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Stop Resisting Ease: My 2025 Challenge
Every year I choose a WOTY, as many of you do, no doubt, and many of us here at Fit Is a Feminist Issue. I was having so much trouble choosing my word for this year, that I couldn’t even contribute to our group post. I kept saying to people, I want a word like ease. Something that captures the lightness and flow of ease. The way we can be more present when we are at ease. And I kept not wanting to choose the actual word. Ease. One friend sent me this fabulous Japanese expression, ichi-go ichi-e, which basically means for this time only or cherish this moment. It’s a version of Marcel Proust’s madeleine or the Heraclitus’ line about never stepping into the same river twice, with a dash of gratitude added, for the beauty of the river we are stepping into or the deliciousness of the madeleine we are eating. As beautiful as all these ideas are, ichi-go ichi-e felt heavier than what I was looking for. I try to make a practice of being grateful for as much as possible in my life. And that gratitude does not necessarily bring me ease. Gratitude demands attention and intention, especially in hard times. I was looking for a word that captured a feeling of less effort, if not full-on effortlessness (if that’s not a contradiction).
As I was effortfully trying to write this, pushing words and ideas around on the page, as if they were one of those sleds people push in CrossFit, I came…
