Word of the Year

This time each year we Love Cats often talk about resolutions, hopes and plans for the new year. Knowing by now how limited my willpower is, I don't do resolutions, so for me it's all about the WORD OF THE YEAR.  

This year my word of the year is LIGHT.

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For oh how that word can mean so many good things such as fairy lights, chandeliers, joy, glitter, happiness, ease, starlight, sunshine, rainbows, glints, glimmers, shiny things, delight, warmth, fun, laughter, a child's smile, simplicity... Letting in every ounce of light is my plan for the year. Gorgeous right?

But today I'm going to talk about a word that came really close. 

Who here has heard the Danish word "hygge"? (Pronounced hue-guh.)  Well, if you haven’t I know you’ll be glad you now have.

Here is what it means:

How lovely does that sound?!

And in order to give yourself over to hygge, you need not adopt it as a lifestyle choice, buy any special outfits, there is no set menu or adjustments to your food intake required.

It’s much more of a feeling.

Hygge simply asks that you be more present, more conscious, and that you slow down so that you might recognise those things that make you feel cosy, warm, secure, reassured, simple and content.

It could be lighting a scented candle. Making a cup of coffee or tea. Choosing a beautiful china cup from which to drink it. Covering yourself in a blanket. Eating a home cooked meal. Settling into a nook with a book.

It’s found in ritual. In making the every day into an art form. In seeing domestic life as something beautiful.

This word is my bliss. My happy place. I am a natural. I literally get goosebumps every time I think about it. For I cannot imagine of a more perfect, comforting, warm, wondrous way of choosing to see those moments that over the course of our lives we discover give us the simplest joy.

So this year, as I endeavour to let there be light, by turning my face to the sun, soaking in every one of my children's smiles, and being a conscious hyggelist, who’s with me?

Word of the Year

New Years Resolutions have always made me twitchy.

I’ve tried them, of course. I mean, any chance to write a list, right?  #stationeryaddict

But I’ve never really bothered to follow through in a real way.

Partly because I’m hopelessly laid-back and partly because I’m a naturally contented person, so the idea of making wholesale changes has never really stuck.

Mostly because I’m not great with being told what to do. Tell me not to eat a Tim Tam.  Go on.  I dare you.  I’ll show you!  Watch me eat this whole packet, right in front of you.  Take that!

But, in the contrary nature of the human condition, I love the thought of a New Year.  It’s the ultimate Fresh Start.  The chance to shake off the cobwebs. To take a deep refreshing breath and do better.  Be better.

Which is why I have fallen in love with the concept of Word of the Year.

Rather than a list of ways to self-improve, for me my Word of the Year is a touchstone, a way to gently tug me back to something meaningful.

For example, last year my WotY was SIMPLIFY.

I decluttered like crazy. Oh the bliss of a tidy house!  I cut back – on worries, on endeavours that sapped my time. I let go. Having that word as my touchstone worked. It made my life lighter.

This year it’s MOMENTS.

For me that could mean a hundred different things all of which speak to me at this point in my life.

It can be a reminder to stop. To breathe. To notice.  To soak in a bright blue sky filled with fluffy white clouds. To take a moment to Shazam that song that made me dance in my seat. To see beauty in a wasp flittering over the pool. To spend a minute soaking in the first Jasmine flowers of the season. To look for accidental art in my coffee.

To put not only the big events in our family’s yearly Jar of Awesomeness, but those small moments, the forgotten joys – when my daughter tried to do a handstand in the pool, failed, and laughed at herself with the most gorgeous lack of self-consciousness. When my son made his Captain Underpants, fan–fiction comic book.  When I forced my mum to wear a huge pink ‘birthday girl’ badge the day we took her out for her 70^th birthday.

These moments are my bliss.  My happy place.  My smiles.  My delight.

I'm pretty good at knowing what they are when I see them, but this year I intend to bask in them longer.  To bank those feelings.  To swim in the sparkles till I turn all pruney.  So that it will become habit.

 

And I can't wait.

 

So how about you? If you had a word of the year, what might it be?