NURTURE / MY ONE LITTLE WORD FOR 2017

This is my fifth year doing the One Little Word project and my fourth year following along with Ali Edwards' workshop of the same name.  My previous words (in order): tomorrow, build, voice and simplify.  

It's September and I haven't written about my One Little Word for the year since December of last year.  Eesh.

My word is NURTURE and I have a few thoughts I'm ready to get into writing.  

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The first few months of my year of nurturing felt good.  So good, really.  Things were far from perfect, of course, but I'll take good when I find it.  I attribute a lot of those positive feelings to slowing down, deepening and strengthening the important - in short nurturing what mattered.

I spent a lot of time thinking about how I could nurture and then trying different things to see how they fit with our family life and how they fit with my personality.  Basically, I think all the focus on nurturing - all the intentional thought and action - led me to a good  place.  

Some concrete examples: a return to a regular and plentiful reading life, training for the Lincoln Marathon (I walked the Half with Brian, my sister and my (now) brother-in-law in May), joining a Moms in Prayer group and making prayer plus devotion time an integrated part of my life, spending more time with Brian (thank you Marathon training), making a conscious effort to spend more time on the floor playing with the kids and utilizing seasonal lists of family activities.

Doing these things - focusing on them, making time for them and prioritizing them led me to feel like I was really fitting my word into my life.  And that was the goal.

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As the year has progressed, I've noticed that my intensity and focus have changed a bit.

Many of these "nurturing" things became just a  part of life.  They don't currently require me to give them a lot of thought.  I just do them.

As it became second nature, I really shifted the focus to nurturing myself.  This was most definitely not a part of the plan, but I'm thankful that it's happened.

It started with my 2017 reading goal and how wonderful it felt to get back to being a reader.  That little spark of "oh, yeah - this is ME, there's more to me than just being a mom," led me to seek out more opportunities to nurture myself.  Following that with the 100 day project only made this feeling stronger.  And, as of the last month and a half, I've been working on my physical health and feeling good about my body.  ...more to say about that at a later date.

I hadn't realized how much I missed myself and how much I missed doing the things I love.  I also think that I underestimated the power of taking care of myself.  It's cliche, but true: when I take care of myself, I have more to give.

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I am curious to see what, if anything, else comes out of my year of nurturing.  But if the end of the year comes and this is all I learn, that would be okay.