Reflections

The end of another year draws closer and this is often a time to think about where we have been and where we might want to go next. Have we ticked off our goals from the last 12 months? Have we pushed ourselves hard enough? Experienced all what it is that we wanted to experience? These questions often can help us frame time and where we are at in our developmental stage life, as well as help us connect to the things that we perceive as giving us self-worth and a sense of meaning.
We live in a time where uncertainty has had to become part of our everyday, in a way a lot of us had never experienced first hand, only heard about from older generations or people who may have lived and fled from conflict. Constant risk assessments, working out priorities and facing some fears has been for many a new way of thinking.
What the next 12 months will bring is uncertain, as it always has been of course, but with a new constant that is “subject to change” which perhaps previously we didn’t even contemplate as a possibility. Is it anxiety provoking to book a meal out, a weekend away, a concert trip knowing that it could all be cancelled at the last moment? How does this make us feel? Does it aggravate and put us off doing anything at all? Does it trigger our sense of not being in control that we find hard to sit with? Does it encourage a more laissez faire approach to life that we might actually find liberating?
Working with other humans in a deep and meaningful way is a privilege. Relationships and connections are as important as they have ever been but perhaps the collective vulnerability that has risen to the top of a very dense and complex broth gives us a unique gift. An opportunity to observe others and be the observer of ourselves - how do I really feel? How do you really feel? And we can begin the conversation talking about what is happening in the here and now “I’m missing sitting in an office with other humans” / “Im loving no longer having to do a long commute” and wind up in deeper conversation about the nuances of living as a human in the current world. We are each a rich mixture of past and present, of unmet need and fulfilled desire, of lacking capacity and needing to know more; an ever evolving, moving piece of work in progress.

As we move towards yet another period of change and uncertainty, how do you reflect on what has been?