Episode 35: Words and Themes for the Year Continued

In Episode 35 of the Creative Work Hour Podcast, released on January 4, 2025, hosts Greg, Alessandra, Dr. Melanie, Devon, Bobby B, Rochelle, and Wai Ling explore New Year's resolutions through the lens of personal words and themes. Topics include peace, connect, support, flow, and searching. Each participant shares their unique perspective, inviting listeners to reflect on their own guiding words for the year.

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the creative work hour podcast. Today is January the 4th 2025 very nearly said 2024 so we've got to get used to those 25s now right. And we're continuing with our discussion on the year's resolutions and words of the year or themes of the year. In the room today we have myself, we have Alessandra, Dr. Melanie, we have Devon, we have Bobby B. Alessandra, We were talking last week about different words and meanings, and you had asked us to throw some words out there. I thought maybe we would get a little take on what each of those words means to other people.

What do you think?

Oh, I think It sounds really, really lovely. And what is fun about recording our creative work, our podcast, is that some of us may be inside the house. Some of us may be outside the house. Some of us may be in our country of origin or not in our country of origin. Some of us may be using our passport and some of us may have no bloody idea where the thing is. And here comes Rochelle. Hello, Rochelle, and welcome to the CWH podcast. So we're talking about the theme of the year or the word of the year, and we will continue to do so through January.

Devon is in the room, figuratively. He's also in the very same room with me because he and I, well, we've been an item for a little while and we're celebrating an anniversary in Iceland. It's our first time going anywhere on our anniversary. So welcome to Iceland, everybody. I'm sitting on this amazing chair. There are reindeer skins everywhere as rugs, as pillows, as chairs. So yeah, this morning in front of the fireplace, we were sitting in front of them. We were sitting on reindeer chairs, so that's really fun. But a reindeer chair is not a thing for this year.

But Devin was mentioning 1. He claimed the word, And it doesn't mean that it's exclusive just to you, because you can be like, oh, that sounds good. I'm stealing that sucker. But Devin used the word peace. So Devin, tell us how you're using the word peace as your word of the year or your theme of the year.

Thanks, Alessandra. Peace, as I define it, is the absence of suffering, and it creates a mindfulness of where the suffering is, because that's really what I'm pursuing, is as much as possible a state where I'm not experiencing suffering. I think all of us would like that. But by using those terms it makes me think where is the suffering? And so often where it really is is ruminating over past events or anticipating some unknown future event. Oh, we could go this way or we could go that way. And so when I identify, oh, that's where the suffering is coming from, I'm regretting past incidents or I'm worrying about future events.

I realize I have control of that. I don't have to sit here and worry or regret, or I can control what I focus on, and therefore I can eliminate that suffering simply by identifying it and saying, no, I'd rather focus on something else because I have no control over either of those things. So that's the background to my word of peace, is to try and maximize the absence of suffering, or I guess a better way to say it is to minimize unnecessary suffering.

Well, I can go over some of the other words that were thrown out by other people. Maybe if we just get a one-sentence answer, because there's quite a few words, but what that word might mean to you or what you would think of when you hear that word. So we'll stay with peace. But Dr. Melanie, when you think of peace, what would that mean to you? Just real, real quick, because there's quite a few to go to. So

it would refer both to global issues that are occurring. And I, I would strongly would love for that to be part of this coming year for an end to that, as well as local ones where in New York City we're about to have a doctor strike, as well as personal ones. I used to think of it a little like Devin did with a lack of suffering, but having studied the brain for a while, I now don't quite do that because I think change is part of what makes for creativity and unfortunately suffering or pain equals some change, although I have a really hard time with tolerating it as well.

Rochelle, when you think of peace, just real quick, because we've got quite a few words that we probably won't get to them all, but what do you think of your initial thought of peace?

Thanks, Greg. Like this morning I was baking and I was walking with Lily in the snow. So being in the moment, being in the flow, like how can I be with source or universe or spirit? And therefore, in that clear space, I can follow intuition. And that's peace to me.

Wai Ling, when you think of connect, what do you think of connect?

Connect, togetherness and finding belonging. Yeah, so those are the 2 things that pop up when it comes to connect.

Alessandra, what do you think of when you think of connect?

Putting connect with togetherness and belonging. Those are like core values of Creative Work Hour and they have served us really well. If I have to make a decision between this thing and that thing, no matter how excited I may be about the idea, does it further our sense of connectedness, our togetherness, our sense of belonging? That's what needs to be satisfied first, because when we do those things, safety is there. And when we feel safe, that childlike imagination can start to energize the whole creative system on the individual level and as us as a group of creators.

Bobby, what do you think of when you hear the word support?

So, if I may, go back and pull together some of the previous words. And to me, unguarded is the best I can come up with, because, you know, we all know we have to be a little vulnerable to really hear what other people are trying to say, both in the words and in the emotion in their voice. But I think, I think the world wants to be able to let their guards down a little and actually hear people more. You know, we've, We've spent years here building up barriers and boundaries and shields and it's going to take the courage to be unguarded for a bit to start to hear each other again.

So that's where I would go with this.

Thank you Bobby. Some of the other words we had were journey, we had thankful, we had astride, we had time travel, re-inflate, introspect. We had nature, we had rollover, we had goal. Devin, when you think of a goal, what would be, because these words can mean totally different things for other people, but what would you think of?

I would say my goals right now tend to be defined by experience. So a goal for me would be to have a particular kind of experience. And that is, I think I talked about this previously, 1 of my goals is to have time away from work and responsibility for like 1 or 2 weeks where there was absolutely no need to call in or be available to be completely free to introspect and to find peace. So that's how I define my goals right now, at least the ones that are most important to me. Thank you, Devin.

Wai Ling, what was yours?

What was yours? Oh, my word of the year is flow.

That's right. That's right.

Yeah, so it's well, the reason why I chose flow is because 2025 will be a very unpredictable year for me. Once I'm done with my dissertation in quarter 1, the rest is really like uncharted. And as a person who is always such a planner and such a control freak in some ways, I know I cannot operate with that mindset this year. And I'm going to go with the flow. And how I chose this word was inspired by Bruce Lee's quote, he said, be like water. And the idea is water, it doesn't push, it just goes, but yet it's very powerful.

It can chart paths and all that with time. So I just tell myself, yeah, be like water, just embrace the flow.

I love that so much because when we think about flow in 1 way, like the way in modern productivity thinking or even back into the research of a professor, does it cheer me up? Yeah, I know. Everybody stumbles. Plus I've had to practice because I've been embarrassed in class or something. But what I wanted to say about that is that we have a way of thinking in terms of flow being the absence of resistance. And what you have described so beautifully is flow. When you think about it like water, it doesn't even acknowledge resistance. It just flows.

Water just flows. So what if we allow ourselves the creative luxury of water-like flow instead of overcoming obstacles or defying resistance. I like that very, very much. I like it. I like it enough to put it into the words for selection at the end of January, put it on the short list for CWH word or themes of the year. Can we borrow your word? No, of course, of course.

And thank you for letting me share. Yeah.

It looked like you had something that needed to come out and be made manifest. And Greg, what thinking have you been doing about your own word? This

was sure mine was searching. And just really trying to when I say searching, I'm not really sure I'm still searching, right? So there's lots of different things, but I'm not sure which would be the right thing. And I guess really the overriding theme in all of this, and I think 1 of the things we wanted to kind of get at as well with these words, a word can mean many things to many people and not the same thing to different people. And it's okay, You can pick a word or a theme for yourself and it doesn't have to be the traditional sense of that word or theme or the actual dictionary definition, but what it means to you.

And I think that that's the most important thing because it's a very personal thing at the end of the day, isn't it?

I also want to add that I've always thought that word of the year has to be a verb, but no, it can also be a noun. So I read Gretchen Rubin's Word of the Year. Her word is door. And so door, it means opening up opportunities. It can also mean closing a door and acknowledging that this is the end of something. So it can be like both a connection and a boundary thing. And I really like the idea of like, it can be any word, like you say.

Absolutely. We don't necessarily need to stick with 1. It's, you know, it would be quite okay to pick a word of the month or pick 1 and maybe as your maybe you kind of meet or align with the word that you picked and so in March you might pick another 1 to go with the spring you know something like that. What do you think we're going to get into next week miss Alessandra as we continue this journey.

Yeah, well it's really interesting how the Creative Work Hour podcast has wanted to be for so long. And we were like, what does it want to be? We felt like we had to like nail it down and quantify and do all that and with your encouragement Greg just to if it wants to be a flop let it be a flop if it wants to be a sparkling bouncy thing let it be a sparkling bouncy thing so next week I am thinking that well if if door could be a word of the year, bench could be a word of the year.

And here's what I mean by bench, is if you take this creative playground that we have, And you think about a game being played on the playground and you have kids coming into the playground and other kids going back to the bench so that everybody has a chance to get water and take a breath and rest and do what they need to do for themselves. Well, just like with last week, We have 1 configuration of the creative crew here for 1 podcast and the next podcast we'll have some of the same people and we'll have other people pop in.

And so it's fun to give ourselves that space, that wingspan, if you will, to just listen. That thing that Bobby said before he had to go was listening. How did he put it? He put it as being unguarded is not just about how you share, but it's how you listen. And so we'll follow up on words that may not be represented by the person that presented them here. We may add new words. We may be working and refining these words. And I would like to learn a little bit more about how you apply daily echoes kind of think that Shadows Pub has developed 1 fine layer at a time to the extent of 500 publications.

Like how can we apply that kind of thinking about a word to really reflect on it and listen to how it echoes to our own theme?

Well, thank you very much. Let us know what you think about the word of the year or word of the month and where you stand on New Year's resolutions. But it's happened again. You've wasted some perfectly good time listening to the creative workout podcast when you could have been doing something else but come back next week because it will be here. Thank you.