What I learned about having ‘truth’ as my Word of the Year in 2023
This is my second year having a ‘Word of the Year’. My first word came by accident after suffering from burnout in the summer of 2021, when I helped myself heal by asking myself ‘Where is the joy for me today?’
It transformed my life and mindset so much that I decided to continue along this vein for the next year and thus, my word of the year in 2022 became Joy. I loved what I gained from having this one word as a theme, a focus point for my intentions throughout the year. So towards the end of 2022, I wanted to try it again.
Truth didn’t come to me as effortlessly or accidentally as Joy did. Truth was something I dug in deep to find. I scoured online ‘Word of the Year’ lists for ideas and browsed the thesaurus but nothing jumped out at me. Eventually, I meditated. Going deeper and deeper into myself and listening for the answer, slowly the word revealed itself to me. I found myself surprised and unsure.
Joy had felt like an immediate yes but Truth was something I sidled up to and had to sit with for a while. I tried on a few other words while we sat in that metaphorical waiting room but I kept coming back to Truth. Isn’t that the way it is with truth in life? We find it difficult to sit with, we don’t always want to face it and the truth doesn’t always hit you with an immediate full-body YES either.
I settled on Truth and we decided to walk together for the rest of the year. I felt apprehensive at the prospect and certainly had no preconceptions of what might happen.
I had thought that the biggest ‘Truth’ I would have to face would be sharing my truth with the world in the form of my book. I’d written it between September and October 2022 and was determined to publish it in 2023. In terms of my book publication being the sharing of my ‘truth’, it was, in part, but it was also so much more than that.
The journey to self-publish this book (a book that clearly has a mind and will all of its own), has been a challenge of consistently levelling up, and facing up to myself. At every turn this year, I’ve found myself questioning what I wrote. How strong were my convictions? Did I still stand by everything I said? Was I ready to publish? Did I want the world to see me in this way?
I found new layers of my own persecution complex that needed healing. I’ve become braver, more confident and comfortable in my own skin and beliefs. But more than that, I’ve realised that Unravelling Inwards isn’t as much about my truth as it’s about us discovering the truth of ourselves. Universal truths that we often dare not speak of, let alone face. The truth of my self-discovery is less about my story and more about inspiring others to discover their own truths, their own voices, and their own authenticity.
The biggest truth I had to face in the publishing of my book was letting my ego go entirely. It’s a constant remembering that it isn’t really about me, but that someone has to go first and I happened to be it.
Some of the truths I’ve faced this year were completely unexpected. I’ve previously written in ‘Creating a Legacy in the Face of Death’ about some of the health challenges around a suspected diagnosis of endometriosis and the unexpected grief of a miscarriage that I’ve been dealing with this year. All of these sent me face to face with parts of myself that I’ve been hiding from for years. I’ve had to put my health completely under the microscope and face my fears around doctors and hospitals time and again all year.
Facing those deeper fears has been the most liberating thing about ‘Truth’. My ingrained fears around the medical profession started long before me, from seeing my nan with ‘white coat syndrome’ and watching my mum with her crippling fear of the dentist as I was growing up.
These instilled an irrational, uncontrollable fear in me and clearly, this year the universe decided it was time to do something about it. It’s taken all of my subconscious tools to not panic at every turn and to find my sense of control and peace within the situation.
But the real liberation of these truths has come in healing it not only within myself but within my ancestral line. It’s something I wrote about in my upcoming poetry collection Soul Threads (due 2024):
Breaking The Chain
She declared war the day,
it runs in the family
became a threat.
Throwing away obligations,
the sweet smile and
a voice that only seemed to say yes.
Arming herself with
solid boundaries and self-worth.
Her battle cry; a resounding no.
Friends who would be sisters vanished,
as blood ran thinner than
water that tries to drown the truth.
Alone on the battlefield,
it runs out with me,
declared her victory.
There’s so much tied into our ancestral lines and family groups and the most overbearing of all is often the sense of obligation we feel, simply because we share DNA. For me, part of my Truth this year has been about undoing the traumas from my ancestors (like my nan’s fear of medics) in order to find what is true for me and free myself from those inherited limiting beliefs that aren’t actually who I am, but more who I thought I was supposed to be.
The other part of this truth has been about embracing my ability to choose and find freedom from the feeling of being obligated or tied to any person, place or thing that doesn’t serve me. This has been building from what I learned with ‘joy’ as my word of the year. During that year I spent a lot of time focusing on my surroundings (because improving my home decor or buying clothes that felt more like me were more accessible than moving house!) My business also went under the ‘joy’ lens but relationships took a back seat.
The beauty of having a ‘Word of the Year’ is that because the word lives with you so long, it becomes ingrained into your psyche. It becomes more than a word but a way of life. So for me, the combination of joy + truth has left me asking the question of… who brings me to a place of joy? With whom can I be my most authentic self? Where, how and with whom can I happily share my truth?
Being ill this year certainly helped me put those questions in perspective. When I ended up in A&E (twice), who did I want to tell straight away? Who did I want to keep updated? It showed me not only who mattered to me but also who cared about me, who showed up and how did they show up for me? I spent a lot of time learning what I needed during that time and often the answer was simple things like space, peace, time and rest. Much as I know so many people had questions and were worried, as I got better at articulating my needs, it allowed people to respect my wishes. Thankfully between my own limited energy for updates, my mum and my best friend , all the people important to me were kept in the loop.
My found family, the friends and people I choose to love and have in my life have become more important to me than ever. It’s been an incredible feeling of lightness when I finally faced my own truth this year that there were people I really didn’t want or need in my life and that I wasn’t obligated to keep them in my orbit for any reason.
But here’s the other thing that I learned about truth.
The truth is, I can’t go back to who I was. Not even the person I was weeks or even days ago. I do so much tapping (EFT) on my mindset, beliefs and bringing miracles into my life that I change so rapidly and there comes a point where I can’t go back over the old ground.
This year, one of my most hated phrases has become, ‘Let’s have a catch-up’. I’ve come to learn its code for let’s go over everything that’s happened to us in detail since we last spoke and stay in our wounded spaces. The minute an old friend or acquaintance asks for a ‘catch-up’, my heart sinks. Truthfully, it’s boring.
What I really want to know is who you are today. What do you stand for right now? What is exciting to you this month? What is important to you in this moment? What would you like to share today? Do you need help, support or a listening ear? What are you creating, making or doing? What’s your vision for your future? What’s your big dream?
Most importantly,
Where is the joy for you today?
Truth, particularly in the latter half of the year has brought me closer to a gratitude practice than having Joy as my Word of the Year ever did. Because to reach that which makes us truly joyful, we do need to be honest with ourselves about what we actually want and brave enough to move towards it.
My final test with Truth comes tomorrow (5th December 2023) as I head to London to launch Unravelling Inwards at the Big Festive Indie Book Launch. There I will present my book to attending journalists, book bloggers and influencers. It’s the biggest thing I’ve ever done in my life and I’ve spent weeks preparing — ordering print copies, writing a speech and designing postcards, bookmarks and a roller banner. It’s been stressful, to say the least, and I’ve asked myself many times over the last couple of months whether it was a good idea or not.
But now the day is almost upon me, I’m peaceful. I’m ready.
I’ve spent a year facing terrifying truths. Things that scared and broke me far beyond anything I wrote in my book. Sharing this book with the world is a truth I’ve spent most of the year avoiding and now, I’m ready to face it. Really ready.
And as I sit and reflect on my year with Truth, I can say that nothing has happened as I expected. There’s been plenty of curveballs I didn’t know were coming and the final truth is that I’m proud of myself for rising to those occasions with as much grace as I could muster.
The biggest lesson in Truth has been learning to love myself exactly as I am and meet myself wherever I am today but it’s also been the most liberating. So thank you Truth, it’s been nothing short of an enlightening year. And here’s to building upon these lessons with my Word of the Year for 2024. Any guesses…? I’ll be sharing what my word is next week!
Do you use Word of the Year as a practice? If you do, I’d love to hear what words you’ve worked with and what you’ve learned. And if you haven’t tried it already then definitely give it a try!
With love,
Camilla x
If this resonates with you and you feel called to share it with someone who needs to hear this, I would be very grateful.
