Year of the Word

I picked my word of the year. Let the games begin.

Six-ish months ago I had a consultation call with a twenty five year old writing coach living in upstate New York with a pillow-soft voice and a great head of hair. Twenty five year olds know lots of things I don’t, but they can’t know what it’s like to be pushing 40 with the sense that you need to write more and faster to make up for lost time.

Though she lacked the capacity to free me from my self-inflicted existential pressure (that turned out to be an inside job ugh), she did have something to share about time that helped… a sentiment I’ve also been noticing from the astrology community, which is that the Gregorian calendar is so out. The stars, the planets, the tides, the seasons, women’s bodies… All cyclical. Less about time than movement.

And yet, here we are… The first month of a fresh new calendar year, which someone- maybe Greg- decided should be in the dead of winter. I’ve been reading lots of thought-provoking assertions about how intentions, resolutions, goal-setting etc. is wasted on January because it is a time for dormancy. And listen, I have been doing all of those things for the past week and I feel like I need a vacation and a silent retreat to recover from it, but I still find value in doing it and doing it now. I think even the plants are starting to dream up who they will be come spring.

This time last year I was voracious for the new life I hadn’t yet built. I had just settled into my aloneness and the home that was all mine, and I was so excited that I felt like I could explode into a cloud of fairy dust at any moment. I was a human disco ball, spinning around and sparkling even when nobody was there to witness it. As the new year approached, everyone was choosing their word for 2024. This was the first time I’d heard about this custom and it piqued my interest (v on brand I know).

A word of the year is meant to be more than an intention. It’s a also compass. And a torch. Words are symbols and symbols are important. Perhaps not the most important- the most important is actual truth- but in this brutally physical world, they matter. Which is why I’m changing the title of this Substack.

The name, “Haley’s Version” suited it in the beginning. Obviously a nod to Taylor Swift’s re-recording of her own music in order to subvert the efforts of a man with a little boy’s name using her art for his personal gain. I know a tiny bit about what this feels like. And I also spent years biting my tongue, keeping my stories, thoughts, and opinions to myself, which may be fine if your soul is not a writer. But mine is, and frankly I have tried to fix it but nothing even seems to take for very long.

The new title is “Seeking Spirit,” because that’s what I am and what I do. I seek and find and seek and find and seek and find and will continue doing so probably forever and then some, because discovery is just so decadent. To have a seeking spirit is to never ever be bored or listless. It represents the pursuit of exploration and knowledge, and most of all, experience. That’s that me.

I’ve kept my spiritual journey mostly to myself, even though it is by far the craziest trip I have ever been on. But revelations are difficult to put into words because they are heavily experiential, and yet often quite subtle. They are typically so profound that they defy the act of assigning words— symbols— to dilute their meaning. Unless you’re like, really really good at it. This is my practice.

Yes, great awakenings can happen on heroic quests and silent retreats and plant medicine journeys, but they also happen in the kitchen and the shower and sitting at a red light. They are always there, waiting to be stumbled upon. And so I search for them like I used to search for four-leaf clovers. All it takes is a little willingness to plant your ass on the lawn and look.

Words should be chosen carefully, and not from the mind. If you allow it, your word will choose you, and once it does, you may spend much of the year bearing witness to its polar opposite. It is the experience of contrast that brings out the fullness of the intended feeling, like chocolate garnished with sea salt.

In 2024, the moment I made the firm decision and proudly proclaimed EXPANSION as my word of the year, it felt like the very fiber of my being went into a state of intense contraction. The music stopped, the lights turned on at the club, and the fluorescent lighting that was January 2024 showed me in no uncertain terms that in order to expand, I must first contract.

When I thought of expansion, I imagined my life bursting at the seams, unleashing my unbridled enthusiasm on an unsuspecting world. But in reality it was waiting, breathing, feeling, and just being. There were glimmers of my Big New Life, but most of the breakthroughs happened quietly, and were difficult to put into words. Not exactly the coming out party I’d envisioned. But by the last quarter of the year, my life started to open up naturally, to the point that I made more authentic friendships than I had in the past several years combined.

It took contraction to create the foundation from which to expand. We do love a plot twist.

My chosen word for this year started bursting into my awareness in early December, which is weird because I have never had any real feelings about this word, and now I want to eat it. It is sovereign. The definition that most resonates is: “Independent of outside authority.” It reminds me of the original meaning of the word 'virgin’, which is a woman who belongs only to herself.

I chose my word, and then I got very sick. I immediately became dependent on outside forces to help me heal— the Urgent Care that was too full to take me on New Year’s Day… the antibiotics that showed up in my body to fight like first responders… the blessed Instacart shoppers… the friends who gave all the fucks and free reiki sessions.

So yeah. I began my year humbled by my dependence on the world around me, and also feeling supported by it. I know it’s leading me down the path to my own true sovereignty, where my inner Authority presides. After many years of seeking outside of myself for direction, I turn inwards and listen.

So I HAVE to ask… What’s yours?

P.S. I started writing this essay in the days before the fires took hold of Los Angeles, back when we were all still focused on intentions for the year ahead. Nothing chains you to the present like a disaster, especially this close to home. I held this post back because there were no words for what was still happening in real time, but one that seems obvious now is resilience.

SO much kindness and compassion happening in a city that has been branded as totally shallow for its whole life but, like Elle Woods and Cher Horowitz, it refuses to be type-cast. IlyLA <3