What is your one word?

I’ve been tossing around the concept that, at any moment, our lives are about one word. One word that expresses that which is compelling us from deep inside to step forward into a new truth for ourselves. Once we know our word (it’ll change over time), then we know what decisions to make toward our truest self, our destined future and ultimately, happiness.

The first person I talked to about this said her word was “rest.” She was through being over-taxed, over-stretched and over-burdened. She was practicing saying “no” so that she wouldn’t be so stretched, taxed and burdened and would have time to rest.

When I first inquired of myself what my one word is, I knew the answer immediately. Being somewhat of a word hound, I pulled out my dictionary/thesaurus to make sure I was capturing the spirit of my word.

My word, for this point in my life, is stillness.

Stillness, n: freedom from agitation.

Yep, that’s the one.

This is my word because it is very important to me to hear my truest voice speaking to me  – because when I can, I have a quiet confidence about what to do, what to say, when to just be. It’s magical, simple and freeing. When I am experiencing stillness, it is much harder for anyone or anything to yank me around – which these days is what I want.

So, to test my word (and just for fun), I looked up synonyms for “freedom” and “agitation” so that I could do some mixing and matching to gain some subtlety and nuance to my understanding of what it is I am after.

Match any word in the left column with any word in the right column with “From” in between:

Aren’t those great? My favorites are “Exemption from Disquiet” and “Autonomy from Anxiety,” “Release from Frenzied.”

That’s what I want in my life. So now, when I am faced with a decision, my one word “stillness” guides me. Can I cram one more meeting in my day? Yes if it doesn’t impact stillness, otherwise, lets make it another day. Can I speak at one more event as a favor to someone? No, that takes me away from stillness. Want fries with that? Nope.

The reason this matters is that I am super curious about happiness and fulfillment – what impacts them, what makes them unfold, just how great they can be. I am curious about you, I am also curious about myself. I want to know just how happy and fulfilled I can be. Don’t you want to know that about yourself?

What is your one word at this moment? I would love to know what it is and why.

I assure you that you, and only you, know the answer.

Name your word, then live it. Watch the happiness and fulfillment unfold.