What’s Your Word for 2010?

If you follow me on Facebook or Twitter, you may have noticed my question about your word of the year. Two-thousand and nine was, in many ways, a wonderful year for me. I took an extended break from direct patient care to pursue my writing and to contemplate the expansion of my career. I gave myself this very special 50th birthday gift. I highly recommended the same gift to each and every one of you, regardless of whether or not you had already celebrated your 50th, because it is never too late to gift yourself time and reflection.

But 2009 was also a year of tremendous change and letting go. So many disappointments and failures have caught up with us, both personally and collectively. If you’ve spent any time of this earth, chances are, you’re acutely aware of our failings. Largely because of this, when it came time for me to consider 2010, one word came to mind: Miracles.

The New Year is a time when everyone thinks goals and sets up the year with intentions and expectations. But goals can become yet another item on our already-packed “to-do” list, and, for most of us, this can be nothing short of overwhelming. We still have a few days left of mercury retrograde, and even after it goes direct, I will put myself out there as proclaiming that rather than goal-setting, 2010 continues to be a year to let go. There is just too much unfinished business, too much stubborn hoarding of the old ways of doing and being. Most of us are still struggling with this.

Before we can consider goals, we need to let go.

I know you’re getting sick of hearing this. I think this is my third post on letting go in less than one month, but I’ll keep it up as long as necessary…because we’re a stubborn group. And I’ll keep reminding you, because I need to be reminded as well, and because we can all use one another’s support. I glanced at Oprah yesterday. Her guest Rita Wilson captured my attention for multiple reasons. Tom Hanks went to my high school. Rita was responsible for the movie version of My Big Fat Greek Wedding, she and Tom co-produced both Greek films that launched my (not-so-budding) career as an extra/stand-in (Mamma Mia and My Life in Ruins). So I was another captive member of her audience—even though she didn’t mention Nia Vardalos or Greece once. Instead, she was doing makeovers. But what she did mention, repetitively, was advice to empty our closets, to give away clothes that we’re no longer wearing.

That stuck in my mind, because we’ve all heard this advice multiple times. We’ve heard it a million times, but it’s still coming up, because we’re still hanging on. We’re being reminded, yet again, to clear it out, all of it!

So, back to the 2010 word of the year. Mine is Miracles , simply because there is no way that I or anyone else is going to make it through 2010 without them. Yes, Miracles has become my word out of necessity. And, perhaps, if I keep repeating it often enough, I will reaffirm my belief in a divine force greater than myself and release, for a few more moments, my egocentric nature. I will remember to ask for help, to relinquish an overwhelming need to control, and, instead, anticipate and welcome the next miracle.

I asked you all to share your words, and you came up with some lovely ones. Here are a few:

Freedom

Messenger

God

Good Changes

Creativeness

Completion

Filotimi (honor-dignity-duty)

Believe

Surrender

I noticed a wonderful pattern to all of these words. They are all big words, ones that go beyond little me. They include something far greater. They recognize that we’re not alone, and that our meaningfulness comes from our connection with one another through a divine power.

So, I have a simple life-assignment to suggest:

1. What still needs to go? Write it down. Commit to releasing it. What are you going to let go of today? This week? This Month? This Year?

2. What is your word for 2010?

Let go of #1 and hold onto #2.

Let #2 replace #1.

And then, I invite you with me, to witness the blessed miracles occur.

Joy to you all in 2010.

Got Kefi?

Nia Vardalos’ new film My Life in Ruins is all about getting her kefi back (See article #1 and article #2).

Kefi is the Greek word meaning the passion for and joy of life! And the Greeks seem to have this in spades. No matter how bleak, how bad their lives get, they have the ability (like energizer bunnies) to bounce back up, snap their fingers and jump into that next circle dance. They are paradoxical. I had never before seen a group of people who could hold grief and tragedy in one hand and kefi in the other. Unfortunately, this isn’t the case for most Americans. Not only have many of lost our kefi long ago, it’s been so long that we don’t realize that it’s missing.

There is a lot we can learn from the Greeks. No matter how bad things get, they are able to bounce back. They are downright resilient. Most of my Greek friends will credit this lesson to nearly 400 years of Turkish occupation. I understand this well, because my great-grandmother was forced to rebuild and re-create everything over and over again after constant theft and destruction in her small Middle-Eastern village. When we must constantly re-build and recreate we not only learn to detach from things, but we also experience our incredible capacity to create anew. We are forced to live in the moment. We are forced to let go of everything that is non-essential. Instead, we focus on what is important.

This is exactly what so many people around the world have been called to do this past year. With financial and environmental crises and job losses, we are all being forced to let go of all that is non-essential. In the process, many people are discovering a sparkling jewel—their kefi!

Fortunately, it isn’t essential to experience tremendous loss to recognize what is important. Have you lost your kefi? Do you want it back? There are as many ways as there are people to find it again.

I will use the Greeks to illustrate. Here are some examples:

1. Greeks live in the present moment! I know, easier said than done…and I know that I’ve said it before, but it’s the most important step.

2. You can’t have kefi if you’re lost in victimization and entitlement. That’s not to say that neither exists in modern day Greece; it certainly does. The point is, though, that we will never be able to experience the power and the joy of creating if we remain victims and expect the world to treat us fairly. I am still surprised by how easily the Greeks accept the natural cycle of life and death. Malpractice is just recently on the rise in Greece.

3. They let go. What will be will be. When I was an extra on the set of Mamma Mia, we had to be down at the port at some ungodly hour—I think it was 3:30am one day. That morning the weather was so stormy that my umbrella turned inside out within five minutes. I was complaining the whole duration of the hour-long bus ride to the camp. Most of my Greek compatriots were catching up on sleep. I just knew, I was saying to anyone who would listen, that we’d go through the entire day, waiting in the rain, without shooting. Why didn’t they just let us go home? And, sure enough, we did wait the entire day without a single shoot—while wearing damp costumes to boot (Yes, they stored the costumes in an open-walled building!). What did the Greeks do? I didn’t hear them complain once, other than a wishful sigh that they had some tsipouro (similar to ouzo, the preferred drink of Northern Greece on a rainy day!). But we didn’t have tsipouro, so what did the Greeks do? Dance and sing, of course!! (The tsipouro we had later that night. Don’t ever drink tsipouro after 6pm—another story…)

4. They get up and move their bodies; they usually dance (and, yes, sometimes other things).

5. They sing.

6. They gather in groups with friends and family, constantly. A typical social network and support system includes almost the entire population of Greece.

7. They work hard, play hard, and nap hard.

8. No matter what, they always have time for a (Greek) coffee or an ouzo.

9. They cherish their friends and family. Nia Vardalos’ kefi returned when she adopted her precious little girl—or, perhaps, it was the other way around!

10. They enjoy life!

I don’t know about you, but I’m off to Greece!

But if you can’t go to Greece, then how will you get your kefi back? …you can always see My Life in Ruins on Friday, June 5th! Opa!

See my post on My Life in Ruins.

See my interview with Andi about the shoot on her Blog: Misadventures with Andi.

My Life in Ruins is Coming on June 5th

See my post about the shoot at the Delphi location of the new

Nia Vardalos film, My Life in Ruins, coming on June 5th.

My post.

My interview about the Delphi shoot with Andi here.

See the trailer here.

See my favorite interview with Alexis Georgoulis here.