One Little Word® | 2022

The classroom is open now and you are invited to come in, download a "choosing your word" handout, share your word or receive support from classmates as you narrow it down.

In 2006 I began a tradition of choosing one word for myself each January – a word that I can focus on, meditate on, and reflect upon as I go about my daily life. My words have included play, peace, vitality, nurture, story, light, up, open, thrive, give, whole, connect, space, habit, less, and heart. These words have each become a part of my life in one way or another and all are threads that help weave together the story of my life. They’ve been imbedded into who I am, and into who I’m becoming. They’ve been what I’ve needed and what I didn’t know I needed. They’ve helped me to breathe deeper, to see clearer, and to grow.

What do you do with this one little word? You live with it. You invite it into your life. You let it speak to you. You might even follow where it leads. There are so many possibilities.

In 2011 I offered my first year-long One Little Word® workshop in an attempt to help me stay in touch with my word and make it more visible in my daily life. It worked. I've been more connected to my words these past few years because of the specific actions and reflections I've put together for the workshop.

In 2021, to celebrate the 10th anniversary of this workshop I invited eight women to join me as Guest Instructors. My goal was to include other voices and perspectives and life experiences as we celebrate ten years of monthly prompts. These are all women I admire for one reason or another and are all women who believe in the power of words to make a difference in our lives. Each one of them brings something unique to the community through their creative pursuits and through their lived experiences.

I loved having this team so much in 2021 that I invited them back again for 2022 to build on what was started.

These women will each lead a prompt, and I will fill present prompts during the other months. In addition to the monthly prompt there will also be a live chat each month featuring a conversation between the Guest Instructor and myself talking about the prompt and our experiences with our word. I'm super excited about bringing this to the monthly content - we can learn so much from each other through the process of unscripted conversation.

As I've reviewed my past albums (click here to see a walkthrough of my albums from 2011 through 2017) it's so cool to see, literally see via my words and photos, my own personal growth in those pages. Like many people, I've experienced challenges in my life and the pages in my One Little Word® albums document a lot of that struggles and successes as I've worked my way through (and continue to work my way through) the changes in my life.

This workshop is not complicated and it’s not time-consuming. Once per month you will be invited to check back into the classroom for a new creative prompt to help you make your word more visible in your life and then you'll receive a second invitation in the middle of the month to check in with our OLW team to see how they are interacting with the prompt for that month. Creative prompts generally fall into the categories of writing, photography or collage. See examples of some of the past prompts in the image slider below. It’s simply a way we can come together to share our experience with our words throughout the course of the year.

You can check out my archive of One Little Word® posts here.