Trust. It seems like such an easy concept. And it’s one of those things that involves more than one person… Right? Well, kind of. Except when it isn’t.
I have chosen a word of the year for the past 4 years. I learned a long time ago that resolutions were not my thing. I love to set goals, but I can’t set year long goals. It just doesn’t work for me. In a quest to “be a better human” I found the concept of One Word and that just resonated with me. Figure out a word, find things that remind you of that word, focus on that word, etc. This I could do. It gave me an opportunity to continue to design things (something I loved doing, but had kind of let go). When I decided to try this word for the year, the words came easy.
2018 was Peace – This one came to me easy after a rough year with lots of transitions. It was hard to find, but easy to focus on for a year. I was in a new job with lots of new responsibilities and changing the ways that I thought about things. It was also the year I was rebuilt by some amazing friends/bosses and regained some confidence in my abilities as a teacher.
2019 was Pause – That new job came with lots of changes and when I look back I can see that while I did find some peace in 2018, I also ran as hard as I could everywhere I was going. Pause just seemed to fit for 2019. It made sense. It was what I needed to do. I created backgrounds for my computer, my watch, my phone, etc. I saw pause everywhere, but I was not very successful in learning to pause unless I was ill.
2020 was Intentional – The year that no one expected. I had chosen intentional because I wanted to revamp the way I did things and make sure that I wasn’t half-doing things. I wanted to be intentional about how I spent my time. I had no clue exactly how important that word would become as we went through the craziness that was 2020.
2021 was Rhythm, then it was Gratitude – I started the year wanting desperately to get my life back into a rhythm that had been torn apart by 2020. It didn’t take long into 2021 to determine that rhythm was just going to frustrate me. There were so many things outside of my control that were affecting my ability to get into a rhythm. As a self-professed control freak, I found that trying to cling desperately to rhythm was almost becoming harmful to my mental health. So, I switched my word around March to gratitude. I focused on making a list of things I was grateful for every day (at least I tried to make sure I got that done) and really found that to be helpful to my mentality at a point when the world seemed to be falling apart and my own little world was crazy.
That brings us to 2022 and Trust. A few weeks ago someone used the word trust (granted it seemed in anger) but it got me to thinking. That person was using it in the realm of learning to trust each other, but it seemed more than that to me. And I really didn’t want that to be my word. It made me uncomfortable and I couldn’t figure out why. In general, I tend to trust people. Then I realized, I trust people, but sometimes question the intentions. So I started to think maybe this is my word. So I thought some more and realized the person that I really don’t trust is me. I trust my mind, but I don’t trust my body due to weirdo injuries and things that just don’t work. I trust my logic, but I am super insecure about things and always second guessing myself. It was then that I realized that yes, trust is my word, but it isn’t about trusting others. My issue with trust is trusting myself. The reason I question intentions of people is because I stay rooted in my own insecurities. So my word is trust. It isn’t about trusting others. It’s all about learning to trust myself. It is going to force me to be intentional with my thoughts. It’s going to force me to do hard things. It’s probably going to hit some nerves that are really raw. My hope is that by the time I get to the end of the year I am trusting myself and moving beyond my insecurities. I want to be the person that believes it when people say nice things or tell me I have done something good.
So trust it is. What does that look like? I am not really sure. Today, it looks like putting it out there in writing. It looks like not being insecure about admitting that there are issues that I need to figure out how to deal with. It looks like trying to not feel a need to “prove myself” and just relaxing into the things that I do. I don’t know what it will look like tomorrow, but I do know that it will be a journey to learn to trust myself. It will be a journey to overcome the insecurities that creep in and try to steer me off course.
Beautiful Minds Inspire Others 