The Year of Joy: Embracing a Word to Guide and Inspire
I choose a word of the year as a guiding inspiration and experience every year. I’m not big on resolutions because I never live up to them. To me, resolutions set up unrealistic expectations and cause us to feel like a failure or less than because we don’t follow through with them. It’s a recipe for future guilt, and I’m not about that life.
On the other hand, choosing a word affects me completely differently. They encourage me to make better choices. They empower rather than demand, inspire rather than judge. And you can’t break a word like a resolution.
Sometimes, words come to me rather easily. Other times, I have to journal and reflect more, uncovering the word from the deeper wells of my self. I often use Susannah Conway’s Find Your word workbook, as well as her Year End Review workbook (both free). These are treasure troves that she shares freely with anyone who wants them!
Past words I’ve chosen (or have chosen me):
2020: Connection
2021: Essence
2022: Abundance
2023: Didn’t choose one (or I didn’t write it down!)
2024: Growth
For 2025, my word is JOY, and it chose me.
When the word joy first appeared, I laughed. That can’t possibly be the word for 2025. How is there any joy in what’s going on politically, globally, and locally? It felt . . . impossible and ironic. Yet, joy was there in every list and question I delved into, followed closely by delight.
Joy is defined as a feeling of great pleasure and happiness (Webster’s Dictionary). It’s an emotion evoked by well-being, success, good fortune, or the prospect of possessing what one desires. It is the expression of exhibition of such emotion. It’s a source or cause of delight. Both words make me giggle with an unbridled sense of fulfillment and wonder.
Joy is an experience. Joy, unlike happiness, is independent of circumstances and is consistent. It remains even in less-than-ideal situations. Happiness is typically a more fleeting emotion, often sparked by a particular moment or event that brings a sense of excitement or exhilaration. Joy, on the other hand, is a more long-lasting state of being characterized by contentment and satisfaction with life overall. It’s a deeper emotion than happiness that comes from within — from a sense of purpose and meaning, including finding meaning in suffering — and from relationships with others. It, therefore, lasts longer than its counterpart.
Joy is internal and connected to living a more authentic life. This is because you must do inner work to have joy, identify your values and strengths, and align your life with them. When I look back over a reflection question that asked, “What does your heart need?” I answered:
“It needs joy, fun, and laughter. To feel included and a part of something bigger than myself.”
Joy says, “I am here on an experience-gathering mission, and my soul loves adventure and is not afraid to suffer.” With joy, I get to challenge my limiting beliefs and silence my inner critic by tuning into the truth of who I am and my capabilities. I get to see obstacles as opportunities to believe in the best. I get to learn to change my perspective and learn how to embrace the discomfort of growth.
Joy is a complex core human experience. Researcher and professor Pamela Ebstyne King, Ph.D., identified three areas that deeply inform joy. They are “(1) growing in authenticity and living more into one’s strengths, (2) growing in depth of relationships and contributing to others, and (3) living more aligned with one’s ethical and spiritual ideals.”
The more we can live a strength-based life, reciprocate relationships with others, and live with integrity and consistency, the more joy we’ll experience in life. Joy isn’t just an individual pursuit but one that deeply involves our connection with others. Joy seems a natural progression based on my past words of the years - connection, essence, abundance, growth. Maybe what I’ve been searching for all along is a deep, abiding sense of joy.
Featured Paintings
WHEN HORIZONS COLLIDE - 7.25” X 8” MIXED MEDIA ON PAPER
WHEN SKY MEETS MEMORY - 7.25” X 8” MIXED MEDIA ON PAPER
These are the first two new paintings of 2025! For about a month I haven’t been able to paint in my studio. I was out of commission between my busy “day job” as a web designer, the holidays, and getting sick with a sinus infection. I finally got to play in the studio yesterday, and IT FELT SO GOOD!
But I didn’t want to jump right back into a large painting on canvas. Instead, I did a warmup exercise, which involved taping off sections of different sizes on a sheet of canvas paper. Then, I paint the whole sheet as one painting, ignoring the taped sections. At the end, I pull the tape off and cut the sections into individual “paintings.” The point isn’t to have a result but engaging in the joy of the process. It’s a prolonged moment of play, intuitiveness, and inspiration. These two, in particular, stood out and seemed to have the feeling of a full painting, so I honored their direction and worked on them as stand-alone paintings. More may be coming, or they may turn into collage papers for larger works. Who knows! But that’s the fun of this process. It also encouraged me to begin collaging and drawing with charcoal on several larger canvases.
If you’re interested in purchasing either of these small paintings which will be mounted on a cradled wood panel ($95 each), send me an email. They are not listed on my website, yet.
