January 2024

Choosing a word to focus on each year has become a nourishing, soulful ritual. I savor the word, that more so chooses me, throughout the year—it brings great joy when in perfect synchronicity, it appears over and again in what I read, hear, and see. I trust that the word, as it settles in my heart, will be a guiding light for months to come—challenging, inspiring, and transforming me.

My 2024 word of the year, FULLY, is a throwback to ten years ago when I birthed and named my first website and creative venture, SoulFully You. I participated in training to become a certified SoulCollage® facilitator, to lead retreats on creativity and spirituality. As a Marketing teacher, creating a brand name felt like the best first step. With my daughter Jessica and her friend Claire (both students of my high school classes) we brainstormed a variety of words, phrases, and combinations, and then it clicked, that “aha moment” of knowing I have come to trust—SoulFully You. I loved what it meant, and still do. The image at the top of this page, a SoulCollage® card to represent SoulFully You, came later.

Being SoulFully You is living with purpose, on purpose; being attentive to the present moment; practicing gratitude; making good choices and having no regrets; living with death daily before your eyes, as St. Benedict writes; and leaving something beautiful from a life well-lived. It is living life to the fullest, using the gifts and talents you have while being open and responsive to opportunities and surprises that come your way.

A tree gives glory to God by being a tree.
Thomas Merton

Being SoulFully You is discovering and becoming all that God has created you to be. Thomas Merton writes, “For me to be a saint means to be myself.” The call to be holy is the call to be more fully myself, just as a tree gives glory to God by being a tree.

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Ever have one of those eyes-wide-open at 2:00 am moments of mind-racing, self-doubting, anxiety-stricken, what-if fretting? I had one such panic attack, recently, after making a big decision about the future of my work. I found myself wracked with despair, vacillating between whether I made the right decision or if I was making a mistake, despite having done my due diligence in heart, soul, and mind for many weeks.

In the morning light (and after several days), with the help of some calming meditation, conversations with good friends, and spiritual direction, I began to see more clearly—that it is normal when making big life changes to experience uncertainty, that I have been here before.

“For me, the process of discernment, especially when I have strong feelings or attachments, often begins with compulsive mental role-playing,” I wrote in 2019 when I was in a similar state of distress about making the right decision. But it was these words of wisdom that helped me get to the other side of anxiety, and at the root of it, fear.

YOU ARE FREE.

“I am free to make THIS decision, or I am free to make THAT decision. I am free to choose. It was the decision-making process that was binding me, making me a prisoner of my own thoughts. The freedom came from not being attached to one possibility or the other, one reaction, one outcome, one person, or one feeling. Accompanied by a stream of what ifs, fear had become the primary consideration in discerning what if I did THIS or what if I did THAT.”

This reflection on my 2019 word(s) of the year, YOU ARE FREE, still rings true today. Fear is at the root of anxiety, a response to uncertainty. Ironically, the only thing that is certain IS uncertainty. All else is an illusion of control. Brene Brown in Atlas of the Heart writes, “In a world where perfection, pleasing, and proving are used as armor to protect our egos and our feelings, it takes a lot of courage to show up and be all in when we can’t control the outcome.”

Fear of making mistakes, a symptom of perfectionism, can sabotage even soulful decision-making. Fear can lead to a sense of feeling trapped, nearly immobile, agonizing about whether there is a right or wrong, rather than accepting that a decision is simply a decision, that often there is no one right way. The Divine works in all our decisions no matter what forks in the road we may take. Fear, or regret, limits our ability to be open to surprises and from being fully present to what is. I am free to make this or that decision, trusting, knowing that I will continue to listen to how the Divine is working in new ways. It is freedom that brings peace.

“Yes, you are free, too,” I wrote. “These words can be a prayer, an intention for yourself. Try it as an experiment. Ask yourself—What if I choose love instead of fear? What if I let go of what I am holding onto? What if I detach from what I want and, instead, accept that I am free, that God is with me whether I choose this or choose that?”

I captured the essence of these three words in a SoulCollage® card that embodies this sense of freedom. The image and words, YOU ARE FREE, have become a prompt for me to reflect on a dilemma or state of uncertainty from this perspective of liberation, encouraging me to move forward peacefully, soulfully, without obligation, burden, or restriction, in freedom.