Sharing recipes, crafts and frugal living, the challenges and triumphs of parenting a neurotypical child and a child on the Autism Spectrum. Yoga Instructor said goodbye to her nightly glass of Chardonnay to give up habits that were not serving her purpose in life! The CocktailMom name remains, however with a new focus on healthy and authentic living.

1/13/2008

A Word for the Year

I don't know where it began but I picked up this idea from Ali Edwards, to pick a word for the year and basically grow with it. Whether that's personally, spiritually...it's totally up to you. Use it as a mediation, a reminder of your goals, a creative spark...whatever the word is that you choose will influence all aspects of your life.

The word I have chosen is "EMBRACE". It has many meanings for me and to be honest it starts with my hair. After dyeing my hair for almost 20 years (keep in mind I'll only be 32 in April) I've decided to chop all my hair off and start from scratch, so to speak. I'm trying to embrace my natural color and the many gray hairs that come with it. My chosen word is also a constant reminder to embrace the small successes that my autistic son makes. Too often, as parents, we compare our kids to other kids we know. We don't do it in a keeping-up-with-the-Jones' kind of way, or at least I don't. But more of a informative way.

Oh Sally is 4 and she's doing the monkey bars by herself, maybe I should let my child try them.
Or Jacob is already reading, maybe we should focus more on teaching our son to read instead of reading to him.

More often than not the comparisons of my son, Logan, to other children we know his age depresses me.
So my word EMBRACE, is a reminder to do just that...EMBRACE this moment and move on.
Being autistic my son has this amazing ability of memorizing. He can watch a 30 minute show for the first time and within 5 minutes of watching it can re-enact the entire thing word for word. When he was 1 we thought he could read but in reality he just memorized all of the books we owned. So Sally who does the monkey bars flawlessly at 4 will be begging my son in high school for answers on their tests, since of course he will have the entire textbook memorized.

I am also using my chosen word as focus in my daily life, a reminder to embrace the moment I am in. As the Buddhist say : Live in the present.
I'm trying.
I encourage you to capture a word that truly speaks to you. Put it on your desktop at work, tape it to the bathroom mirror, make it a part of your everyday. You can then either journal about it or create art with the word in mind or simply to use it as a daily mediation to center yourself and focus on the goals you have chosen for yourself this year.

Feel free to share your word in the comments section. I would love to see what everyone comes up with.

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