checking in {3.23}

Welcome to the One Word party!

Door’s open.  Join here.

Wrapping up March, I’m happy with my word work this month — but I’m ‘curiouser’ about yours. Often, out and about, I’ll glimpse someone’s word, recent past or present, and think of you. This thing? It’s a unique kind of tie that binds.

Thanks for being here. I look forward to checking in this week!

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So. March.

My hope for March was a sense of spaciousness. Room. Whatever and all that that means, as it pertains to My One Word.

Ask…put it out there…no boundaries, no ceiling. Just free to wonder —

• What if I swung on a flying trapeze? (I’ll bet it’d be fun! I even know a place…)
• What if I let go? (Not on the trapeze.) (Of other things.)
• What if I use lowback vintage velvety armchairs instead of regular dining room chairs at our table?
• What if I had as much confidence in myself as others have in me?
• What if I take a 20-minute nap right now because I’m tired? (Which I did. ) (And it worked.)

Those are some of the questions I asked in this little book. And over the course of the month, I noticed:

: : themes – of confidence, permission, risk, reaching, new narratives

: : shift – in a few short weeks, I went from asking some of the things to doing some of them.* From motion…to action, which was the big push for One Word ’23’s Ask vs. Wonder in the first place! (Yay.)

: : perspective – ‘What if ?’ felt Big for me at the start of March. Mid-month, though, I found myself going bigger. Instead, I asked —

Why the heck not ?!

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They’re different questions.

Wide open and full of permission, What if? is a whimsical invite to dream…drift…get way outside the box. I picture a cartoon cloud stretching, as though it has arms, in all sorts of directions.

Why not?, on the other hand, thrums its fingernails on a tabletop. I’m waiting…! it says to me–not so patiently. (It’s not a rhetorical question here.)

What’s to lose? What’s the worst that could happen? Really?

Here’s what I know about me:

Given the wide-open space of What if?, I’ll dream, for sure. Then I’ll putter and rummage through my narratives and talk myself out of [doing or being or trying or starting] something great. But —

asking Why not? What’s to lose? What’s the worst that could happen? requires something specific of me. It requires a good answer to the question!

And this month?

I found there’s a whole lotta joy in not finding one! In answering, “Actually, there is no good reason not to [do or be or try or start] this great thing. So? I’ll go for it.”

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Thanks for the space, March…you long and roomy month! I needed you.

*Not the trapeze. Not this month. That’ll have to wait for a trip to my brother’s.