ONE LITTLE WORD 2015 - APRIL

It's (almost) May and I'm currently feeling a bit iffy about my relationship with my word.  My 2015 word is VOICE.  I still like it and I like the overall ideas behind it - sharing my voice, listening to God's voice, using my voice to cultivate positive inner voices in my children and trusting my own voice.  This "big picture" view resonates with my overall hopes for myself and my life.  But, I continue to feel like the ideas are too broad and too varied.  

At first, I was looking for some way to make my word actionable.  I made that happen with the March prompt.  It turns out that the action steps weren't the fix that I thought they would be.  The action steps help to bring "voice" from the realm of vague ideals to doable plans, but they do not help me narrow down my focus.  

I know some people like their words to be multifaceted.  I thought it would be a plus.  But now that I'm in the middle of it, I can see that I need a fairly narrow word to help  me feel and stay connected with it.  Lessons learned.  I hereby promise myself a more narrow focus for 2016.

The top image in this post is my completed "homework" for the April lesson of the One Little Word class.  The goal was to tell the story of my word through my camera lens.  

None of the photos were taken specifically for this album page.  Instead, I worked backwards by choosing eight photos from my "camera roll" on my phone that were fitting.  It was an exercise in thinking about my word as a part a part of my world.

If I had worked on this project in the opposite direction, by seeking out photo opportunities specifically for completing this page, it would have lost some of its value.  The completed photo collage likely would have looked similar, but it would have had less significance to me because it would have felt more contrived.

I like the final photo collage.  It is as well rounded as my list of intentions for my word.  It covers everything except writing.  That was unintentional and completely overlooked until the page was complete.  I feel like the expression of my voice through writing is a big part of how I have connected with my word this year and I don't want to leave that out  Since the middle space just has a blank journaling card, I think I will go back and add an image to represent that part of VOICE.

In addition to the photo collage, I also completed an "every day" page that I started in March.  It is part reminder, part motivation and part mini-action list.  This page wasn't part of the prescribed class work for One Little Word, but the idea of daily pro-VOICE actions and inspirations kept coming up and I thought they deserved a page of their own.  

I don't really have a plan to help myself feel more connected with my word.  I do think that continuing to work toward completing my actions and reminding myself to work on the daily efforts will bring me to a better place and that is really the overall hope for my word.  

I am looking forward to the May prompt and seeing what's next for me and my VOICE.

PS - More One Little Word posts.