A Radiant Year

With RADIANCE as my word of the year for 2026, I will hold onto all that illuminates my path. Even when it's dark and we stumble, a light shines within each of us.

Dear friends,

As we enter a new year, I wish for you all all that you wish for yourselves and your loved ones. Wishes still count, perhaps more than ever, in times that feel fraught, uncertain, difficult and fragile for so many of us. For the past four years, the most transformative period of my life, I‘ve taken time for a thoughtful, end-of-year practice of choosing a word of the year for guidance, energy and hope when life or the world feels like too much to bear. This year my word is RADIANCE.

In January, in a four-part series, we’ll explore radiance within the container of The Radiance Sutras: 112 Gateways to the Yoga of Wonder and Delight by Lorin Roche, a modern interpretation of the ancient Vijnana Bhairava Tantra. Introduced to these 112 beautiful yuktis (sutras or meditation instructions) by my yoga instructor Joanna in Barcelona, I decided to delve into this ancient text about how to approach the journey of life and death with gratitude, joy, curiosity and presence: four qualities that are the essence of living a radiant life.

The Radiance Sutras encourage us to find the divine in everyday life by embracing sensations and energy flows, seeing the body as a conduit for universal love and presence, and not resisting life but flowing with it. I have practiced yoga to deepen mind/body/spirit connection for over 30 years. And so in addition to these essays, perhaps you’ll join me for the next 112 days as I meditate to each of the sutras and see where they lead me on the Radiant Path.

This week Part 1 is: To live in GRATITUDE, and Fall in Love with the Mystery. It draws on Sutra 12, and the current of love-energy moving through all creation. The invitation is to not resist this energy, but to become it — which is the heart of Living in 3D, the three dimensions of mind, body and spirit, and the constant process of becoming, at any age.

Each week I’ll share a few reflections of how I am living into the qualities these sutras invite, along with prompts for journaling. I’m eager to hear how The Radiance Sutras speak to you. Two things strike me right away about this sutra:

First, the reference to “the central channel of your spine” as “the riverbed,” the radiance itself “vibrating in the center of the spinal column” could not be more apt. In February 2025, two weeks after my long anticipated move to Barcelona, a low-back injury turned my spine into a cry for help. The river of pain demanded the whole of my attention as I worked through intense emotions of grief, anger and fear that I thought I had processed, post-divorce, dementia caregiving and my mother’s death. But no, that river of emotion continued to course right through me. It was love-energy that brought me back to shore every time. I learned to move with the current and not against it, as I described in this essay, “Journaling my way out of chronic pain,” and language was my oar.

Second, I notice the mention twice of the love-energy flow between Earth and Sun. For me, this speaks of staying grounded in the Earth, rooted in my hard-won sense of self (see my recent essay, “Coming Home to Ourselves: A Lifelong Journey) while turning my entire vibrating being toward the Sun and its radiance. It is perhaps no coincidence that the tarot card I pulled as my beacon for 2026 was the Sun Card, which speaks to optimism and fulfillment, the dawn that follows the darkest of nights. The child playing joyfully in the foreground is a symbol of innocence, and the happiness that comes with living in alignment with your true self. The white horse is a symbol of strength and nobility.

A word of the year as compass for the life we wish to live

When I look back at the words that have guided me these past three years, Radiance seems like exactly the right feeling to embody in 2026 on this long and winding path towards fully embracing the life I wish to live. The Word of the Year, for me, needs to have an aspirational quality. I want to breathe into it immediately feel its energy and reminder that, yes, this is the right direction.

In January 2023, six months after my divorce after a three-decade marriage, living with my 87-year-old mother as I cared for her in her advancing dementia, Manifest was the word that emerged. I manifested more than I thought possible when the year began. I let go of a great deal that wasn’t serving me, making room for expansion. I cultivated compassion for myself as a caregiver, stepped into my power as I negotiated the end of my marriage while holding fast to a vision of a different destiny for myself.

In 2024, the word of the year was Abundance. I knew this word would challenge me in the third year of my caregiving for Mom, as she slipped further away. The heaviness of this time threatened to overwhelm me. I needed to push against the idea that time is scarce and limited and that it was too late to fulfill my dreams. What if instead, I chose to see all the possibilities of an abundant life even amid sorrow and loss? That word was an anchor when in April my mother died. As I wrote in ‘I wish I could be like a bird in the sky,’ she would be my forever home: I was abundant in a love that would live on.

In 2025, as I embarked on my new chapter in Barcelona, Discover was the beacon that would guide me. I was ready to make discoveries in every realm: exploring my chosen new country and city; learning its language; making new friendships, starting to date, and finally putting everything I had into my love of fiction writing. Two months into the year, discovery of another kind appeared instead, with the low-back injury: my capacity to endure and heal from chronic pain, to embrace rest and a slower pace of life — at 65, to recognize that an appetite for discovery would always serve me well if I was open to its surprises. Midway through the year, as I slowly recovered and learned to let go of what I could not control, I was “Remembering how to play in my year of discovery.”

And now I am ready to step into my Radiance. A bold, bright word. A brave word. A word that invites the sunlit path through a dark forest, the blazing sun on a seaside walk, warming my entire being. “I am radiant” is a mantra I intend to repeat each morning, looking into the mirror at this woman, reminding myself I am married to her first. Seeing the brilliance in the different ages and years of her radiance, from childhood to adolescence to adulthood and now elderhood. Knowing that an inner light illuminates our path even in the dark, even as we stumble.

How I arrived at my Word of the Year

I am appreciative of the guides I have found in this thoughtful process of finding a word of the year that feels right, that feels like me, a natural evolution of the preceding year(s) and what will fuel energy, hope and optimism for the new year. I begin with a review of the preceding year, using different containers:

YearCompass is a free booklet that helps you reflect on the year and plan the next one. With a set of carefully selected questions and exercises, YearCompass helps you uncover your own patterns and design the ideal year for yourself. My older daughter Marielle, who introduced me to YearCompass, does this process alongside me. We love sharing our notes and reflections on prompts like “magical triplets for the year ahead,” a series of prompts focusing on three ways or three things in which to think about ourselves, our lives, and our desires and priorities for the year ahead.

YearCompass suggests three words to define your past year. For me, they were Acceptance, Resilience and Gratitude. That’s how Discovery looked for me as the year came to its close. Acceptance of loss and pain, but also a great deal to celebrate and an abiding gratitude for everything and everyone that makes my life precious.

This year I didn’t sit with notebook in hand, or laptop in front of me, to answer the prompts for YearCompass. It became a walking meditation. I recorded the prompts on my phone’s voice memo, then headed for the Mediteranean Sea, a short walk from my apartment in Barcelona. With the December sun in my face, and the sound of the waves, I recorded my responses. This embodied way of reaching into the past year and envisioning 2026 brought me closer to my emotional truth and freed up my imagination.

[Check out my friend Imola’s post about her discovery of YearCompass and how it arrived in her life just as a difficult year came to its end: Letting Go of 2025.]

I also used the Unravel Your Year workbook from Susannah Conway who writes The Unraveled Heart. It invites reflections of the past year, like three unhelpful beliefs you’re ready to let go of, a few skills you want to learn or improve, or to brainstorm ways to deepen connections with loved ones. She also offers the Find Your Word ebook, a 5-day process for finding the word (or words) to carry you through 2026. I found that especially useful as a language-loving woman who always has words careening around her brain. Her process helped me arrive at my word, in part by describing my ideal day and answering prompts that went deep, along with a long list of words Susannah provides. Eventually, Radiant leapt off the page.

Another container I’ve used for a year-end review and thoughtful approach to th new year is the Hello Goodbye Journal from Project You, a guided journal that helps you to say a proper farewell to one year as it comes to an end and create a vision and a plan for the year to come, recommended by Emma Gannon. Project You suggests three commitments over the three months of each quarter for the year you’re designing.

Any time of the year is ripe for reflection, setting intentions and seeking guidance but January with its fresh start always appeals to me. I hope these resources are helpful. Let me know of any that you use in the comments.

Falling in love with the mystery

In honor of Sutra 12, I intend to live in gratitude and fall in love with the mystery — swim in that love-energy — this week and all the weeks that follow.

This first week of January has been a perfect start. I’ve had the joy of ending and beginning my year in Sweden. This country has had an indelible impact on me. It is where I met my ex-husband, married, raised our two daughters, and made a home for 18 years. It is where I have made some of my dearest friends, friendships that have endured for decades. Connecting with friends over fika (the uniquely Swedish tradition of coffee, cake and conversation) and reuniting with extended Swedish family for lovely Christmas/Jul traditions has filled me with gratitude.

We had a bountiful snowfall, days and days of it, painting the world white. That’s a mystery I fell in love with once again, despite the cold, wet, slushy mess of it: The sheer wonder of the snow-frosted winter landscape, the children with their sleds, little ones building snowmen with their parents, and a girl in her snowsuit trying to catch a snowflake on her tongue. We need only spend time in the company of children to fall in love with the mystery again.

As an added bonus, Imola, a yoga instructor and dear friend who writes The Art of Lite Living, offers us the goddess and star poses to channel our radiance. See her poses below and beautiful guidance to accompany them.

From Imola: “Goddess pose (utkata konasana- fierce angle pose) is a powerful pose that is symbolising the divine feminine energy. It has many powerful benefits: first and foremost, it stretches, strengthens and lengthens the hips, groins, inner thighs, knees, ankles and hip joints, while also toning your glutes, opening your heart, and strengthening your shoulders.

Instructions: Step your feet as wide as you feel comfortable (please do not go beyond your comfort level!), turning your toes out slightly to feel grounded. I suggest you imagine your toes like the roots of à tree, grounding. Inhale, activate your core and open your heart. Exhale, bend your knees and squat to your comfort level, with the aim to align your knees with your ankles, ideally parallel to the floor. Keep pressing and rooting down with your feet. Keep your pelvis tucked and the front body lifted. For an easier version you can keep your hands on your waist. For a nice shoulder, heart opener raise your hands and form a cactus shape. Take a few deep breaths and channel your favourite goddess, like Kali (or Beyoncé if you prefer).

You may also want to move between version I and II, when you straighten your hands and reach for that thing you desire, powerfully pull it in as you return to Goddess pose with your cactus shaped arms.

You may want to finish with five pointed Star Pose (Utthita Tadasana), feeling into your full expansive self. Don’t be shy about taking space and owning your place in the world. Reach far and wide! You may want to do this with your thumbs facing up, or just reaching wide.

Be careful to go only as wide as your body allows on the given day, and challenge yourself slowly and carefully. Your flexibility and comfort level will increase with practice. For extra challenge you may experiment with lifting one heel off the ground, then the other, and then maybe both. This will work your legs, especially your calves! I highly recommend this pose on days that you feel particularly small, limited, and not the most confident. Channeling the goddess in you is guaranteed to increase your confidence!”

So here we are, a new year stretching out before us. Time marches on, and Ursula K. Le Guin captures its music (and radiance!) beautifully in this poem. Thank you for walking alongside me in the fourth year of this publication. I appreciate you all so much!

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Here is the last of the Discover 2025 playlists I made for each month of the year, songs that came into my orbit that month, and reflected a feeling, an experience, a desire, or a memory. I am building a Radiance playlist, too, which I’ll share eventually. If you appreciate these playlists, let me know in the comments. I love making and sharing them. Send me suggestions, please, for songs that speak to you of Radiance.

LET’S CHAT!

Do you choose a word(s) or phrase or intention for the year, set goals or resolutions? What is your approach for guiding that process? If you’d like to share, I’d love to know what word or intention you’ve chosen to guide you in 2026. Let’s support each other!

And on Sutra 12: How do you interpret the sutra and its meaning for you? What are you grateful for? In what ways do you fall in love with the mystery — that is, find the wonder in everyday life?

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