checking in {12.23}

It’s time!

We’re checking in with our words. The link party’s up and stays open through Tuesday, January 2. 

Join here. Let’s catch up!

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Last year, I saved my hard work for last.

Not on purpose. It’s just…how it went.

(It happens.)

So this year, I promised myself:

excerpted from my ASK ’23 mindmap

I took my own advice. For much of the year, I asked those hard questions. (Even when I desperately wanted to lighten up, I found myself in deep work, you could say.)

I worked my word from both ends of the spectrum: with playful curiosity + wonder…What do 20,000 daffodils look like? What if I wanted to fly on a trapeze? Why does mechanical pencil lead always give me trouble? And with Big Hard Questions that took, often, a full month to answer.

These are my monthly takeaways (barely legible, I realize; full monthly reviews are under the ASK ’23 bar in my menu).

I often come out of a One Word year with numerous ‘keepers.’ and writing up a one-pager (or two halves, in this case) is the easiest way to see them. But when I look at 2023, ASK crystallizes in a singular takeaway that narrows down to a simple question:

What are you really trying to say, Carolyn?

Which seems awfully…basic.

Because it is.

Looking back, I know I muddy the waters by rationalizing, validating, or substantiating; talking around; trying to talk myself into or out of XYZ. As laborious as it was some months(!), ASK helped me build a muscle to be direct with myself. Hence the question, What are you really trying to say? 

Just…tell it like it is.

What do I feel? What am I afraid of? What’s intimidating or frustrating or holding me back? What’s hopeful, enticing, exciting?

Looking back at what I’ve ASKed this year, I see answers that’ve taken me decades to reach. All variations on self-worth, purpose, and/or enoughness. The value of one word all year is that if you have trouble getting it the first time there are several more chances to drive it home. This year, I had at least six reminders that

→I do myself no favors by playing small

→ I do myself no favors by sacrificing joy

→ I do myself no favor by should’ing on myself

And I believe I needed every single one.

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Finally, it’s Pema Chödrön’s words from September that come back to me more than any other. You might remember —

Death is certain. Time of death is uncertain. So what is the most important thing?

So what is the most important thing? she asks.

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ASK’23 is a simpler wrap than my last several words. (It seems I must be missing something even as I write this up!) I can safely say I’ve worked it consistently and deeply and made shifts in the last 12 months. It feels solid, needs no more belaboring, and that brings gratitude + satisfaction.

I’m ready to take up the new habits of ASK and set aside the ‘active work’ to make room for something new…

…My One Word ’24!

It’s a word that feels like a culmination of my last three. (A fact which only just struck me.) (But I see it so clearly now.)

I’ll be back in January to share it!

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Thank you for being part of my year…for being on this One Word path together. Community and companionship have become synonymous with the practice — and they certainly make it a whole lot richer. I mean, I guess you could do it in a vacuum. But I wouldn’t want to. — ♥ C.