2009 Word-of-the-Year: HEALING AND CHEER

Note: December is Word-of-the-Year Month at Christine’s Blog.  As we roll into another New Year, each day will feature a new guest author who chose one word as a way of setting intention for her whole year.  Today’s guest is Briana Aldrich. More about Briana below.

Last December, when Christine suggested choosing a word for 2009, I chose two: Healing and Cheer.

I’ve struggled with unhealthy eating patterns and body image issues for a good chunk of my life, so the choice of healing seemed obvious. The word cheer just delights me, and its lightness seemed to balance out the intensity of healing. I chose cheer as part of an effort to act the way I want to feel: to keep reminding myself to be of good cheer.

At the time, I had no idea how much I’d need the spirit of these two words, or what power we actually have to create healing and cheer in our own lives.

Less than a month into 2009 my stepfather, Frank, died in a private plane crash. He had been a dad to me for over 20 years, since I was a little girl, and I went through tremendous shock and grief at his passing.

When I chose these words, I obviously had no idea I’d need the strength to heal from this loss, and yet it seemed so serendipitous that I had chosen the word healing. But cheer? How could I embody cheer, and where could I find it?

Frank was such a bright light, with his ear-to-ear grin, and his unbridled, childlike joy. I kept asking myself: Where does all of that energy and good cheer go now?

And I wondered: How could my choice of the word Healing feel so utterly synchronistic, and my choice of Cheer be, at the same time, frivolous or irrelevant? I just couldn’t believe that. So I searched for ways to find meaning and grace in both words.

On my flight home for Frank’s memorial, I read Joan Didion’s gorgeous memoir “The Year of Magical Thinking.” She wrote that she’d always considered herself to be a lucky person, and although she had lost her husband suddenly, and her only daughter was fighting for her own life, Didion couldn’t imagine thinking of herself as anything other than lucky now.

Her words shook my core. Spiritually I had been trying for some time to understand that I’m meant to be having whatever experience comes my way. I wanted to be able to live the words “In Everything, Give Thanks.”

Now, of course I would gladly give up this spiritual yearning to have Frank cruise up in his truck, gravel flying or amble through the door and envelope me in his trademark bear hug.  But if I can’t have that, I have to believe that somehow I’ll find the grace to live my life carrying some of his beautiful, loving, sweet, good cheer.

So yes, I want to embody the cheer and vitality that always radiated through Frank. But maybe my choice of the word, this year of all years, is also about seeing cheer as a verb.

Maybe cheer is something I have, something I do, something I am.

Last December, before choosing these words, I took a huge leap and left my soul-draining corporate career to figure out what I really wanted to do with my life. And I’ve spent this year figuring out how I want to show up in my life in ways that help other people choose bigger, more blissful lives of their own.

I sent Christine a thank you note in July to tell her that choosing a word of the year had already challenged me, supported me, and encouraged me to see the incredible abundance of gifts in my life. At that point I still saw these words primarily for the ways they impacted me.

Since then, I’ve been working with turning the spirit of these words outward. And I’m in awe of the way these themes, healing and cheer, have come absolutely full circle for me and the direction my life is taking.

Now I’m doing work I love, helping other people find their way. Part of my role is to cheer them on as they reach for bigger, brighter lives. And after my own journey with my body and eating issues, I also feel compelled to help other people untangle and heal their struggles with food, weight, and body image.

Healing and cheer. For all of us.

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Briana Aldrich spent the last few months of 2008 plotting escape from her corporate career by obsessively reading Christine’s blog archives and playing “Leap and the net will appear” (i.e. “Right Outta Nowhere“) on continuous loop until she found the courage to make her own leap.

Now she helps bright, awesome people discover just how bright and awesome they are so they can:

(A) Find their thing, and do it brilliantly. (And happily); Or

(B) Ditch the diet drama, reach their ideal weight, and stay there.

Find her at www.blisscovery.com and www.blisscoverywellness.com or on twitter: @BrianaAldrich}

Tagged as: briana aldrich, christine kane, grief and loss, martha beck, new years resolutions, word-of-the-year

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