CHOOSING 'CULTIVATE' AS MY #WOTY
Every January since I started blogging I've chosen a Word of the Year
instead of making New Year's resolutions. Previous words have been Release,
Embrace, Rise, Enough, More, Symphony, and for this year, I chose "Cultivate". I had mulled several words over in my head, but the idea of consciously
setting out to cultivate aspects of my life that would lead to me thriving
as I headed towards 60 just seemed to fit what I was looking for.
I originally came across the word in Brene Brown's "Daring Greatly" book and a pin I saw online that summed up the 10 areas of life we need
to cultivate to live Wholeheartedly. It got me thinking about what areas of
my life I wanted to grow more in, where I wanted to deepen my life, and
where I wanted to focus my energy.
WHERE I'VE BEEN FOCUSING MY ENERGY
There are lots of little things I've been putting my energy into this year,
things that have become more important to me as I've emerged from lockdown
and returned to the new normal that we're all living in these days. I've
come to see that it's the small things in life that matter to me - not
travelling the world, not writing the Great Australian Novel, not setting
the world on fire......just making choices that reconnect me to my world and
give me a sense of peace.
I thought I'd share three areas that have been on my mind this year that
I've been doing my best to cultivate and invest myself into.
1. CONNECTIONS
Blogging has been a wonderful way for me to connect with women all over the
world. I've made many, many virtual friendships and interacted with so many
women who are positive, encouraging, and proactive in how they're
approaching their 50's, 60's and onwards. They inspire me every day with the
ideas they share in their blog posts, the activities they're involved in,
the pastimes, studies, hobbies etc they tackle, and just the commonalities
we all have at this age and stage.
The one small problem with online friendships is that I can sit at home all day in my
pajamas interacting with lots of people, and feel like I'm being
social.....when in fact I haven't had a face to face conversation for days.
This was all fine when we were in isolation, but as life has kicked back in,
I've realized I needed to cultivate my IRL friendships - to seek out other
women in my area and make the effort to engage with them. It's been tough
putting myself back out there, stretching myself and re-connecting, but I
know it's worth it. Every time I step out into the community and engage, I
nourish a part of me that had been neglected....and it brings balance between the real and the virtual aspects of my life. Cultivating connections in the real world has been a big one
for me in 2021.
2. CREATIVITY
Another area I've been feeling the need to invest in is my creative side.
I'm a dyed in the wool Left Brain person - Logical should have been my
middle name! I've never seen myself as being arty or crafty (I used to call
myself
the Anti-Craft
back in my younger days!) and I've tended to steer away from anything that
involved using the right side of my brain. But, that's not a balanced way to
live, and now I have more time on my hands I thought it would be interesting
to explore that area and see if anything caught my attention.
Surprisingly I realized that I already had a little bit of creativity
rooted in my life - my blogging is an expression of that side of me, and I
also love
colouring-in, and I've tried my hand at
stained glass
- which I loved, but it was a bit expensive to pursue long term. This year a
couple of things have caught my eye - first it was hand
lettering/calligraphy, which appealed because it has structure and the art
of writing beautifully. I've been working on my technique and slowly getting
better, lots more to learn - but a really interesting challenge. Another
area I've suddenly taken a fancy to is collage - I just love it and find it
really relaxing and the pictures I've created are actually really pretty
(who'd have thought?!) I feel like this is a whole new side of me - the
right side is finally catching up with the left side of my brain! I'm dedicating a whole post to this next week - so stay tuned!
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| (The background image is one of my first collages) |
3. CONTENTMENT
This year has definitely been about cultivating contentment in my life.
I've finally acknowledged that for most of my life I've carried a small, constant load of worry on
my shoulders - worry about our finances, worry about work stuff, worry about
our future, worry about all sorts of little things. And over the last year
or so I've let a lot of that worry go. Working my way through the process of
transitioning from work to retirement helped me see that we are doing fine,
that we've made good choices that have brought us to a good place. There
really is no need to worry because things are really good.
I live a very happy life these days, I've been able to put all the decades
of work behind me, and I've come to appreciate how blessed I am to live the
life I have right now. Some days I feel like I need to pinch myself
because I'm "living the dream" - life on my own terms, lived the way I like,
surrounded by people I love, doing things I enjoy. No timetable, no
pressure, no agendas, nothing to lose and nothing to prove - what more could
I ask for? Contentment has just steadily grown in my heart - cultivated
through all the years of hard work that have brought me to this point - life
is very good indeed.
WHAT ABOUT YOU?
Well, those are the three areas I've been cultivating this year to bring some balance and growth into my life. How are
things going in your world? Are you cultivating the areas of your life that
needed a bit of love and attention? Are you thriving and feeling like life's
good? Or do you need to do a little bit of weeding and watering to get
things back on track?
If there's a particular area of life you've been cultivating and you'd like to share it here as a guest, feel free to email me (leanne.crestingthehill@gmail.com) because I love sharing my blog with other writers - it's one of the joys of blogging.
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