I’m rather late in sharing this, because I had rather abandoned this blog, but I’m back and I intend to do more blogging here – including catching up on a lot of posts I have written and not shared!

Last year I chose the word ‘contentment’ as my focus for the year, and although I think it was a good word for me I didn’t do any analysis on it beyond thinking of it at the start of the year. So, the process was rather a redundant one.

This year it is different. I have core feelings I want to achieve and I know how Luminous will be a way of assessing if I am working towards that. I have key things I want to reach and a BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal, taken from Jim Collin’s Good to Great that I studied on my MA), tomorrow I will explain BHAG.

What does luminous mean for me?

It is a soft gentle, constant light emanating from within; not a blazing light which dazzles and is unsustainable.

I want to feel creative, well, devoted to the divine and peaceful.

When I take actions towards those feelings I live a luminous life. The word itself is also quite soft and forgiving, which is something I need. I will not get fully healthy again (back to the levels of running marathons etc), so measuring myself against feeling ‘healthy’ is a bad idea, but I can be having a really bad pain and fatigue day and still be luminous. How? By accepting how I am that day; doing things which make me feel better and not fighting it so much which takes a lot of energy.

Trying to live up to luminous will affect all aspects of my life, but to avoid overly complicating things I am going to rate myself against luminous each day on a scale of 0-10.

I know what I need to do to be luminous – some of the actions are:

• food – eating gluten and dairy free, avoiding large amounts of sugar, green smoothie, regular meals at sensible times, avoiding junk food
• exercise – yoga or swimming & walking every day, otherwise I very quickly lose my muscle tone and have to use my wheelchair a lot more, not to mention suffer more with pain and fatigue
• walking in nature
• creating – writing, photography, playing music, drawing/painting
• listening to music
• reading
• being off of my computer
• not working too much
• stress free
• solitude
• seeing friends
• quality time with my husband

But measuring all that on a daily basis would be painful, so I will measure how luminous I feel each day.

I will reflect monthly too as a way of staying on track.

Have you tried having a word of the year before? What about this year?

These photos were taken on the first of January at Coalhouse Fort, Tilbury in Thurrock. I was awake before dawn and so the light was amazing, but there wasn’t a sunrise which would have been rather symbolic!