My dear HIVE friend @senorcoconut asks us to reflect on a word that encapsulates 2020 for us. He's offering HBI shares and you've got til midnight, anywhere in the world, to enter! Check out his post here.
It's really hard, isn't it, to whittle the year down to one word. There's been times of the year where 'clusterfuck' or 'frustration' or 'balls' would have been entirely appropriate. 'Change' was a big one, I'm sure you'll agree - fast paced and overwhelming, the rule book seemed to change daily. For many of us 'mortality' would have done nicely - even the most invincible was pretty scared of death knocking on our door in the form of an invisible enemy, and it drove many of our behaviours, whipped into anxious messes in socially isolated houses disinfected to the back door and with sterilisation zones to even bring in the Amazon orders wrapped in cardboard. And then it'd depend what circles you moved in. 'Elderberry' was the buzzword in herbal circles - 'bleach' was in others, including the US president - now what the flying orange was that all about? Now it's December, 'vaccine' is certainly on everyone's lips.
But @senorcoconut wants us to look at more motivating words. A word you can set your year's clock to, so each tick of the minute hand of our lives resonates with it's syllabic hum.
I'm going for 'freedom'.
In a year where our freedoms have been so drastically limited, this word seems to resonate for me a lot. The Victorian State Government this year declared a state of emergency, allowing the Health Department to set laws that trumped all others, such as the right to protest. Borders were shut. Australians are told they should not expect to be allowed to leave the country for years, not until the entire populace is vaccinated.
So we should be feeling fairly trapped at the moment.
We've certainly felt caged at many turns this year - like the big cats in the Tiger King that pranced across our screens in the first lockdown, we're bound by our captors in many ways.
But freedom can be our choice. We are free to choose love, and kindness, and empathy, and we are free to be curious about why we might act from any feeling that does not spring from these values. What are we influenced by? Culture? Politics? Media? Life experiences? Can we choose otherwise?.
We can choose how we see the world. We can choose to see 2020 as a complete and utter write off, or we can choose to focus on what we learnt from it, and how we might go forward. We have the freedom to free ourselves from isolation, loneliness, grief and anger by telling ourselves other stories of our lives. We can consider how our actions and the stories we tell might limit other people's freedoms.
We can seek freedom within, rather than distant lands that promise adventure, love, hopes and dreams. Everything we have is right here, thumping in our ribcage, vibrating through our body as prana, energy, life force. We don't need to look outside ourselves - freedom is within.
We need to think for ourselves, not to be told how to think. That's freedom. We need to choose to be better, despite the past. That's freedom. We need to carve a completely different future to the tired one we're leaving behind in 2021. That's freedom. We need to feel safe to express our views. That's freedom. We need to be sovereign rulers of our own lives without the dictates of mainstream economies and political ideologues. Yep, that's freedom.

Image Source
We need to stop being scared, and figure out why we're scared, and act courageously against fear. That's freedom. To stop worrying about outcomes, results and eventualities that might not ever bear fruit, or attach ourselves to what we think will make us happy.
And it all starts with us. Freedom's within our mind. If I can start each day with this word, I'd be doing alright.
With Love,
Join The Best Natural Health Community on Hive