Three Words For Letting Go

Last year I wrote about the three words I’d chosen to guide me through the year, and since it was already the end of January I thought I was pretty damn late in pulling them together.

After all other bloggers I admired posted their three words for the coming year right on New Year’s Day, or even before.

I felt like a loser. What were my three words? I had no idea. It felt like I had more like 20 words.

For various reasons my mind wasn’t so clear on the first day of 2012, and it took me some weeks to sort out my words. They were:

Risk

Connect

Create

This year, I’ve waited even longer to choose and post my three words. Now that the Wheel of the Year has turned, and I witness green shoots emerging from the frozen earth – my guiding principles for this year are emerging.

My mind was again clouded on January 1st of this year – for way different reasons. Instead of recovering from last night’s party I was saying a final goodbye to the home I’d lived in for nearly 18 years, the place I’d raised my daughters. The rooms I had lovingly painted one by one, the home that had nurtured and cradled and challenged me through my growth from frazzled mom to empty nester.

New Year’s Eve found me packing my belongings into storage tubs, taking snapshots of old family photos, choosing. And grieving. Grieving, questioning, grieving some more. Letting go.

Letting the tears fall.

I knew I wanted to come up with a word or word for the year, but for now it was time to dive into that sadness.

Three Words To Live By

At first I thought I wanted create to be my main word for 2013. I felt as if I hadn’t really lived up to it in 2012 – which turned out to be much more about risking and releasing than creating.

Create is such a big word though. It’s about art, it’s about business, it’s about crafting a life. Creativity is a value I want to live most certainly.

Upon reflection I’ve come to realize that some other ‘words’ for this year underlie my yearning to create. They form the foundation for my ability to connect with my own creativity

These words are:

Open

Allow

Trust

I find myself in a ‘brave new world’ now. Last year I left the marriage, home and community that had nurtured me and kept me safe for more than two decades.

I did that whole leap and hope the net will appear thing. And quite frankly I’m still scanning the landscape below for said net. Yet knowing I’m cradled in the ‘net’ of divine intervention even as I speak.

I’ve taken a big risk and many small ones.

I’ve connected profoundly to my inner self, to Divine Source or Goddess, and I’ve reached out and made many new connections that have blossomed into beautiful friendships, I’ve deepened existing connections.

And I didn’t fall down completely on the the ‘create’ intention. After all I created this website from scratch – an online space where I could both write my musings as a grownup mom, and share my knowledge on wellness and healing.

My intention was and is to make this an online sanctuary for women who want to feel radiant, whole and connected.

I took a risk and created a connection.

So, yes, I’d say I lived into my words for 2012

This year may be more challenging.

It occurs to me that most of my life has been guided by the antithesis of each of the three words I’ve chosen – the need to control.

When I’m in control I know where I stand. When I’m in control I’m safe. And when I’m in control I’m closed down. And I have to stay closed in order to maintain that tight grip on the steering wheel of my life.

Now, I’d never suggest letting go of a real steering wheel, but perhaps when navigating this vehicle we call life, a lighter grip is in order, or even letting go completely.

That trust thing.

The control thing worked for a while. A good long while. And in some ways in served me (but don’t get me started on all the ways it didn’t).

But now, on this threshold of midlife transformation I can see it’s time to let go of that wheel.

To Open to the miracle.

To Allow fresh perspective, a different view of the world, To Allow a new way of thinking, doing, being. To Allow the unknown.

To Trust the guidance. To Trust I will be guided.

To loosen my jaw, let my shoulders drop. To give into tears and pay attention to tiny miracles. To listen.

To finally, once and for all, relinquish that hard-won control.

Open. Allow. Trust.

How about you? If you could choose just 3 words to guide you this year, what would they be?