Every new year,
I choose a word that I want to live into.
My word for 2024 was magic.
To be honest,
It hasn't gone so well.
It's been a hard year.
Hard to find the magic,
Let alone make it.
Apparently my word for 2025 wasn't going to wait until the new year for me to start living into it.
It has snuck up on me in the past few weeks,
Arriving unexpectedly,
Like it knew I needed it now.
My new word is tend.
Tend means to watch over,
To take care of.
And as soon as I hear that,
My spirit says,
Yes,
Please.
Almost everyone I know is doing too much.
The world demands that we live this way.
But at what cost?
This past week,
One of my classes wrote what I call moment and meaning essays.
And in them,
I asked my students to share a powerful moment in their lives and then to dig in for meaning.
We read them aloud in class and in essay after essay.
Someone got diagnosed with something,
Usually cancer,
Or some moment happened where the students realized how very precious life could be.
My students all wrote about how crucial the support of family and friends is in moments like that.
And something else that they named?
Live now.
Live this moment.
Because you never know what's coming.
But we often put off tending the tender in ourselves because we have to get things done,
Because doing that sort of thing is selfish or weak,
Right?
Best to suck it up,
Buttercup.
Grit,
Persistence,
Efficiency,
Competence,
They're all great,
Don't get me wrong.
And they can only go so far.
Because as the book says,
The body keeps the score.
If you haven't read that book before,
You might check it out.
The body keeps the score.
It really does.
When we are always pushing,
Always doing,
Always striving,
We know this creates effects.
But we're usually focused on the external effects.
Sometimes they're good ones.
We get a promotion or a raise because we are working so hard.
What we often forget is doing this.
Always pushing,
Always striving.
Those things also create internal effects as well.
When we get so caught up in out there,
We ignore what's going on in here.
Cue the movie announcer voice.
In a world where everyday people get overwhelmed,
Anxious,
Exhausted,
And sad,
A brave and plucky band of heroes decides to resist.
Their weapons?
Rest,
Quiet,
Stillness.
This might seem absurd.
But we need to quit seeing the gentle verbs as easy outs.
We need to quit seeing the gentle verbs as weak or woo-woo.
I would argue living the gentle verbs might be the hardest thing we can do.
I know when I finally tend and turn toward my body and spirit and listen to all they've been carrying and holding,
My first inclination is to run and hide and do more and more so I don't have to pay attention.
Because when I sit in quiet,
All kinds of things get revealed.
My unhelpful patterns,
My holding me back habits,
My emotions,
My monsters.
Facing that can feel impossible,
Terrifying.
Which is why I want to argue that real bravery begins with listening.
Listening to what gets revealed.
Real bravery also begins with honoring the big emotions.
Fear,
Sadness,
Anger,
Anxiety.
Real bravery is stepping into the middle of life's unending battlefields and tending the hurts and doing our best not to cause any more.
We can do this for ourselves.
It is not weak.
It is not selfish.
And then we can do this for others.
How different things might be if we all tried waking gently and tending the fire inside.
How different an overwhelming moment might be if we paused and put a hand on our heart and whispered,
It's okay,
You've got this.
How different a life can be when we stop,
Drop into this present moment and breathe.
When we tend the tender and turn toward what is calling for our care.
Live light.
