mattering

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Every year a theme word seems to find me.  A word that describes something I've been observing in my life, in my thoughts, in the environment and relationships around me. It becomes my word of the year.  It kinda emerges from stuff around me and informs whatever might be ahead of me.

The word this year is 'MATTER'.  

As in YOU matter, I matter, WE matter.

Our stories matter, too. 

It's so easy to marginalize people and ideas and stories. Its so easy to push aside our own sadnesses, our victories, our defeats, our resilience. It all matters, but we treat it as insignificant. We do it to ourselves and we do it to others.

Whether it's through my counselling practice or other areas of life,  I've been realizing how common it is to feel overlooked, how often we overlook ourselves, how easily we discount our experiences or our feelings. We label and judge our own and others' behaviour and actions. I find myself being attentive to it lately, wondering why some things get to count and others don't. Why it's easier to believe crap about ourselves than courage?  Why do some events or beliefs carry more weight than others? Why is it so easy to rob dignity from others and their experiences, to say that it doesn't matter?

When I started thinking that MATTER was the new word of the year, I was reluctant about it.  I didn't want to be self-centred or individualistic. 

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that when we believe that we matter, we are more likely to find our purpose and connect with it. We're more likely to live as if it's NOT just  'all about me and what I want' when we believe that we matter. How's that for irony? When we're feeling invalid and unworthy, we're more likely to lose our way and get off track, focusing primarily on ourselves and getting our empty tank re-filled. 

Knowing that we matter equips us; not knowing it diminishes us.

MATTER is my word of the year because I want to continue growing in my understanding of mattering.  Other words like significance, belonging, confidence are similar, but somehow the essence of mattering; believing that we/I matter - that's what has been speaking to me lately. I'm looking forward to how this word will continue to shape me, my practice, and my relationships in the year ahead.

Other 'year words' have been decentered (2010), tension (2009), sustain (2008), and clarity (2007).

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