THE PRACTICE | get back up again
There is something very hopeful about choosing a word.
For a moment, it can feel like the word itself has already changed something. You can see who you want to be. You can picture the choices you will make, the habits you will leave behind, and the way life might feel if you really lived this word.
That hope can make us want to jump all the way in. We can see the full picture so clearly that it is easy to expect ourselves to start living all of it at once.
We choose brave and picture ourselves speaking up in every hard moment.
We choose rest and imagine finally slowing down.
We choose boundaries and see ourselves saying no without guilt.
And it makes sense that we want to get there quickly; we chose the word for a reason. We are ready for something to change.
But choosing a word is only the beginning. Living with it takes time.
A word is something you slowly learn how to bring into your life. You begin to see what it means in your choices, your relationships, your work, and the way you treat yourself. As you live with it, the meaning can grow and change too.
A word can touch parts of your life you never thought about when you first chose it.
You cannot know all of that on day one.
You discover it by living with the word.
And that takes time.
Once the first excitement fades, there may be a gap between the life you pictured and the life you are actually living. This is often the point when we decide we have failed.
But you haven't failed. The system has.
What system, you ask? Exactly.
Maybe there wasn't one.
Or maybe what you expected of yourself was too big and too fast to keep up with.
Choosing a word does not automatically change you. It is something you learn to bring into your days slowly and with care.
And even then, there will be times when you lose sight of it. Life gets busy. Something else needs your attention. Your word may go quiet for a while. That does not mean you chose the wrong word. It does not mean the practice failed. It means you are a person living a full life.
Living with a word was never meant to be something you get right from the start and then do perfectly from that point on.
There will be times you feel close to it and times you don't.
The important part is knowing you can come back.
The practice is not perfection. The return is the work.
That idea is at the heart of The Circle; we don't treat losing the thread as failure. We learn how to come back.
Because choosing your word is only the beginning.
The Circle is a five-month guided experience for those who have chosen a word and want support actually living with it. Through weekly emails, practical tools, and monthly small-group conversations, it helps you stay connected to your word, work through the friction, and return to it when life gets loud.
The Circle will open in September. Until then, I am going to share some of the practices inside it so you can see what it is all about.
You can follow along on Instagram, or click below to have the updates sent directly to your inbox.
If something goes a little wrong
Well, you can go ahead and bring it on
’Cause if you knock, knock me over
I will get back up again.
Get Back Up Again, Trolls
what I'm loving
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My Instagram feed is a mix of inspirational quotes, beautiful jewelry, dancers and choreographers, style influencers, funny meme accounts, and now a new category: hilarious women dancing and lip syncing to throwback songs. I don’t know exactly when this became part of my algorithm, but I am very glad it did. One of my current favorites is @breakroom.chronicles. Every time one of their videos pops up, it is such a delight. There is something about grown women fully committing to a song we all know by heart that makes me ridiculously happy. |
in the studio
I am in the middle of downsizing my studio, and it feels really good.
I moved my desk to a quieter part of the house so I have a little more space to focus, write, and feel inspired. Next, I’ll be moving all of my jewelry tools into one room in the basement instead of having everything spread out.
After so many years of adding more, I am really enjoying the feeling of simplifying. Less space to manage. Less visual noise. Everything I need, with a little more room to think.
Now if I can only convince myself that I can get rid of the tool I haven’t used in seven years.
Before I go, I want to leave you with this:
Where are you expecting yourself to already be,
when maybe you are still learning how to get there?
Your word does not need you to live it perfectly. It needs time, attention, and a willingness to come back.
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