Heal: One Word 2011 Update

I've had this post that Alece wrote a couple of weeks ago flagged in google reader, as I tried to figure out what to say for an update on how my "one word" for this year is going.

My word is "heal", and I announced it here  and here (and you can find all of the posts I've written about it here.)

I think, when the year started, I was kind of thinking of "heal" as a triumphant thing.  It was finally here, everything was going to be better, and rosy.

It hasn't turned out that way.

Healing, it turns out, is hard, slogging, work.

Good work.

But hard and slogging.

There have been some good things - I had a goal to try a "real" yoga class, and I fell in love with this form of exercise.  I've made some other self-care things a priority, and they are making a difference.

But it's been a lot of hard stuff too.

A year of deconstruction, on the tails of several years of hard challenges, leave a lot of pieces to be sorted, picked up, ordered, and then discarded, or reassembled.  There's been a bit of all of those processes so far this year.

Physically, some of the health stuff that had seemed to finally be turning around as the new year came, has taken a step back, and I'm paying a bit of a price for that.

Emotionally, I've been diligent in working for health.  In reading, in seeking help and wise counsel, in making sure to leave room for margin and rest, and for things like yoga, and time alone - the things that give me space to breathe.

Spiritually, there is growth, and healing happening.  Wounds are settling out, and maybe even closing.  But some have also been uncovered, ripped open, and made visible.  I know God more intimately now, than ever before.  But many of the emotional and spiritual wounds run deep, and I have shed buckets of tears as I've walked this journey of "heal".

It's a word that is shaping my consciousness.  A word that is forming my year.

As of last week, this came in the mail, and it's a word I wear around my neck, reaching up to touch it, to finger it, to be reminded as I feel it sitting against my skin.

It's my word.  And it's been a very mixed journey, but one that is good.

Heal.  It's the word God gave me for this year, and, a quarter of the way through, it's definitely holding my attention, making me curious, excited, nervous, and a little bit scared to see what comes next.