Hello you!
You know how I choose a word to guide me through the year instead of new year’s resolutions right?! My word for last year was healing. I chose this word because I knew the only way I could escape the toxic trauma bond I found myself trapped in was to heal the wounds being pressed by the narcissist who was feeding off me (and it breaks my heart to write this) - my dad.
Every year I create a vision board alongside my word of the year to help me visualise what it will take to get me where I want to be. I pinned an image of two girls laid on a bed to my 2022 vision board. It represented intimacy in my friendships. I wanted to be more vulnerable with my friends, and hopefully feel more grounded in relationships that were healthy, nourishing and supportive as a result. I wanted to cling onto reality as much as possible, find my way out of the rabbit hole I found myself lost in and back to earth. I never expected this intention to have such a profound effect on my healing or my life. The more my friendships improved the better my life got and the happier I felt in general.
My year of healing is over and I feel ready to draw a line under this essential but painful phase of my life. Maybe I’ll come back to it at some point, maybe I won’t. I’m not naive enough to think the emotional healing process ever truly ends but for me there’s come a point of exhaustion because of the emotional labour involved. I’m taking a no fixed end date break from therapy, I’m unfollowing self-help accounts on instagram and anything else that makes me feel like a broken doll in need of restoration.
My traumas will always have happened to me but I can choose not to wade around in them anymore or obsessively analyse them for answers. This endless circle once captivated me but now feels like it only results in me delaying the actual living of my life right now - the part with the most value. No more isolating myself, of feeling afraid to step outside my comfort zone and no more living in line with good girl conditioning either. Now I want to live. I want more of what I found in focusing on intimacy within my friendships. I want good experiences. I want to be in my body instead of my mind and I want to focus on the present, not the past or even the future. I want to feel immersed in my life and I want to savour it. So what’s going to help me with this? Connection. Hello word of the year 2023!
Brene Brown’s definition of connection is ‘the energy that exists between people when they feel seen, heard and valued; when they can give and receive without judgement; and when they derive sustenance and strength from the relationship.’ This quote takes pride of place at the centre of my vision board for the year and it sounds delicious. I feel like this is exactly what I’m starving for. I want these words at the core of my 2023 and I want connection to leak into every fibre of my work and life.
Discovering my attachment style last year put my head in a real spin. It cracked me wide open and made me feel really sad. In the book Attached four attachment styles are outlined - secure, anxious, avoidant and disorganised aka me! If you don’t know what your attachment style is and you’d like to know you can take this quiz and find out. A disorganised attachment style means I’m both anxious and avoidant and swing between the two. I crave connection but am equally afraid of it. This plays out like go away, no please don’t leave. It’s as exhausting as it sounds for me and those I love and it means I find it hard to truly connect because of fear and lack of trust.
This discovery made me feel sad because we develop our attachment styles early in life and disorganised usually stems from a not so great childhood. Not again, I despaired. Will I ever escape my beginnings? I felt sad for my younger self and how this was a result of her circumstances yet all my life I’ve felt like there was something wrong with me because of difficult connecting can be. I’m not a people person, I overthink, I’m too sensitive, I’m socially awkward, I shut down emotionally, I’m aloof… I’m all these so called bad things. The good news is I can change my attachment style. And I’m going to.
I’ll be damned if my beginnings in life or what I’ve been through will define me. So if you’re an insecure attachment style too, take courage in knowing you can change it. I’m going to, and once
I set my mind to something that’s usually it. I turn 35 this year and the way I see it I have a lot more in front of me than behind so technically I’m just getting started. The future is wide open and I want it to be bright. I’m determined to learn how to trust others, stop thinking they’ll hurt me before I even give them a chance and sit with the uncomfortable feelings I feel in relationships instead of running away from them or projecting them elsewhere, usually through some unhealthy behaviours.
Last year I said to my friend Cait, do you know what I really think I want? I think what I’ve always truly wanted is the family I never had - I just never learnt how to speak that language. If I do learn, it’ll be the greatest achievement of my life. Vulnerability is said to be the only bridge to connection and I’m ready to take a deep breath, keep my heart soft and open, then go up a few gears. So here’s to talking on the phone instead of hiding behind texts, being open to new friends, working from a cafe or co-working space instead of hiding away in my cottage, throwing myself into Parisian life for a month, trying to let others love me and deepening the connection with those who enjoy my work.
I don’t think I’m alone in this feeling of loneliness or disconnection. It’s never been easier for us to connect with others and yet so many of us are wandering around our lives immersed in an online world, communicating exclusively via text, attaching ourself to one person and expecting them to fulfil our every need, showing our faces through a filter so we can’t truly be seen as us, sharing our highlight reel on social media instead of experiencing them, watching Netflix instead of talking, instinctively swiping right without seeing that profile photo as a real person then wondering why we can’t meet someone. It’s all too much and we’re struggling with the basics. I don’t like the way this story ends, I don’t like how it feels to live it.
Individualism is great and as on of the world’s most introverted introvert in my natural state I never thought I’d say this but…I’m starting to think life is better with others and it’s better shared. My independence has served it’s purpose but I got a taste of what it feels like to let others really see you and receive the privilege of them allowing you to see them in return last year and I want more of it.
We’re said to be living in a loneliness epidemic. The pandemic has changed us and we’re only just starting to see the true effects of this. So many people report not being the same since. They don’t go out like they used to, they don’t converse, the fear of our own mortality lingers. We’re all sat at home trying to connect through screens but it’s not the same, it’s not how we’re wired to connect as humans and we’re suffering as a result. We feel alone in this but we’re not, so many of us are feeling lonely, not knowing how to fix it, where to meet people, how to fit real connection into our lives, how to even connect (raises hand!).
I’m starting 2023 feeling certain that connection is the key to a more fulfilled life for me. I might be done with healing but I’m willing to to do the emotional work around this. I want to feel connected with you, with boyfriends, with girlfriends and with family. I also want to truly connect with myself; to be in my body instead of my mind and lead from my heart. I want to experience what true connection has to offer. I don’t want to feel lonely anymore.
I’m writing this letter in a cafe so I’m making a start at least. Twice a week I’m going to get out into the real world to work, so I can be around people, talk to them, feel part of something. Knowing what I know now it’s no coincidence I’ve forged a career for myself that involves connecting with 1000s of others but through the safety of a screen or a page and I know I hold back here. My main work goal, starting my novel aside, is to focus on this substack community of ours and connected is exactly how I want us all to feel (that’s us sat around the table under the fair lights on my vision board!).
On the other side of this word I’ve chosen for this year (I hope) is everything I’ve ever wanted - to feel truly seen and heard for who I am. It’s just a hunch for now, but I have a feeling that when we’re truly connected is when we feel most alive, and we all deserve to feel some of that.
What about you? Have you got a word of the year? Been feeling disconnected yourself perhaps? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
Lots of love
Jessica xxx
What’s been adding value this week
Diary of a CEO podcast is a new discovery I’m enjoying
I started Robin Dunbar’s book Friends
My new journal from Papier is making me so happy it’s ridiculous
Finding your word of the year
Here are the pages from Enough where I talk about my word of the year process in case you’d like to give this word of the year thing a try.
If this is the year you want to simplify your home, wardrobe or entire life my ebooks will be able to help. You can find out more about them and download your copy here.
That step of moving from the work of healing into the living of it can be such a tough one to navigate. I applaud you for realizing that you're ready to put that work into action. And I'd say, this is just another step in your journey of healing. Healing isn't just probing a wound or dissecting it - that's diagnosis. It's also letting that wound finally close once you understand that doing so will let it stop hurting.
I love that your focus is on connection this year. I agree many people are craving that sense of deeper feeling, beyond the shell of social media that we've been in for so many years. Realness is making a comeback. It's why I'm really enjoying substack also, as it feels like a place where deeper, slower connections can happen. I don't have a word for the year, specifically because I'm working on undoing my own triggers around goals and achievement, but I am tapping into my intuition and letting that guide me.
p.s. Do you mind sharing where your tarot deck is from? It's beautiful!
Silly to think how we let just a few short years, yes informative years... but still short in comparison... define us for the rest of our lives. What if we take those years and thank them, release them, and start seeing ourselves in a new beginning? Stop micromanaging and putting into compartments in our brains how we think, how we feel, how we react to things... and just be. For us not to say, "I always feel this way about...." or "I always do this when..." but be in the moment and react without thoughts attached to the past, but to the present. I believe my word for 2023 is "freedom".... Happy New Year.