2009 Word-of-the-Year: STRETCH

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 Katherine Mahon. More about Katherine below.

Twelve years ago in my first yoga class, I inhaled and stretched my arms toward the ceiling, exhaled and stretched them forward, then toward the floor and stretched again. My body lengthened. Muscle tension released. It felt so good. That is where I first learned the value in the act of stretching.

Twelve years later, it is the late fall of 2008. I am running. I hear chatter in my head. I tell my mind to stretch. My thoughts are no longer a knotted cluster. They stretch. They lengthen. “Ahhh.” It feels so good. Then, “Ah! I found my 2009 word for the year!”

Stretch became my cue to relax my thoughts. Relax shoulders. Relax tension I held in the back of my jaw. What remained in these places was space. Just space. Like a dark night-sky. Open, wide and quiet. I could feel a sense of presence, a rich awareness. A much better place from which to move forward in my day.

After a few months into 2009, I didn’t say “stretch” as much. My mind had learned to go to those typical tense places and release. My throat was the first place I’d go for the body check. From there, other places would follow.

Interesting about the throat…this was also the year I was finding my voice both literally and figuratively. I decided to finally take voice lessons; something I always wanted to do but was very shy about doing. I am literally figuring out what my authentic singing voice is.

The figurative part is about finding my voice in the world. In 3 years my youngest child will graduate and hopefully attend college and I will no longer have the financial support of my ex-husband. Figuring out what I wanted to do with my life, and how I wanted to support myself for the first time, all by myself, was a big scary question mark. Then it came to me. I finally believed I could transform my part time massage therapy practice into a full time business. I realized I could do what I love, and with effort, turn it into a viable source of income. Embracing this decision, the notion of stretching was clearly put into action.

Winter and spring gave me time to integrate what I was learning about myself into a more of a rote pattern. With not as much lengthening going on in my stretching, I reached a new comfort zone.

Then, Christine Kane sent a video invitation to her new program, Uplevel Your Business. I listened to each task that would be required of me as if I were in the program. I heard myself saying after each one, “I can do that.” I was not overwhelmingly attracted to a program about something as dry as business. What made me most curious was that I never once said, “Oh, I can’t do that,” which is my common response.

Back up ten years ago, I was agoraphobic for a short period of time. I have come a long way from there, overcoming many fears. But I would still panic-proof any new situation in my mind before deciding to enter it. That is why this response I had was unusual. One of the tasks was the traveling aspect. Once I committed to the program, it took two months to come face to face with my last big fear. I made the remarkable decision to take a plane.

Stretch for me came full circle. If you told me during the comfort of my run in the late fall of 2008, I would find the courage to enjoy a plane ride, I would not have believed you.

Something better than overcoming my fear of flying occurred during the seminar. I was incredibly present. I did not need to remind my body to relax. I already was. In this state, I was open to possibilities I never allowed myself before. My comfort zone stretched once more.

In this last month of 2009, I got my website up and running, and I am hosting my very first workshop. It will focus on ways to overcome anxiety, panic attacks, fear and worry.

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Katherine Mahon is a Massage Therapist in Downeast Maine. Her website is http://katherinemahon.org. She can also be found on facebook and twitter.

Tagged as: christine kane, katherine mahon, new years resolutions, word-of-the-year

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