Every year at this time, I decide on a word to embody the energy that I want to project for the coming year. I could tell you that the process is highly scientific, or that I travel to a remote cave in Tibet where I ask a hermit monk, who’s in a lifelong vow of silence to scratched this mystical word in the dirt floor at my feet. While that makes for good drama, nothing could be farther from the truth. How I do choose this one word, which is meant to guide my year ahead, is part research and a whole lot of intuition.
Let’s start with the research.
The first thing I determine is my number for the year. This is easy enough, add your birthdate with 2020. So for me that would be 8+31+2020= 2059. Then add 2+0+5+9=16 and finally 1+6 = 7. So seven is my number for 2020.
A little online googling gives me some great info on the numerological meaning of the number 7 as a year cycle number. I found this great explanation from Creative Numerology that explains the 7 year as the “Inner Voyage – the year of learning.”
The year ahead for me is meant to be a time to slow down and seek inner wisdom, find a new balance, reflect and learning how to create the conditions I truly want in my life for the years to come.
As with online searching, the danger of going down rabbit holes of curious information sparked my recollection of the idea of the 7 year life cycle. In the early part of the 20th century, the philosopher Rudolf Steiner, created a life map of ten- 7 year cycles from 0 to 70 years of life. This year is my 56th year, or to do the math 7 x 8 = 56.
Now my way of looking at Rudolf Steiner’s cycles would mean I am finishing up the 8th cycle and on my birthday in August, I would be starting cycle number 9 but according to Mr. Steiner, one’s 56 year is a major turning point in life.
Steiner maintained that 56 is a major turning point in life. At this point, new intuitive and spiritual powers emerge into consciousness, especially if you have been guided through life by your heart and soul. Your intuition is now the single most important sense, guiding you to your answers and giving you direction in life. It is the basis for your sense of connection with the Source.
tommonte.com
What about my intuition? What am I sensing for the year ahead that has lead me to my word of the year?
Amazingly enough, I have been feeling that a cycle of sorts is reaching its end but I could not explain to you in words why that is so. All I know is that I feel the urge to start seeking again.
Now you would think that the word I have chosen would be along the lines of something to explain this seeking feeling. A word like, searching or curiosity, or even journey, but there are a couple of other elements that needed to be factored in for my word choice.
This last year nudged me to understand the consequences of the choices I have made in my life, health wise, and how they may come home to roost as I get older. Let me just say that I am healthy and fine but I am being gently reminded that I no longer have the regenerative qualities of youth on my side. I have come to see the importance of focusing on my health.
My family is also expanding this year. Grandchild #2 is due late March. My granny duties will be needed more than ever. So while I would love to do nothing all year but contemplate my navel and think big thoughts, the people I care about are going to need me.
So the word I have chosen this year embodies both my personal and family obligations. It encompasses my desire to seek outside myself, to learn new things and satiate my curiosities while honouring the responsibilities in my life.
I’ll bet you didn’t see that word coming. Let me explain. If, as Rudolph Steiner says, that my 56 year is meant as a turning point, and if I take my intuition into consideration, which of course is how I roll anyway, then I should expect a deeper, more connected and truly self-empowered lifestyle to emerge in the months ahead. To me, that means stepping more into my own power, to be more fully present with the people and things that truly matter to me and to rise up to become the person I came to this earth to experience to be. To embody this 2.0 version of myself I need to commit to the process.
So commit is indeed my word for 2020. Why not commitment, you might say? Because commitment denotes that a decisions have been made and a course of action has already been determined. Nothing could be farther from the truth.
The word commit is a verb, or at least in the way I am meaning it as my word this year. It is the process of determining my courses of action. I intuit the need to seek this year, to go deeper into my own journey but I also know that my outer world requires my focus too. I need to focus on empowering my body to support any projects or goals I decide on and the endurance to keep up with babies and toddlers and so I need to commit to the process of my life as well.
I do not know what 2020 will bring. No one does. All I can do, or any one of us for that matter, is commit to the process of life. To commit to being the best version of ourselves that we can be at any given moment. To commit to our responsibilities and also commit to being healthy and strong enough to step up to the plate when we are called to be present. But most of all, and the biggest reason I am choosing the word commit as my word for 2020, is to commit to allowing the mysteries of life to unfold exactly as they are meant to in the year ahead with full faith that what I seek will find me.
