My word of the year for 2021 is intentional. According to the dictionary, intentional is an adjective meaning done on purpose; deliberate.

Being intentional is a choice. A deliberated (or thought about) choice. It is planned. Being intentional requires effort.

For most of us, our lives are a jumble of what we have to get done sprinkled liberally with the anxiety and stress of relationships, jobs, financial responsibilities and more. On many days, it can seem as we run from one thing to another trying to get everything done.

In this chaotic mess, there can be little room for intentional space. We can feel that space is something we do not have time for. And by space, I mean something that enhances our calm, relaxes our mind and bodies. The ability to have intentional space for meditation, relaxation, self-care seems lost in the frenzy of what we think HAS to be done on a daily basis. And most of that is done for others and not ourselves.

If you are like me and you thrive on calendars and planners, you probably schedule all that you have to do on a daily basis. There are reminders on your phone. Everything is laid out hour by hour and some of it scheduled well in advance – intentionally.

I intentionally fill out my planner each week. I am deliberately doing it on purpose. All my clients, meetings, notes, billing, all of it scheduled out.

I also schedule intentional space every single day. You can also schedule intentional space in your day. Of course, you have to schedule and then follow through just as you do everything else on the schedule. It cannot be pushed aside because it is for yourself and therefore deemed not as important.

Schedule intentional space for meditation, yoga, massage, walking, hobbies, self-care. Whatever helps you to relax and gain space (or margin) in your life for that moment in time on that day.

You have to make your intentional space as important as your work tasks. As important as tasks you have scheduled to do for others.

Your space matters.

Intentional space in your day allows for a recalibration of your mind and body. It allows you to have space to process through things in the day that are stressful and difficult without carrying them forward.

Intentional space gives you the ability to raise your level of calm and lower your level of anxiety. Scheduling in and following through on your intentional space for yourself helps you to create acceptance of these activities as being necessary through reinforcement and repetition.

Scheduling intentional space repeatedly allows it to become a habit. One that you can repeat every day without guilt but in true acceptance and welcoming.

How will you create intentional space today?

Failure is not final. Or rather there are only two ways in which failure is final.

Choosing never to try again and being dead.

Failure is a temporary condition in a moment in time. Failure does not mean that time has ceased to move and there is no point forward after.

There is always a point forward after failure if we choose to try again and if we still breathe.

Think of a time when you believed you failed at something. Did you breathe in the next moment after that? Did you continue to move forward and live the next day and the day after? Even though you believed you failed, life kept moving, you kept moving. No failure is final.

Many people give up after they fail. They believe that they will not be successful and therefore they refuse to try again. The fear of repeated failure keeps them from making another attempt.

People can also be influenced by how other people react to their failures. If someone who has traumatized us uses our failures against us, we can internalize these reactions and compound our fear of trying again.

If part of our trauma response is to believe that we cannot do anything right, then we will feel as if failure is our only outcome. We have then lost sight of the one component that can empower us to try again – hope.

Many times if we internalize our failures and increase their negative effect we can block out our actual successes. Increasing the power of our failures and the fear surrounding them makes it almost impossible to see the things we have done well or that we are good at.

If the lie we have chosen to believe is that we cannot do anything right, it will be the first thing presented by our brains whenever we try something. It will become like an automatic alarm bell going off in our heads when we think about trying again.

As long as we are alive and breathing there is another chance to try again. Failure does not stop us and it does not stop time. Only we can stop trying.

When I think of failure and trying again I am often reminded of one of my favorite movies and movie lines. In Gone With The Wind, Scarlett O’Hara having been beset by multiple trials and tribulations is all but ready to give up completely. In that moment, she gathers her strength (or resilience as the case may be) and says, “After all, tomorrow is another day.”

Tomorrow is another day. In 60 seconds there is another minute. In one inhale and exhale there is another breath.

As long as we live, there is another opportunity to try again and again and again if necessary.

Failure is not final unless we allow it to be.

Blame is a very insidious thing. It seeps in and also comes out in a multitude of ways especially for those who have suffered trauma.

Those who have suffered trauma often blame others for the way their lives have turned out. It is very true that trauma can cause people to respond in a variety of unhealthy ways. The trauma response affects thinking and decision making.

The problem with blame is that it can also become a very comfortable thing. It is often times much easier to live in blame than it is to change in spite of it.

Many times trauma responses will include things like “Things can never be different because of what has happened to me.” People will often times deal in absolutes. The trauma they experienced has permanently altered their lives and every choice they make. There is no way to live differently.

Blame also serves another purpose when directed at those who have traumatized us. It lets us direct our anger. It gives our anger a path to travel towards those who have hurt us. It also can be used at times a weapon against those who have hurt us.

When we blame others do we think that it will cause them to drop to their knees and beg our forgiveness? Do we hope for apologies? Do you wish for changed relationships?

When we blame others do we think that it will erase what happened and take away our pain? Unfortunately this is not the case.

Blame allows space to continue living as we are. With blame there is no self examination. With blame there is no thought of what we can change about ourselves. With blame there is no recognition of our own ability to live differently.

Change is a very long and difficult process in some cases. It is surely much easier to stay in the blame space and forget about doing the hard work of processing through trauma.

When we blame others we give up our ability to change. Those who have hurt us may never change, but we can.

Blaming others stops our own ability to change. Stop blaming and start working on processing in order to become changed.

I recently heard someone say that you cannot wait for life to not be hard to be happy. A more powerful statement would be hard to find.

Life will always be difficult. It will be at points hard and complicated. It will be stressful and disappointing. There will always be something coming along to make things harder. Living is hard.

Many people think that if they wait until things get better or easier they can be happy. If they wait until life is less complicated and stressful happiness will follow. What happens if life is always hard?

If everyday we are waiting for our lives to be easier before we decide to be happy eventually we run out of time. There is not an unlimited amount of days for one to wait for things to be “perfect.”

It would be much easier to be happy right now if our first thoughts were of things that make us happy, ways to be happy, choosing joy intentionally. If that were what we think about first, we could block the way for thoughts of how difficult things are going to be that day or even replace them.

Will it keep things from being difficult later in the day? Probably not because this is how life is. But if you start out happy don’t you think that when the difficult comes later you might be more able to have resilience to handle it and power through it without retreating back to negativity?

What have you put off because life is just too hard? Jobs, education, relationships, self-care? What have you decided you would wait to do because things are just not “perfect?” Have children, retire, buy a home?

What would you choose to do or be happy about if you could let go of waiting for your life to get better?

Then choose it now. No one is promised the next day or the next breath. No one lives forever and life will always have struggles. Choose your happiness now.

Waiting is wasting time. Precious time that could be spent in happiness. The time for happiness is right now.