Words to Live By
My guiding mantra for 2025
To live intuitively, and for some, also contemplatively, means to live in an ongoing dialogue with Life—an ongoing dialogue with your inner world as well as the world around you. Life is energy in motion and it’s communicating with us all the time. And consciously or unconsciously, intentionally or not, we communicate back through our thoughts, words, choices, and actions. Living intuitively and contemplatively means being present to that energy in motion and engaging in ongoing dialogue with it. It’s how I strive to live my life.
The second half of 2024 was, for me, a time of looking deeper inside myself than I had for a long time—maybe ever. Reflecting on where I am, who I am, and why I’m here now at this point in my life. And at the same time, looking far outside, observing all that is unfolding in the world, and discerning my place in it in the years to come. My ongoing dialogue with Life was rich and complex, often unsettling, yet ultimately incredibly healing and transformational. I’m stronger and more resilient because of it. And my heart opened deeper and wider to being and living Love than ever before.
In the last weeks of December, the dialogue in my morning meditation was already taking me towards 2025. I could feel a shift happening inside of me—subtle at first, and then more definitive as we came closer to year’s end. Then two days before the New Year, I began hearing two short, simple phrases—words that would become the first two lines of a mantra, or what I’m calling my “words to live by” for 2025. As I first heard them, they felt spot on:
live simply
love fully
Breathing in the energy in those words, I could feel my whole being relax. They were like a healing balm—I felt held, embraced, supported by a Love greater than my own. That was not a new feeling—I’ve long trusted that I am held and supported—yet something was different. Maybe I was accepting it on a deeper level—allowing and welcoming it in a way I hadn’t before.
Live simply. My life has been incredibly full; often, not so simple. I recognize some of my own stories that got in my way and kept it from being simple, yet I feel no need now to go back and analyze. It’s time to live forward.
And love fully. I’ve always lived with my heart on my sleeve, even if not always so wisely or safely in a practical sense. Yet I never shut down my heart in protection, even when it felt broken beyond repair. And for that I’m grateful. Perhaps that’s what makes it possible for me to allow and welcome live simply, love fully as a mantra for 2025.
On the eve of the New Year, two more words showed up to add to the mantra:
walk with
I’ve described conscious living and leading as walking with or walking beside the people, organizations, and situations around us. Being fully engaged yet not entangled. The “not entangled” part, however, can be tricky. Because when your heart is wide open, you “feel” what is happening, which can lead to “caring” in co-dependent ways. In the bigger picture, that doesn’t serve you or anyone else. It just gets in the way of pure intentional engagement.
And so, the instruction walk with is very clear for me in 2025. Walk with for however long feels right, and then when it’s time to walk on my own again or when my “work” is done there, step away. To walk with is a choice. To step away can also be a choice. I’m reminded to be clear about my choices.
On the morning of New Year’s Day, two last words brought it all together:
carry nothing
Carry nothing. The instruction was clear: set down my burdens, my fears, my doubts, the weight of responsibilities I have taken on. Set down everything that has fulfilled its purpose, everything that is no longer relevant or no longer serves an ultimate greater good in whatever the circumstance or situation may be. Set it down.
Walk with, carry nothing. Walk with what is happening; I don’t have to carry it.
Walk with, carry nothing as I engage with others as well. Everyone has their own journey to walk. For all of us, part of our journey includes learning how to walk with others as they walk their own journeys without trying to walk their journeys for them. Without trying to spare them their challenges, their learning, their suffering, their broken heart. Without trying to carry them or their burdens. We have to walk our own journeys; they have to walk theirs. They have to do their own learning. They have to carry their own stuff until they are ready to set it down. Even the people and institutions we love deeply and care about the most. We can walk with them, but we can’t walk for them.
My journey of 2024 gave me courage to set it all down—even the things I still tell myself I should carry because old patterns are so deeply ingrained. I know deep in the heart of my being that I don’t have to carry anything. Instead, I can choose to walk with whatever is happening inside of me or around me and remain clear in who I am and why I’m here. Continued learning for 2025.
And so, my words to live by as I step into this New Year:
live simply
love fully
walk with
carry nothing
These words might be the most valuable instructions for living I’ve ever received or imagined. Pure. Clarifying. Liberating. Decisive. They give me direction, focus, and intention. They’re simple yet powerful, and they’re freeing me from old stories about who I am supposed to be, what I’m supposed to do. And perhaps most importantly, freeing me from my own and others’ limiting expectations.
How about you? What might be your words to live by in 2025? Please don’t try to “figure them out.” Instead, listen, sense, feel. Enter the stillness of your heart—engage in the dialogue that Life is trying to have with you. Which, in truth, is mostly listening. Occasionally you might ask a question to understand the messages that are trying to come through, yet the real key is spending time in the quiet and listening.
I notice that in these short phrases I was given, the first word in each phrase is a verb. And then the second word modifies the verb in some way. In some indigenous languages—languages that are closer to the essence of Life than our rational thought patterns of today—they speak mostly in verbs. There are very few nouns. Those ancient cultures understood life as energy in motion. They lived and breathed that awareness. Life happens in verb form. It moves forward or backward or sideways or around in circles or spirals, yet it is always in movement. Recognizing this design of verbs followed by modifiers in the mantra that found me makes these simple four lines even more powerful in my awareness.
Let your “words to live by”—your mantra for 2025—show itself to you. It might be a similar format as mine; it might be different. Let it be something easy to remember and easy to say to yourself over and over again as you move through your day. The words don’t have to mean anything to anyone else. All that matters is that they carry energy and strength and power for you.
Life is energy in motion. And it’s constantly communicating with you. Listen, sense, and feel. And you’ll find your own words to live by as you step into this New Year.
Invitations:
The Free Monday Meditations on Zoom series resumed on January 6th and continues on Mondays through February 24th. 10 am ET / 7 am PT / 16 CET for just 20 minutes. FREE —All are welcome. Register to receive 2-day reminders and links to recordings after each session.
Free Meditations for Changing Times on the Center for Transformational Presence website. Visit anytime.
If you are anywhere near Newburyport, MA, please join me for a free half-hour contemplative meditation, “Touching the Sacred Within,” at First Religious Society, Unitarian Universalist, at 8 am the first Sunday of each month. All are welcome.
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"Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" .... this mantra !
thanks for sharing :-)
Thank you for this, Alan. So powerful and clear!