Love Letter to 2018 – Zeal

/ January 6, 2018

Love Letter to 2018 – Zeal

These are my heartfelt wishes for the new year.poetry, love, roses

I feel inspired to share the fruits of my quiet time spent in reflection. It helped me clarify what is important to me and what I want to manifest for 2018. I’m immensely grateful for the solitude, peace, insights, and energy that I found. This is the year to let down the walls around my heart, and open to new possibilities.

Dear 2018

I long for your tender embrace. I feel like a young man on the cusp of dating. I’m excited, nervous, and ready to try something new. I’m ready to let go of fears, limits, and judgments, trusting that life is better on the other side of the walls I’ve built. I’ve locked myself in with fear, complacency, depression, and giving up too often. Clearly, it is time to bring down the walls around my heart. It’s time to feel the pains and the joys, fully embracing the richness of life. I can see how my resistance to life, especially the painful parts, has helped drag them out and create more pain. I’m ready to embrace more of both my inner magnificence and my inner darkness.

I’m ready to live, love, and laugh with zeal like Anthony Quinn in the movie Zorba the Greek. His character has an effervescent zest for life, uplifting all those around him. Zorba teaches us how to enjoy life and live with passion.

I also feel it’s time to bring down the outer walls of judgment and separation between people. There is no “them.” We are both the enemy and the hero of our lives. We have fought too many wars in the name of race, religion, politics, gender, country, culture, and status. It’s time to drop the labels and divisive language, then realize that under the surface differences, we share a common humanity.

play, passion, zeal

Embracing my inner lover, I’m ready to express more passion for life and live fully. I’m in a relationship (connected) with everyone and everything, so why not embrace them with passion. I plan to make love to my food, friends, enemies, work, play happiness, and sadness. Yes, let’s be wild and embrace it all.

My sincere wish is that this love letter will inspire you to find your own path to passion, play, possibility. These three “p” words are my watchwords for 2018; my guiding values and intentions to remind me what is important and how I want to “be” in the world.

My purpose statement is “to play with passionate possibilities.”

After watching Christy Whitman’s video below, I was inspired to focus on one word that would feed my soul and guide my year. During meditation, I heard the word zeal and knew this was the one. Zeal feels alive and exciting, just like I want to feel for 2018. It’s amazing that I even feel zeal is possible after so many challenging years filled with depression, fear, giving up, and living in survival mode. The word zeal nicely enfolds, focuses, and enhances my watchwords and purpose.

I feel more alive simply reading or saying the word zeal!

This video by Christy offers a nice meditation to guide us in letting go of the old and making room for the new in 2018.

I encourage you to find a word to guide your new year like a beacon on the horizon. Anytime you feel off, simply remember your word and return to your heart/ soul. Christy Whitman calls these words “essence words” because they feed, nurture, and focus our essence. And don’t worry about finding the perfect word. Simply pick one and go with it. Any word that describes an energy like joy, peace, or play will feed your soul and move you forward. The key to living more fully is to keep returning to our soul and feeding our essence.

Life is easier when we play so I intend to make this process a game. Pick a word, and let the games begin!  🙂

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54 thoughts on “Love Letter to 2018 – Zeal”

  1. Yayy, Brad!!! Yaaaaayyyyyy!!!
    Love your word…love your energy!
    Here is the year that you really get to know you…and allow it ALL to BE!! We are not just one thing…we swing between opposites…we are imperfectly perfect…and we are above anything else…LOVE!!!
    Many wishes to you, my friend!
    ❤

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  2. This is beautiful, Brad! Your courage to face your fears is inspiring and zeal is a wonderful word to choose as your guiding light in 2018! Your line “let’s be wild and embrace it all” is one very similar to one I wrote to myself when setting my own 2018 intentions- may we all live our lives fully and wholly with zeal and passion! Sending you wishes that all you can dream of and more comes true this year. Huge hugs 💚

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  3. Brad this is the best start to my New Year in reading your words.. Wonderful that you are finally embracing yourself with such devotion and love my friend.. Just fabulous and I love what you have written.. May you continue to gather up all of that Love energy my friend and learn how to play with your heart strings.. You will be surprised at the Harmonic Vibration that resides within.. 🙂 🧡💙🙌💚💛

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  7. It’s great to hear you sounding positive and excited, Brad.
    Zeal is a great word.
    One word to guide the year, huh? That seems like such a big task for one little word. I will have to put some thought into mine. Maybe it will simply be “Go.”
    Happy Zealous New Year.

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  8. As soon as you began your post about your quiet time of reflection, I felt my shoulders relax and a small smile cross my face. Silence IS golden so often. Silence, and meditating into the core of our soul, can help us find the right word. ZEAL sounds perfect for you!

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  9. Beautiful letter, full of intention and promise. May 2018 be all that you need/desire it to be and here’s to a year of blessings, abundance, happiness, new experiences, and fulfillment of intentions. We’re all cheering for you and for the path you are laying for yourself. Sending you big hugs!

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  10. This sounds like a juicy beginning of the new year. I love your 3 p’s! As a friend of ours said yesterday when we were talking about limiting risk in some of our business offerings: “If you can’t enjoy life at our age, then when will you?” Jump right in!

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  11. Rah! Rah! Rah! You take your word and run like the wind with it. I pray that it takes you wherever it is you want to go. Invite the Lord on the journey with you and watch him open the doors upon which you knock. Love, N 🙂 ❤

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  12. Beautiful, powerful, and inspiring! I feel so happy and excited for you, Brad. I am drawn to this line: “I’m ready to embrace more of both my inner magnificence and my inner darkness.” Maybe it would free up some energy if I didn’t put so much into criticizing my inner darkness. Hmmm. Thanks, Brad! You’re going to have an awesome year!

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  13. It’s good that you stated the book Zorba the Greek. He truly shows us how to live in a buddhistic way, to enjoy life even if something bad happens. So, dance the Sirtaki, Brad and enjoy 2018, kind regards Mitza

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  14. Superb post and amazing comments you’ve quite rightly received. May 2018 be full of zeal for you and your plans… I’ve only just recently started blogging and so many inspiring posts to read, keep me typing! Nice to meet you!

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  17. Beautiful post, Brad. Sometimes I think it comes down to the basic act of choosing, a process of stating our intentions and manifesting what we want by shedding ourselves of fear and opening out hearts. Most of the fear that’s held me back in my life, once stripped of its power and piled on the floor, looks rather pitiful. We can sweep it out the door and wash our hands of it. I hope your passion and play opens worlds of possibility for you. Happy 2018.

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  18. Such a great post Brad, I love your love letter to 2018! I’ll have to come back to the meditation video when I have more time. Zeal is a great word, along with passion, play and possibility. I’d have to think a bit to pick out a word for myself for the new year, right now the word ‘breathe’ comes to mind. 🙂 All the best to you in 2018, my friend!

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