Selecting a word to represent your intentions for the year is a powerful practice. It sets the stage for the year, can take you beyond your limits and learning edges, and defines a laser-like focus for the year.
Trust Starts With YOU
Early in 2011 I selected a word to be my theme for the year. It took a long time for this word to come to me – I wasn’t clear about what I wanted. After a lot of patience and inquiry, I selected ‘trust’ as my word for 2011.
I picked ‘trust’ because I was working too hard to make things happen and I wanted to put more trust in the flow of life. For example, I wanted to trust whatever people said or did as being right and good. Little did I know just how powerfully this intention would play out during the year!
Two things happened in 2011 that are beautiful examples of how my intention to ‘trust’ played out.
First, while driving across the country on vacation with my family in July, I experienced extreme frustration and emotional pain. I kept feeling excluded from what my husband and two boys were doing and I got to the point where I couldn’t stop crying. At this point, my son Alex said to me “I feel like you’re ruining our vacation”…
You might think this was a mean thing for Alex to say but it was the perfect ‘right and good’ response: it was exactly how I felt on vacation as a child. In that moment I trusted Alex and I realized the truth of what he said and thanked him. I shared how when I got emotional as a kid, my parents didn’t know what to do, so my emotions got ignored and stuffed. Now in the middle of Yellowstone’s burbling and gurgling geology, my emotions were bubbling over!
I trusted my family to witness my feelings and healing process. We sat down at a picnic table, I shared what I was thinking and feeling, and so did they. It turned into a profound experience of being open and vulnerable with each other. My emotions became a catalyst for all of us to heal and connect.
After Yellowstone, if we saw a little kid being unruly or having a tantrum, we collectively cheered them on saying ‘let it out!’ Even better, I was able to receive love and inclusion from my men like never before. My son Lucas checked-in toward the end of the trip asking, “Are you feeling heard now Mom?” Was I ever!
Second, Diane Craver was my business partner in the IAM Learning Community during 2010 and most of 2011. There were several challenges we faced that we just couldn’t seem to overcome…
In September Diane met with Dick Hoffmann about his interest in IAM and Diane said to both Dick and me: you have to meet each other!
As a result of Diane’s grace, generosity and trust, Dick and I are now leading IAM, and those challenges that Diane and I kept facing are being overcome. Diane shifted to participating in ways that are a better fit for her, without any conflict, blame, or drama of any kind. How many business partnerships have you seen explode into drama when tough decisions need to be made? No, Diane and I trusted what was happening as ‘right and good’ for both of us, and indeed it was!
What I didn’t realize when I picked trust as my word for 2011, was the extent to which I could trust the desire and intention behind my choice to carry me throughout the year. Indeed, my ability to trust is stronger than ever, it is becoming stronger every day, all without any special effort or activity on my part. Easy!
I will admit to effort when it comes to the discipline of inner work. I believe trust is an inside job: it is a faith journey of believing in myself, expanded through the challenges and opportunities of Drama.
The author and minister Blaine Hartford defines trust as:
A feeling of safety in our self
induced by how much
caring, competency, and commitment
we sense another person demonstrates within our relationship.
I believe the world is a safe place. I use the IAM Touchstones with both my family and colleagues to learn from Drama. This perspective and framework give me the competence to create experiences where everyone involved can know ‘we are working for each other,’ we will ‘take 100% responsibility for ourselves’ and we will support each other fully in what we each want. Caring and commitment are easy when this type of interpersonal skill is present.
My discipline of inner work and the IAM concepts allowed trust to explode inside of me and then with my outer experiences in 2011. Did I know all of this would happen at the beginning of 2011? Absolutely not! But I am deeply grateful, and I eagerly dove in to selecting my word for 2012 as a result!
Selecting my word for 2012 was easy compared with selecting my word for 2011. I consistently meditate and I’ve added ‘talking with my future self ’ to my practice. I’ve asked this ‘future self’ for guidance and she has clearly responded with suggestions to ‘chill,’ ‘relax,’ along with some very specific priorities to focus on. When I asked her how I could move forward ‘quickly and easily’ with my business, she responded with the delightful: ‘use the key to the magic kingdom!’
If any of you are Disney fans like me, you’ll know exactly what this suggestion is all about: imagination. My last trip to Disneyland, after many, many visits as both a child and adult, was inspiring because I finally realized how brilliant Walt Disney was at demonstrating the power of imagination. Creating anything begins in our mind’s eye. Actually, most of the work happens there!
And so my word for 2012 is ‘imagine.’ I picked ‘imagine’ because I want to move even farther along the path of creating my experiences with ease and grace, further trusting the flow of life to bring me exactly what I want. I’ll let you know where this theme for 2012 takes me. I have a feeling I will go even farther than I can imagine!
Please comment on this article! I’d love to know what your intentions are for 2012 – as a word or otherwise. And what do you think about what I shared here?
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Karen,
What a great story. Thanks for sharing so deeply of yourself. I love your idea of a word… I’m sure mine for 2012 is Love. I’m taking some new directions in my business and, like you, have a feeling it will take me further than I have yet imagined. Please let me know if i can support you. Sending love,
Stephanie
Karen, Thank-you for powerfully sharing these stories about your own use of the IAM Touchstones and your word for the year. I am also someone who intentionally connects with my future self as a way to see clearly and practically the most healing, fun, whole and creative path to become my essential best. My New Year’s meditation on my 2012 theme clearly brought forth the word “community.” This year I want to strengthen my community of intimates and creatives who thrive on the free flow of ideas, experiments, adventure and who boldly, wisely support my ever expanding self, in all it’s wonders — from stunning to messy! Related to this, one area where I want to challenge myself is being more open about what is happening in my life, what I am seeing and feeling, learning, wondering. I see this with the whole social networking and blogging movement, which I have dabbled in from time to time. I see alot of folks playing with online platforms as a way to engage in new ways of being open and authentic. I think this reflects a real desire to be met for who we are and want to become. I would love for you (and others) to say more about making the leap to being more vulnerable and open when there can be so much at stake personally and professionally by being “out there.” What do you experience, see as the value, for example, in telling the personal stories about the family vacation or your transition with Diane? Also, I am always wanting to learn more about engaging and supporting that part of me that is coming into being — my future self, or higher self — and applying those insights practically in the present while still allowing for optimal flow and change. I welcome your thoughts, Karen, and hope other in the IAM community will join in.
Thank you Stephanie and Elizabeth for sharing your thoughts! I want to be sure to give Diane Craver credit for the word theme. She inspired this process for me! And thank you for sharing your words! Likewise, let me know how I can support you in your themes for the year.
First, posting an article that is as open as this one took a lot of courage for me. After I published the article, Dick shared some concerns and there were no comments for a while, and a whole bunch of fears came up. But I’ve gotten used to this process of taking a risk and dealing with my own judgments and fears and it’s getting easier and easier. I know relationships are a mirror to my relationship with my self – and as I said in the article – I can trust whatever comes up as serving me well!
I don’t share personal stories gratuitously. My intention is to be open about my own process of transformation as a way of learning more about it and learning from others. I also agree with you Elizabeth that being open and vulnerable reflects a desire I have to be met – as the real me – big, bold, courageous – no holding back. I’ve done enough holding back and I’m not interested in more.
I also wanted to make a connection between the two stories – one personal and the other professional. I don’t think I could have created the kind of exquisite grace-filled professional experience with Diane if I hadn’t had that profound personal vacation experience – trusting what comes up as right and good – focusing then on ways to support everyone involved. It’s part of the IAM Way – learn personally – apply professionally. I’m not saying that it can’t work the other way around – it does! There’s just something powerfully important related to integrity about creating a solid foundation at home that you can build on at work.
About engaging and supporting the ‘me that is coming into being’ via conversation with my future self – this is a powerful process that I will write more about in the future. I’ll summarize here by say that it’s part of a way to play in the gap between ‘present moment awareness’ and ‘future anticipation imagination’. By intentionally and concretely talking with the future self of my choosing (I’ve gotten VERY specific about the details of this self) I’m able to cut through all kinds of drama (fears, limited thinking, old patterns). This approach keeps the gap between present and future clean and clear of clutter – so there is optimal flow and evolution into the next version of me and the serving of others that I desire. Vision boards and strategic plans are nice – but the information I’m getting from my future self about ‘what’s most important today’ (for example) is so much more useful – every day – infinitely resourceful, adaptable, resilient, creative – all the things that we need to deal with the radically changing world we now live in.
Thanks for asking about this Elizabeth and I too welcome more thoughts and questions!
Hello & wishing you many adventures (my 2012 word) in your year of imagination! I am deeply honored to have partnered with Karen and extremely proud of the way we took different paths in a caring, loving way! There is no need for Drama in choosing different paths because no one is bad (IAM Touchstone). What comes to mind is an old quote I grew up with, “If you truly love someone, set them free.” I didn’t grasp the fullness of the quote at the time, but now I see how setting someone (or thing) free is a physical freedom, sometimes it’s an emotional or spiritual freedom & sometimes it’s both. I got my Word of the Year theme from my client who read about it in a blog from Christine Kane (www.christinekane.com). I’ve been using my word for a few years now and have really enjoyed it. This year’s word of adventure is not necessarily about physical adventures (although that is definitely a desire), it’s about changing my perspective & playing a bigger game. Blessings in 2012!
Diane,
Thank you for sharing your word for 2012. I have no doubt you will have a truly adventursome year!
–Karen