Every Intention

I used to make New Year resolutions. Lose forty kilos, save a million dollars, write a Nobel prize winning novel. Then I would feel guilty for failing.

Cue my inner critic: ‘Well derr.’

I have a habit of setting the bar too high. In school I aimed for A+. I was never happy with an A. I got a B+ once and wanted to disappear into a black hole. God love her, young me, she tried so hard and was so lost.

Many years later, I studied Natural Horsemanship. One of the key phrases they used is: ‘Set your horse/self/task up for success.’ Something I am still learning. Rather than set the bar too high – perfection and nothing less – set it for step one. It’s remarkably hard to do. When you have spent your lifetime beating yourself up for falling short of perfection, it’s a hard habit to break. We are pattern creatures and sometimes our comfort zone, where we feel safest, is in the known patterns of behaviour. Good or bad, they feel familiar and safe.

All my parenting/working life I lived in this pattern. Every year I would set new resolutions to be a better human – a super human really. Surprise, surprise I burned myself out a few times. No-one can take that kind of abuse for long, even when it’s self inflicted.

Now I am doing an even harder thing than parenting or youth work or admin. Writing. Living the best creative life I can. Terrifying and exhilarating in equal measure.

The ‘beat-myself-up-baggage’ is still muttering in the background. Some days I don’t hear it at all. That’s when I know I need to try something new, like landscape painting or drawing cartoons or some other creative stretch. Too long in the comfort zone and my inner demons are hard to hear. They are just as active, if not more, because now I am blind and deaf to them. They become subtle, sneaky, even seductive. A wave of tiredness washing over me preventing me from wanting to finish writing a scene, or spending too long writing about inner critics instead of writing this blog…

I have mentioned a few times that I keep a bullet journal. Since 2019 I have been writing almost daily. Morning pages and bullet journal entries. I have been keeping track of my life. Recently it’s become more intense. Rather than just keep a diary of events I have been challenged to think intentionally and to spend time reflecting back and set intentions forward.

I have discovered a few things. The first is that reflecting back over the past week/month is hard to do. I tend to skip over that part. Looking at how I feel about my life and what I’m doing is something I tend to avoid. I thought I was good at this stuff. Turns out I’m not.

Even before I sat down to go through the 2023 entries, to reflect on my year, I was feeling as though I’ve wasted this year. After all, I haven’t finished the story I’m writing. I have nothing to show for all my effort blah blah blah. The inner demons cranked up to full volume.

Eventually I made time to go through the whole year of entries and forced myself to spend time reflecting. I was pleasantly surprised. Turns out those inner voices are liars. I have done far more this year than I give myself credit for.

Having reflected on 2023, the plan was to set intentions based on my core values for 2024. Not resolutions, not goals, intentions. How to live my life more intentionally.

My core values are ‘Curiosity’, ‘Creativity’ and ‘Connection.’ In that order.

Curiosity is the birthplace of creativity and creativity connects me to the world. There’s a lot more I could say about my values but I’d rather you discovered them for yourself.

What if there is a world of creativity and untapped potential patiently waiting for us to engage. Another dimension where all the characters from stories live, waiting patiently to be born as we engage with them. A place where all the inventions and ideas come from. It’s an ethereal place between sleep and awake, where Tinkerbell lives waiting for Peter Pan. That wonderful place we used to go to when, as children, the teacher’s voice began to drone. We would drift off into daydreaming and feel as though we were somewhere else entirely. Where children go when they say, ‘Let’s pretend we are…’ – fill in the blank.

What if our curiosity is the key to open a portal to that dimension. Our curiosity is what allows creativity to slip through. Ideas, characters, designs pop into existence as we become curious.

This sometimes happens when we’re in the shower and our mind is allowed to drift. Sometimes it happens when we’ve been dreaming and we wake and try to catch the tendrils of the thought. It’s always there. It’s in a constant state of waiting for our curiosity to engage. This year my intention is to be curious, creative and connected.

I often choose a word for the year. My word for 2022 was ‘Hope.’ I needed hope more than at any other time in my life. After all those lockdowns, our adult son was diagnosed with cancer. Hope held me in the palm of its hand. 2023’s word was ‘Joy’ and I found it everywhere I looked. Our son recovered. I know Joy. I found it in every nook and cranny.

My word for 2024 is ‘Peace.’ Peace with myself and who I am, peace with others and peace with the world around me. I look toward 2024 with Hope, Joy and Peace.