ALIVE

My guiding word for 2024 is ALIVE. I haven’t made a new year’s resolution in a long time, but in 2024, my intention is to make ALIVE my guiding daily mantra. I intend to inhale the feeling of being alive on each in-breath and whisper the mantra of alive on millions of out-breaths in 2024. It is a continuation of my practice of being present, a practice that has come alive for me over the course of 2023.

It is annoyingly Instagramable. It is cliché: Be Present. Stay in the present moment.

But have you tried it? Have you REALLY tried it? The simplest, most obvious practices tend to be the hardest to integrate fully into my life. Complete presence is the psychological summit of Mount Everest.

What is your guiding word for 2024? What images or intentions anchor your word in a heart-centered space of manifestation? What is the kaleidoscope of sensory and emotional experiences that will bring this word alive for you next year?

In 2018, I bought a homemade deck of simple credit card-sized affirmation cards from a dusty corner of a tiny mom & pop shop in Costa Rica. I still work with these cards almost every day: I am nourished. I am receiving abundance. I am loved. I am courageous. I am victorious. Listen. (Yes, one of these cards simply says Listen!)

There is a sunshine yellow card in this deck that says I am alive. I have struggled with the meaning of this card since 2018 because I have historically pulled it from the middle of the deck during cycles of hardship, challenge and hopelessness.

“Really, that’s it?” my inner monologue has typically begun. I dreaded pulling the I am alive card. It felt like an insulting kick in the pants from the Universe. It felt like my higher power was saying to me “Whitney, I know the weather conditions in your life right now are dense fog, hail and lightning, but hey, don’t forget that you’re alive!” Ugh. So, so annoying. Calgon, take me away.

I don’t know when it shifted for me, when exactly I stopped mumbling a string of four-letter words when I pulled I am alive from the Costa Rican deck of cards. Full transparency: maybe it hasn’t fully shifted yet. But I am trying! I am anchoring the image of that rectangular yellow card – I am alive – at the center of my heart as I step into 2024.

The shift hasn’t happened because I tried to trick myself into embracing something that activates a fight-or-flight response within my nervous system. The shift has happened because I have practiced courage.

My sister Reagan introduced me to a wonderful app in early 2023 – the I Am app. If you need affirmations pushed to you throughout the day, it is worth the $20. Recently, the I Am app pushed this message into my notifications:

Being fearless isn’t what makes you brave. You are brave because you face your fears and continue moving forward despite them.

YEP. What they said. An immensely dynamic reframe of courage. I don’t want to go to battle! I want to eat truffles and get foot massages and read books and travel to every corner of this planet and watch all of my favorite artists from the front row while the rest of the crowd honors my ten-foot personal dance circumference. Why would I ever choose to go to battle?

And yet, I have come to discover that there is a warrior spirit within me. She was born courageous and unbreakable. In this season of my life, I commune with her almost daily. Don’t get me wrong: she is absolutely down to chill in times of peace, but she is also ready and able to walk through fire with an open heart and an unbreakable spirit. I am alive! I am alive!

And then there is the 2024 kaleidoscope that blooms outward from my inner warrior spirit, the part of me that is able finally to celebrate being alive. The colors are gold and silver and glitter and yellow. An ongoing playlist of music booms on shuffle mode - golden 70s soul, solemn indie folk, wailing saxophone solos, foundation-shaking rap. The new Youth Lagoon, Romy, Jess Williamson and Noname are there. Beyoncé, obviously. Beyoncé is always there. It keeps growing. It keeps expanding. The music is alive.

I am moving across the country in the early part of 2024. I am alive! Oh my, there is so much to do between now and then. It is exciting, scary, sad, exhilarating, expansive, a brand-new chapter. This season of my life is alive.

There is the focus I am putting on physical strength. It’s not about my glutes; it’s not about my abs. For me, a strong body supports a strong mind. I exercise for my mental health. And! But! I am alive!

The kaleidoscope contains balloon drops and ocean swims. Comfortable sheets and morning breezes. The rush of cold brew in my veins. The pleasure of clean hair. The equal pleasure of dirty hair. Holding hands with little people. Crying. Sitting in traffic. Rainbow prisms bouncing around the room. Losing my shit on occasion. Getting it back together. It’s all of it. It’s all alive.

When I inhale and exhale alive in 2024, I don’t cling to the good and keep the BAD FEELINGS at arm’s length. I inhale aliveness when it feels like the greatest bliss. I inhale aliveness when it hurts so intensely that I can literally feel my heart trying to wall up and shut down. I exhale alive and remind myself that I don’t do that anymore. I don’t shut down, erect a wall around the castle of my heart and find the fastest way to numb out when things get hard anymore. That is so 2015.

That’s it. I am alive. So simple. So all encompassing.

Again, I ask you: what is your guiding word for 2024? What images or intentions anchor your word in a heart-centered space of manifestation? What is the kaleidoscope of sensory and emotional experiences that will bring this word alive for you next year?