I haven’t chosen a word of the year for a while and, when I do, don’t brain storm but let it come to me, softly. This one came to me as though through the window while I was dancing this morning.

It feels right because I can already sense it happening, inside, out and in the spaces between.

That is, inside of me (rebooting my health, details in other posts); outside in “the world” (when I trust myself to feel past all the panic and spin); and in Nature. Truly, Nature as neither inside nor out but both at the same time, yet I feel it happening there; like a bridge to wholesale regeneration, its benchmark and its orchestrator, simultaneously. And Nature know all about regeneration.

This practice has power because, when you choose to focus on a particular word for the whole of the current year, you spotlight and commit to it. When you veer off its path, you ask yourself why and you pull yourself back towards its steadying influence. You stay more aware of daily variances in belief system and come to recognise what is old patterning dragging you backwards, compared to what is new, opening doors of perception. More and more, you crave the latter and dismiss the former, under the auspices of this one guiding word.

Looking back, this is something I have been doing these past weeks even before I chose the word…as in, whenever I notice I am veering off the path of my belief that regeneration is happening, I bring myself back to its possibility. When I doubt it because things “look bad”, I quickly allow that they are merely showing signs of instability ready to reformat, as per regeneration. When odd feelings occur, I allow myself to entertain that this is how repair and reformatting feels, from within the experience, as new healthy cells form, new animation sparks to life; thus I marvel instead of fearing.

Then I self-correct before sleep and I remind myself in the morning. I bring the feeling of it to mind at many points throughout the day and I meditate upon it. I notice, and celebrate, every minor improvement, every turn for the better. I drift off into reveries about how wonderful it is to be alive to experience regeneration occurring in such a major way. This is how a word becomes powerful; a talisman to healing and, yes, even more regeneration.

So I invite you to choose your own word if this exercise resonates. We are far more powerful than we know and our words are here to help us refocus our minds and our energy, keeping to the path of highest potential; let’s use them.