Multiplication: My word for the year.
We had just been to New York, rested and stimulated, flying across the Pacific Ocean back to Sydney when I knew I just had to start journalling.
Have you ever felt that moment when you just knew your brain wanted to bring clarity and you needed an old-fashioned pen and paper?
This was one of those moments!
In the journalling process the word multiplication found me.
So, what does multiplication mean?
It means to reproduce, propagate, breed, procreate.
As women this is something we are specifically designed to do.
And yet here I am in the second act of life, my biological clock is telling me my body will no longer reproduce, propagate, breed or procreate and yet this word finds me…
So what is it that I want to see multiplied?
To be honest it is really simple: I want to see love multiplied over and over and over again.
I want to see more people loving who they are and how they have been exquisitely designed.
We can’t love others or ourselves well unless we have some self-awareness of who we are – both our strengths, our shadow, our limitations. This is why I love the enneagram. As Ian Morgan Cron says in The Road Back To You, “Knowing who you are changes everything. We must find our real self, in all its elemental poverty, but also in its great and simple dignity: created to be the child of God, and capable of loving with something of God’s own sincerity and his unselfishness.”
2. I want to see people genuinely loving one another with greater understanding, acceptance, compassion and grace.
Love isn’t easy. It is complex and difficult and requests a lot from our hearts. But it is the only currency on the planet capable of bringing about transformation.
Many people believe in love, but I think we could up the participation in love. Our life isn’t defined by what we believe in but what we actively participate in.
How can you learn to love yourself in 2023?
1. Practice journaling. Join my Journaling workshop on the 5th of February.
2. Take the Enneagram test and discover more about the box you are in and how you can grow.
3. Come on an enneagram retreat.
4. Join a faith-based community group.
5. Tell your truth with a safe and valued friend or community.
We can’t keep silent about our traumas. It is important that we speak our truth in a way that keeps us safe and is healing for others. When we tell our truth it is amazing how we much grace we find for ourselves.
How can you learn to love others in 2023?
1. Sit at a table with people you don’t normally sit with.
Invite folks from different economic backgrounds, ethnicities, faith, or sexual identification. As we share with one another, we see one another and compassion increases.
2. Volunteer for a community organization
It is vital to our mental health to give back and feel the connection between gratitude and service. It is more blessed to give than to receive.
3. Financially support a social cause
Your gift will be an encouragement in the lives of those they serve. One I love to support is Judes Village.
4. Read: Love Does by Bob Goff.
This book by Bob Goff is an inspiring read.
5. Join a faith based community group.
N̶e̶w̶ ̶y̶e̶a̶r̶,̶ ̶n̶e̶w̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶?̶ New year, same you, still with life’s big and small wonderings.
Faith based community groups are for the open-minded, the adventurous and the curious. Each session starts with food in small groups before listening to a talk, exploring a book on the questions around life’s big and small wonderings. Then there’s plenty of time to share your thoughts – you can say anything you like or nothing at all. No matter your background or beliefs, you’re invited.
Not only will you learn more about yourself, but you will go on a journey of loving others who may or may not be like you.
It’s amazing what can happen when we step outside of cancel culture.
How am I personally going to practice multiplication in my own life?
Homeless
I want to engage more with the homeless and try to understand how we can create homes which:
- create homes not half-way homes or shelters
- create community and not clients
- help change a culture which still treats women as a commodity.
Women’s Speakers Collective
I want to see the story of women heard and multiplied. So, to this end I’m working in 2023 to bring the Women’s Speakers Collective to Australia.
Save the 20th and 21st of October for the first ever bootcamp in Australia on the Gold Coast.
Tickets are coming and are limited.
New Spiritual Spaces Created
I want to see women released to create all kinds of new spiritual spaces for our community to engage with.
