As I pondered intentions for the year ahead, wholeheartedness popped up, and stayed. That’s it. The word, as Brene Brown uses it, is all-encompassing and provides a backbone for me to lean upon, get strength from, and grow with.

Wholeheartedness.
For me, the word holds vulnerability, compassion, integration and resilience, connection and love, acceptance, joy and laughter. Living a life. Not surviving it. Living it. Fully. With up’s and down’s, tears of joy as well as sorrow, and simply riding the waves, making the most of them, paddling when necessary to position myself in the optimal space to be able to ride, ride, ride, as the wave lifts me up, letting me use the energy of it in an effortless way…. until it ends. Then there’s the paddling to get into position again.

This mix, of effort and effortlessness, never contrieved, not in a way that drains energy. Resilient stewardship of me, of my life, of making sure my onlyness is put to use in the best way possible, at the service of all, whatever that may look like.

Grandiose, perhaps you think. Full of myself. Who do I think I am, believing I have something to contribute to the world in this fashion? Well. I, like Marianne Williamson, believe we all have something to share:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

So I release myself from the fear of letting my light shine. I intend to (even more deeply) explore wholehearted living in 2017, which in the words of Brené Brown means:

“Wholehearted living is about engaging in our lives from a place of worthiness. It means cultivating the courage, compassion, and connection to wake up in the morning and think, No matter what gets done and how much is left undone, I am enough. It’s going to bed at night thinking, Yes I am imperfect and vulnerable and sometimes afraid but that doesn’t change the truth that I am worthy of love and belonging.”

Wholehearted living 2017

2017 – my year for diving headfirst into wholehearted living.

Worthy of love and belonging – yes, I am – and you are too – hell yes!