Don't change your Wordle strategy

An incredibly unfortunate event happened in my life this past week. At the risk of sounding over-dramatic, I’ll say that it was truly tragic.

I, along with 300,000 other people, play the game Wordle every day. If you are unfamiliar with Wordle, it’s a NY Times daily word challenge in which players try to guess a random five-letter word in six guesses. Everyone, worldwide, has the same word, but when you share your results, it hides your individual guesses so that there are no spoilers. It’s been a bit of a sensation the last few months, with many people sharing their daily results on social media.

I’m on a text thread with my mom, sister, and Aunt Angie where we share our daily score. And, we have a #wordle Slack channel at Motivo where many of us post our results each day.

Now, on to the tragedy that occurred this week…

99% of the time, I start with the same word as my first guess. The word is: PLANT and I like it because it has a T, an A, and an N (such commonly used letters), and because I just really like plants.  

However, this past Friday was Earth Day and so for ONE DAY ONLY, I decided to use EARTH as my first guess in honor of this lovely planet we live on.

Guess what the correct word actually was??? IT WAS PLANT!!!!!!

Are you kidding me??? I’m not kidding you.

Literally, the one day that I stray from using PLANT as my first guess is the one day that the correct word actually is PLANT. I could have had a hole-in-one! Not to mention endless Wordle bragging rights forever.

Can you believe this?

I felt compelled to share this here because you all are trained therapists, and I believe this could generate some sorely needed empathy in my life.

I’ll now attempt to transition to saying something meaningful…

I truly do love Earth Day (despite the fact that it clearly hates me). The earth, and nature in general, has a way of grounding us that, in my opinion, can be quite powerful. 

I’ve noticed that, for me, earth is one of the most easily accessible, but routinely overlooked forms of self care. Grass, trees, flowers, and fresh air are right outside my front door – but I often forget to take advantage of nature during a busy work day.

This makes me think about something one of our incredible Motivo supervisors, Karen Stewart, LCSW told me once. About a year ago, she prepping to be interviewed on a reputable podcast and was feeling a bit nervous about it. She decided to go outside, take her shoes off, and walk in the grass for a few minutes – as a way to ground herself. Such a simple act, but one full of impact.

Many times over the last year, Karen’s example has inspired me to do the same. The other day, I had an important phone call that I was feeling quite anxious about. Rather than sitting at my desk for the call, in front of my computer and all my distractions – I decided to take the call outside, walking around the yard barefoot.

It made such a difference! Feeling the grass under my feet helped me feel connected to myself. Standing and walking rather than sitting made me feel strong and resilient. Feeling the light breeze in the air reminded me that the world was bigger than just this important phone call. I felt so much more mentally prepared for the conversation, simply by being outside.

It was such a valuable reminder for me of the lessons found in nature. The world spinning on it’s axis is one of the few certainties we have in life – and this certainty provides me with comfort when things feel a bit scattered or unpredictable.

I’m curious, how do you leverage the power of nature to bring yourself peace and comfort?  If you have any thoughts, I’d love to hear them.

And, perhaps more importantly, if you don’t take anything else from my reflections this week, hear this: Don’t ever change up your Wordle strategy.