I don’t know about you, but when January 1st rolls around, I’m usually hit with an odd mixture of emotions. What I feel is part anxiety, part expectation, part excitement and part post-holiday let down. I’ll admit that I feel sad when the holiday buzz has fizzled out and normal day-to-day life settles back in. I usually plan something fun a day or two after New Year’s to cheer me up; this year I went to Goleta Beach for lunch and then shopping in Santa Barbara with my daughter and husband.
Always searching for a new idea to make life better, (I’m a professed self-help junkie), I decided to do something different to ring in the New Year…I choose a “Word of the Year” — a guiding theme to help direct my actions and set the tone for 2020. I used to create elaborate Vision Boards and really LOVED doing them, but when all was said and done, I found that I had too many ideas on my boards and not enough focus. A Word of the Year — one singular directive force — would be more tangible for me, I believed. I got the idea from Tonya Leigh who is a Life Coach with a blog called “French Kiss Life.”
Leigh is a champion of the Word of the Year idea — she has used words such as CEO (to express leadership as in Chief Executive Officer), Hermes (to symbolize quality), Committed (to show up) and Rising (to be like a Phoenix rising from the ashes). Leigh got the Word of the Year idea from one of her first mentors, and has used each word to create “intention…clarity…purpose…” https://frenchkisslife.com/choose-word-of-year-2020/.
If you didn’t catch my special word from the title of this blog, I choose “restraint,” which at first seems very unromantic and unexciting. However, I selected restraint because I needed to feel more in control of my life — financially, physically and emotionally. Financially for the obvious reason, I have found myself spending too much money on things I don’t really want or need; physically, eating too much food that I don’t need, and emotionally I need restraint by not saying things (especially with my teenage daughter) that I would later regret. I have learned the hard way that the first words I express when I’m upset aren’t always the best word choices in the long run.
At first glance the idea of “Restraint” seems grim and restrictive and very unfun. But I was willing to take a chance with it, a leap of faith, so to speak, to feel more centered. As an aside, I suffer from anxiety — who doesn’t these days? — but the less I have to worry about, the better. So for me the surprise of restraint has been that the more I have said “no” to what I didn’t want or need, the more relaxed and at ease I have felt. Hence, the paradox.
Today is Super Bowl Sunday…a day when restraint for most people goes out the window, with food, drink, shouting and other excesses getting center stage. I plan on joining the masses, too, and will enjoy my chips, dip, beer, etc. I truly believe life is meant to be enjoyed. It is finding the balance that is the tricky part!
In this TED Talk video by Gillian Dunn, she expresses the idea of how we buy things, save them for a “special occasion” and then don’t end up using them. Like buying the beautiful dress that you never wear, the watch you’re afraid to wear, or in Dunn’s case, never burning a beautiful candle she bought in Mexico. I’m not the first to say we are society of consumers.
One of the biggest upsides to showing restraint this year is that I started using things I forgot I had because I wasn’t buying new stuff. For instance, Kevin and I decided to clean out our freezer and actually eat the food we had stored in there. Foraging through the refrigerator yielded some impromptu, creative meals. (My favorite one was the ordinary frozen pizza we doctored up with olives and artichokes.) Consequently, our January grocery bill went way down!
Today, also, I am wearing the Michael Kors watch I bought for myself for a birthday present many years ago…a watch I had tucked into my jewelry box and was saving for a special occasion. The special occasion? There is none. The takeaway is that by limiting my spending, I am using (and appreciating!) what I already have. I have enjoyed going through my own closet and rescuing items that have been forgotten. I guess you could also label this as “mindfulness” which has become a catch all term for being aware of how you spend your time, money, and how you show up in the world. It’s paying attention to the details.
Okay. So all of you naysayers out there are thinking that I have only shown restraint in January and I have eleven more months to go! You are so right! I’m still working on restraint in other areas of my life — like keeping my emotions in check, not eating that extra cookie, (especially during Girl Scout cookie season, ugh!) or saying “no” to something I don’t really want to do. But financially, I came out in the black this month and with a few bucks to spare — the first time in ages that I can say that! And it feels AWESOME!
In The Gabriel Method, Jon Gabriel writes “you are more likely to gain weight the more worried you are about losing your job or making ends meet.” He states that stress and worry create a toxicity in the body unconducive to weight loss. Without a doubt, having peace of mind by showing restraint and not overspending has made me feel physically and mentally healthier. Whether or not it translates into weight loss, time will tell. And with my fancy new “old” watch on, I will be able to tell time just fine!
What would you choose as your Word of the Year? It’s never too late to select one…check out Tonya Leigh’s website for more inspiration.
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This week I introduce my weekly segment: Farmer’s Market Moment. Today I bought fennel. I believe it has a mild licoricey flavor, but I have no idea what to do with it — so my loyal readers out there — if you have a fabulous fennel-infused favorite food, please let me know! Otherwise, I will be hitting the cookbooks for ideas…
Have a safe and happy Super Bowl Sunday! xo
Cheryl Thatt-Burbank 