I may need to change the name of my blog.

You see, I am in the midst of doing some exercises that I do each year to help me let go of the passing year and welcome the new one with a clean slate, set intentions and get clear about how I want to feel in the coming year.

Two of my favorite exercises come from the work of Susannah Conway. She generously offers a free Find Your Word program each year, and this year I am deep in the midst of it. Some people do it before the year ends, but I do mine the first week of the new year, in tandem with another process I have learned from her: Unravel Your Year.

With her Unravel Your Year workbook, I go over the year and look at what happened. I celebrate the wins and I embrace the lessons. I identify the things I want to keep doing and the things I would like to change. I ask myself what I want more of in the year ahead, and what I want less of. I envision what I would like to be doing and how I want to feel in the year ahead.

There is so much in both of these free programs — I am barely touching on the content here. I get so excited about them that I just had to share them with you. I highly, highly recommend them! (Thank you Susannah Conway!)

But back to my blog and the name of my blog.

I am in the midst of these year end/year ahead processes and am choosing my word or phrase for 2018. So far words like SOAR, BELIEF, SHINE, GOLDEN, REAL, YES and RISE are coming up repeatedly for me.

I began this blog as an attempt to start moving myself out of my self-contained shell of introversion, secrecy and shame and into the world where I could be seen, known and heard as I really am instead of the presentations I had so artfully created and utilized throughout my survival years on this planet. Hence the “skinny branches,” as I was moving out onto the skinny branches.

But now, I am finding that I want to fly. I want to leap off of the skinny branches and soar to new places, new dimensions. I want to test my wings in the sky.

So I have a dilemma. I love the name of my blog and it has meant so much to me. But I am ready for more than just life on the skinny branches. Do I change the name of my blog, or do I just keep growing and writing about it and let the name stand?

That will be a question I live for the new year, amongst many others.

Maybe that will be my word for 2018: Question.

I am not afraid of living in these questions today, of being “in process.”

2017 taught me how to really allow for that. Unexpected events of the year got me questioning everything in my life. And I mean everything. It was scary at first, and I am still in the midst of it so cannot tell you where it has brought me exactly, but I can tell you tat I know in my gut that it is very important and that where I am going through it is very good.

So we will see what lies ahead.

More to come.

However you choose to usher in the new year, I send my very best wishes to the world and to you for much peace and love in 2018.

A gift I also want to share with you today on this first day of the year is a wonderful 2018 welcoming resource by one of my favorite people (and bloggers) on the planet, Lisa Adams.

Her post today was just too beautiful, inspiring and nourishing not to share. She is a chef amongst her many talents and gifts, so it makes sense that her blog posts are always nourishing.

Enjoy! And Happy 2018!