How is your perspective right now with the goals or new habits you’ve set for the new year? I am still feeling enthusiastic and focused and hope you are too. Is one of your intentions to try something new? Well, our ScrapHappy Creative Team’s current focus is to encourage you to use this early year energy to do just that. We are diving into uncharted territory by highlighting something that is exciting us.
At first, I considered trying a fresh mixed media technique, but nothing intrigued me or immediately came to mind. What did keep coming up was the One Little Word course with Ali Edwards. Many fellow scrapbookers have done this for years and some have used LOADs to get the prompts and pages completed. I’m not proud to admit this, but one reason I believe that I never committed to it in the past was because of a limiting belief. I thought of it as just another project that I would start and not finish. So, why even start? There’s that nasty inner critic. Do you know her too?
In the midst of the enigma that was 2020, I started experiencing the value of focusing on baby steps and then celebrating those small victories. This lead to trusting myself enough in 2021 to let my very first word of the year choose me. That word was DANCE. I made the conscious effort to avoid perfectionism and any structure. My intention was to let inspiration guide me to implement dance in joyful ways.
My favorite idea was putting the word on a glass coffee mug that I used every morning for my coffee. It was a lovely reminder to move my body with ease, compassion & joy before starting my day. I completed a little bit of journaling and a few casual spreads in a traveler’s notebook. I also checked off a bucket list item by taking a couple’s dance class with my husband. That one was long overdue. However, towards the end of 2021, a part of me started wishing I had investigated my word in a deeper, more tangible way. This pleased me because I recognized that as personal growth. I began to get curious and see new possibilities!
Upon further reflection in early January, I considered the idea of a structured approach in order to dive deeper into my reason why. Why did I need to implement this particular word in my life? Then during an online chat, a fellow scrapbooker inadvertently (or was it synchronistically?) persuaded me to embrace the official class. I think her excitement for the project was contagious. As you can imagine, I got curious enough to officially sign up for Ali Edwards’ One Little Word course, while promising myself to keep it simple in a journal format.
I have completed all the January prompts by the time of this blog, and have added them, along with a few selfies, to a very old Creating Keepsakes journal-style album from my stash. (Win-win! Using old stash is so satisfying!) The choice of my word became clear, due to some relationship challenges I was having with the beloved males in my life. As a result, the word GRACE found me and then a companion word of GENTLENESS decided to tag along. I am also ecstatic to have found an accountability partner in that inspiring, scrapbooking friend, who I met through the Simple Scrapper membership.
So, that is my story of embracing the new with the spirit of curiosity… a new project, new possibilities and a new, creative partner. I give myself permission to take a baby step back (or to borrow Ali’s 2022 word: PAUSE) from the project if I allow perfectionism, anxiety or fear to rear their ugly heads. Most important of all, I commit to returning and refocusing with compassion, gentleness and baby steps. Let us all remember: there is no right or wrong way to do creativity and self-expression! When you decide to try something new, I hope this encourages you to take steps toward replacing any negative self-talk or fear of making mistakes with curiosity, compassion and play.