of hearing the crash. Two things struck me simultaneously. One that I needed a session with my counselor and psychiatrist. And second, if I needed to do things my way and not create a chaos, I needed systems in place.

What I wanted and my WOTY for 2022

The result of all this was that I just wanted some peace and quiet. I needed to know what to expect every day and it was definitely not things thrown down from shelves in the middle of the night or being overwhelmed by the things that are left undone.

Yes, I needed some peace, some control over my environment and I realized that the only way to do that was to bring order to my life. I needed to put systems in place that work for me, not necessarily what others advocate. 

So this year I decided that my WOTY is going to be “Order”

One thought that passed my mind was, if I bring about order in my life, will my creativity suffer? But then I realized that the chaos had not helped my creativity in any way. All I did was escape into the world of books written by other people, while I hardly made any headway on my own.

I also realized that creativity can be incorporated into an orderly way of life. My physical environment for example could be decluttered but I could still create my altar of crystals and candles with all the pretty stuff I have. Lighting the candle or the incense stick and energizing the house could be a part of my routine, but not something that is boring.

Similarly, my morning and evening routines help me get rid of the mundane tasks during specific times of the day, leaving me free to write and create the rest of the day.

Once I decided that my word of the year would be “Order”, I looked at all the areas in my life that I could create order and I made each of them the focus for every month of the year.

Order in different areas of my life

The easiest was of course my physical environment. So that was my focus for January; creating an environment that is easy to maintain and that is pleasing to the eye as well. Luckily for me, at the beginning of last year, my daughter Nakita, ( you can find her on her insta account @neatwithnaki )had helped me do a total over haul of the house and we ended up decluttering and getting rid of around 20 to 30 big garbage bags of stuff . All I now required was to train myself to put things back where they belong and not buy anything more. 

My physical health is next on my list, not because it is less important, but because once the house is clean and uncluttered, I have not excuse not to do my yoga or physiotherapy. 

Along with this, I linked my mental health and scheduled regular appointments with my doctor and counselor.

The other areas that I am working on are my writing, creating new courses , working on my relationships , Finance, Learning, Hobbies and play, and Spiritual Healing. 

Though I intend to keep the focus on one area every month, it doesn’t mean that I won’t be working on the other areas because they are all interlinked. Creating order in one, will set off a ripple effect and I will have to take care of those. But for now, I seem to have got things under control.

I am already feeling so much more relaxed and am able to accomplish so much more in a week than ever before. It looks like this is the word for me!

How has your word of the year been serving you? I would love to hear about it. Do share in the comments.

Linking this to #MondayMusings hosted by Corinne at everydaygyaan.