My intention for 2024 is to “Grow”

Last year’s word for the year didn’t work out for me. No matter how much I wanted to “simplify” things, I ended up reacting so badly to my external environment I ended up in emergency after having a panic attack! It sure was a wake-up call. What did I do? I pulled out my Ekhart Tolle book called “Stillness Speaks”. Because I’d already done the internal work many years ago, it only took a few paragraphs to snap myself out of it. But stress also acts on the body, so it took many weeks to finally recover.

This year I was opposed to selecting a word for the year. I pondered with this for a while and wondered what’s changed. My first thought jumped to New Year’s resolutions which don’t serve me anymore. Resolutions are full of expectations and pressure to achieve them. If I do perchance get to the gym, then yay! If I don’t then I’m not disappointed and don’t beat myself up about not going.

A not so fond memory of mine as a teenager was expecting gifts on Valentine’s Day. I was so upset and mad that I didn’t get anything that I had a temper tantrum at my boyfriend! So, from that day forward I let go of expectations. Of course, it was a begrudging learning experience that didn’t happen overnight but to this day, that was a defining moment for me.

Recently I took a lovely art course called “Create your best year” by Christine Karpiak that was focused on setting intentions, not goals. Of course, I had to google it to discover that a goal focuses on external accomplishments, like playing the piano. An intention describes how you want to feel internally.

So, the ultimate question is, is the word of the year supposed to be a goal or an intention? Of course, it can be anything!

Maybe this is what happened with last year’s word. It started out as an intention but ended up being a goal. So, my word “grow” is all encompassing. I think I’ll wrap this up by saying it’s both a goal and an intention! This keeps the mystery around what will become of it with no expectations attached to it.

I think we all want to grow in some form, and at the end of 2024 I hope to be surprised. This is the best relationship I can have with myself.

I did 3 art journal spreads of the word “grow”. I decided to turn on the camera to record one of them. It’s on YouTube if you’d like to see the process of making it. I used a particular piece of silver textured collage paper and I love how it turned out!

Have you experienced this? I would love to know your thoughts.

"Don't go through life. Grow through life." Eric Butterworth