As someone who has created many vision boards, both collaged and on Pinterest, who has manifested a plethora of things (including Hector the husband), and who loves journaling and noticing cyclical patterns… I still find myself pleasantly surprised.

Surprised with lessons I thought I had learned, but clearly hadn’t. Surprised with goals I thought were new but are easily found in the pages of old notebooks. Surprised by words and themes swirling through my story over and over again until I finally stop long enough to notice them.

A couple of weeks ago I said I wasn’t ready to set any goals or choose a word of the year. I could have, but it would have been ego-driven, mind-made and not embodied in the slightest.

What’s funny is the word(s) I eventually landed on (after many scribbled morning pages) is “messy hands.”

I have a deep urge to create with my hands in the physical word this year. To print out my novel and physically place it around a room and scratch across it with a red pen. To submerge my hands in paint and smear them across a canvas. To reconnect with my deep love of pottery. To be messy again. To create something from nothing.

So what’s funny about that? The picture above is one I chose from a free photo website years ago to embody the creativity and playfulness of inner spring, or the follicular phase. 

Today I was looking for a messy hands picture for this email and found it again. I like to think I’m original, but my subconscious seems to predict my future self or know my true self on a deeper level than even I imagined.

Have you encountered any weirdly poetic moments like this before? Have you chosen a word of the year or set a daring goal you want to share? Have you had an aha moment in the depths of your wintering cave?

Leave a comment below or share them with me on Instagram. I’d love to hear from you.

Lauren x