2009 Word-of-the-Year: INTEGRATION

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 Lisa Rough. More about Lisa below.

It was last year around this time that I was inspired to choose a word for the year ahead…

Well, I’d never been one to choose just one thing out of a sea of possibilities. And as I struggled with picking a word off a list of contenders, it occurred to me that this was a startling reflection of how I’d lived my life up to that moment, thinly scattered over millions of things I wanted to do and be, and never feeling truly successful at any one of them.

I had been a stay-at-home mom-artist-yoga-teacher-massage therapist- musician-writer-counselor for the last eleven years, and while proud of the wisdom and experience I had accumulated, I realized then that I had never whole-heartedly put any of it into practice in my own life.

This scattered feeling was so overpowering in that moment that I literally had to close my eyes.

That’s when the word integration magically slipped off my tongue and onto the page.  I wanted, desperately, to feel like all that I am made some sort of sense, that it was well-defined like a finished sculpture, that it was simple and concrete and genuine.

After going to one of Christine’s retreats in March, I came home knowing that things were shifting, that I was beginning to take myself more seriously, and that I was tuning into something much greater than grocery lists and laundry loads.

My “homework” after the retreat was to clean out my house, with the intention of finding clarity and making room for whatever was hidden inside to come out and play.  My efforts were concentrated into a few weeks of daily loads to Goodwill and hours at a time spent letting go of everything that wasn’t adorned with a resounding YES.

After I had given up my grandmother’s antiques, purged a ton of memorabilia that had become meaningless, recognized that my kids would forgive me for not being the perfect scrapbooking mom, and emptied out my closet and kitchen cabinets, it was time for the last hurdle…  my studio.

I remember going through art supplies, throwing away old dried up paints and tattered brushes, when out of nowhere, this thought came up:

I don’t want to do commissions anymore.

Clear as day.

As I marveled at what this clarity felt like in my body and in my heart, I realized that this didn’t only pertain to my art…  I didn’t want anyone telling me what to do anymore.  Period.  It was about growing up, walking my talk, and making choices that reflected who I am rather than what was expected of me.

This led to a rich, inspiring, and sometimes challenging year.

I encountered enough of my own resistance to fill up an entire ocean, rocked the boat many times with family and friends in the process of honoring my own truth, and faced the fear of letting go of certain aspects of who I thought I was.

I stopped doing my art, unless it came from a place of authentic longing to create.

I stopped trying to justify my story and instead began to LIVE it.

I began living from the inside out.

The doors to my heart swung open, and I discovered that what I most wanted to do was to guide folks toward the understanding that creativity isn’t just about crayons and stick figures.  It’s about living a deliberate, colorful life — the kind of life I had finally begun to embrace myself.

It almost feels as though I’ve come full circle now that I’m planning to lead my own creative women’s retreats in 2010.  Integration for me has been about weaving together the lost strands of my soul and creating a beautiful tapestry that I call my life.    I’m still a work in progress, and I know now that I always will be.  The ironic thing is while I thought I was narrowing down who I was, I was also opening up to even more possibility, ones that continue to invite opportunities to expand while carving out and defining myself even more.

My word for 2010?  Boldness.  Oh yea, baby.  Bring it on.

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Lisa J. Rough is a creative coach in Asheville, North Carolina.   Using fun and playful artistic exploration, journaling, mandala-making, mind-mapping, and daydreaming, she is able to guide her clients toward their own wisdom as they gracefully move through transition and awaken to their dreams.  (http://www.SacredCircleCreativeCoaching.com)

Tagged as: christine kane, lisa rough, new years resolutions, word-of-the-year

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