Heal

Verb:

1. become sound or healthy again.

2. alleviate (a person's distress or anguish).

It's time for a new word of the year! If you've been following along for a while you'll know that I chose a word of the year in January, instead of setting new years resolutions. For me personally, new years resolutions or goals can be hard to hang onto for the whole year, especially if it's a long term goal! So in setting a word of the year, I'm setting an overall intention, rather than a to-do list.

One of my favourite parts about the word of the year concept is that you can stack your words, year to year - you don't simply abandon last years word (although you definitely can, if you feel like it's no longer serving you), instead, you can stack your new word on and continue to use the intention behind the word in your life each day! Here's my previous words from the past couple of years:

2021 - Grace

2022 - Embrace

2023 - Nurture

And 2024 will be: Heal

So I get to embrace nurturing my body and giving myself and others grace, while going on a healing journey... you get the idea!

It took me a little while to settle on this years word. The last couple of months of 2023 were exceptionally hard - things haven't been great in my marriage, and I wasn't as nurturing, to myself or anyone else, as I could have been! At first I wondered if my new word should be Surrender; but the tone felt wrong. Some of the things I'm navigating at the moment, I don't want to surrender or be passive to - I want to take an active part in my own rescue, not be tossed around by the waves of life. Then I wondered about Nourish, to help me get back on track with Nurture, but it still didn't feel quite right. Then Heal came to me, and it seemed the perfect fit!

As things are already playing out this month, my healing journey may end up taking me in the complete opposite direction to what I anticipated a couple of weeks ago; what I originally thought might help to alleviate the distressing areas in my life, is no longer the clear option for healing, in fact it's pointing the other way. So as I lean into healing, I'll lean away from the people and situations that aren't going to serve me for 2024.

For this blog, I want to focus on the sound and healthy part of the definition of heal. Continuing to nurture and nourish my body is a high priority for me this year; as I'm starting the year still breastfeeding, and with no end in sight for that journey, my physical health is very important to me. The end of 2023 saw me starting to slip on some of my healthy habits that I'd cultivated from the beginning of the year, so I've been making a conscious effort to cook and eat more whole foods and buy less prepackaged food. Making good food choices is only part of it though - choosing to move my body in fresh air and sunshine, going barefoot when I can, and being intentional around screen time, are all things that personally help me feel my best. Which then allows me to pour from a full cup, and be more nurturing towards others around me.

This month, I have already done two new things to work on my healing. The first is I went to a naturopath for the first time and got a live blood morphology done! It was super interesting to see my blood under microscope and learning how much our blood can indicate about our health and wellbeing! My results showed me being deficient in magnesium and b12 (which is quite common for women in pregnancy and postpartum), along with having some levels of heavy metals to sort out. So I left the naturopath with a cocktail of pills and sprays to add to my daily routine - for the most part the homeopathies make sense to me, but the broad spectrum women's multivitamin she prescribed leaves me a little sceptical (and leaves my wee a bright yellow!)... so we'll see! I intend to keep taking my Juice Plus alongside the homeopathies - to me, health is not a this OR that approach; it's this AND that, AND whatever else works for each individual person!

The other investment I've made into my health and healing this month is buying proper feet-shaped shoes! Over the past couple of years, I've spent more and more time barefoot, as I've spent more time at home through pregnancy and post partum, and I've noticed a significant change in my feet. At first, I would get really sore feet, especially if I had a busy day inside running around on hard floors in bare feet, and I put it down to not wearing supportive shoes like I usually would. But in hindsight, it's more likely my feet were and are healing, and coming back to a healthier barefoot shape! In all my years of working on the land, I pretty much lived in my boots. I loved the sole technology in Ariat's and found them to be comfy for being on my feet all day. Then at the start of 2019 I was introduced to Good Feet arch supports, and they made a lot of sense to me! They were a bit pricey, but they literally dont wear out, mine are still going strong and I lived in them for close to 4 years, plus intermittent use for the last couple. So when I started using them, I ditched the inner soles in my work boots and used a thin, flat, foam inner sole over the top of my arch supports - and didn't get sore feet at all for those years, so you can understand why barefoot felt counter-intuitive when I was in pain! Then I started down the barefoot shoe rabbit hole when it came time to invest in shoes for Willow (I mean, have I done anything conventional when it comes to my daughter!? Haha). Learning about barefoot shoes for kids made me start to question why mainstream shoes aren't foot healthy, and why as adults we're stuffing our feet into unusual shapes instead of following natures design. Like most rabbit hole things, once you see it, you cant unsee it! So I'm keen to see how my feet change now that I plan to chose my barefoot shoes as often as possible when I cant go completely barefoot - bring on healed feet!

From a mental health perspective, I've been enjoying journaling regularly, both free flowing musings, and gratitude's, using the new Gratitude Journal I designed last year! I've also been playing around with the Self Authoring Suite which has been interesting to explore parts of my personality, and I intend to dive deeper with that this year. An important aspect of mental health for me, is feeling fulfilment - and although I've surprised myself by finding motherhood deeply fulfilling, my baby turning one brought a little awakening in me to fire up some creative projects and do more with my day than just being a mum and homemaker (though of course they are both full time jobs in and of themselves, so as if I have time for anything more! Haha). Hence my brand @thundering_hooves was reborn! Stepping into the world of digital design with my rural photography has given me a little passion project that I'm enjoying immensely, when I can squeeze it in. I started the year by releasing a range of calendars for 2024 with exclusive photos that have never been available in print form before; and I have just released a series of glass chopping boards that will make the perfect gift idea for Valentines day or Mothers day! So far, I'm finding it quite healing to step into a new business model; to shed layers and expectations, and to release feelings of inadequacy that would otherwise hold me back from putting myself out there this way. I'm excited to expand that world this year as well as continuing to find fulfillment in my Rural Healthstyle brand, my horses, my home, and motherhood.

Emotionally, I have a lot of healing still to explore. There's some deep wounds coming up, both past and present, and I know unpacking them will become a key part of my 2024 healing journey.

Part of the holistic health lifestyle is embracing all aspects of health as being intertwined, and one cant function optimally without everything else being in alignment. Emotional wellbeing is something I've skated over the surface of several times in my holistic health journey, but this feels like a call to get deeper, to explore more, and to not discount the impact that delaying these healings has taken on my overall health over the years. Even right now as I write this, I'm 4 days in to my naturopathic healing protocol, and I've come down with an awful head cold. There's blockages, there's leakages, there's a need for lots of rest and nourishment. I'm sensing there is a need for release - maybe some of it is a physical detox as the nutraceuticals help my body heal, but I'm sure part of it is an emotional detox too. There is an invitation to give grace, an invitation to accept grace; an invitation to embrace others, and an invitation to accept embraces; an invitation to nourish my mind-body-soul, and an invitation to nourish others' mind-body-soul's; there is an invitation to heal, at a deeper level than ever before, and an invitation to offer healing to others.

What is 2024 inviting of you?