As this year comes to an end, I would like to suggest that you take some of your precious time and review your year. This inner journey will be as much fun as it is enlightening. It will remind you of what choices you made and didn’t make. It will reveal to you how often you made it through challenges and what was discovered when you reached the other side. It will give you a bench mark of your growth as well as inspire you to keep on growing. It will point the way for you to create more abundance. As you know, when one thing ends another begins and so it is as 2010 becomes 2011. So, before you write your list of desires, goals or resolutions for the new year take a look at your 2010. It may shift the way you approach your 2011. This post will cover creative ideas showing you “how to” and “benefits of ” writing “Your Year in Review” but remember this can be effective even if you are reading this post after December. 🙂
This is Your Life After All:
We have all been given a most magnificent gift and it is called life. What we do with it is up to us. Sometimes it doesn’t seem that way but it is. Taking the time to review our life helps us realize we all have a very interesting story with much of it still unfolding.
To review our personal year is a powerful and interesting way to see how we are crafting and creating our life by the choices we make and don’t make. This journey of self discovery is meant to shed light on where you are at this stage of your life. It is not meant to be a reason to beat yourself up for what you did or didn’t do. It is a gentle personal way of seeing what has occurred, what your experiences were this year and how much you are a tremendous part of all that. Whether you are thrilled with what you have created or not, rest in the knowledge that you are a powerful creator. With that, the more conscious you become of your part in creating your life the more your choices will reflect what you hope and dream of rather than what you don’t like and fear. When your year in review is complete and you read it through you can see your year as an amazing work of art and you were the artist.
How Do I Get Started ?
This is the fun part. There are several ways to begin. First get a notebook and a nice pen. Second, label it “My Life in Review 2010”
This notebook will hold all your notes as well as your finished streamlined review. I recommend keeping it so you can take a look at it during the upcoming year to refresh and remind yourself of your previous choices and how they did or did not serve you. It ignites the spark of new thought and courage that becomes a flame illuminating your choice in the “now”.
1) Event Approach:
You can begin anywhere your initial memory takes you. Lets say an event in June pops up or has lingered in your mind over the past few months. Write the name of the month on your blank page. If the train of thought and remembrance takes you into July simply write the name of that month and continue.
I like to underline the name of the month. It makes it easier to put the pieces in order when the journey of exploring the year is complete. It can be much like a tapestry or puzzle. Be sure to add as much detail as you can including how you felt about remembered events. You will discover much about yourself and those you connected with over the past year.
2) Linear Approach:
You can begin with January and work your way down through the calendar year or start in December and work your way back. I find that in using this approach it is helpful to give each month a page of its own. To begin, label your pages with the months of the year in what ever direction you plan to travel.
Once you begin to stimulate your memory you may spontaneously remember something that took place in a different part of the year. Simply flip to that month and jot it down. Then you can return to where you were or stay with the steam of thought until it is complete. The choice is yours. That’s what makes it fun! I love to ride on the wave of inspiration. If it takes me in a direction I was not planning on I will go with it. See what works for you!
3) Emotional Approach:
You may find the easiest way to begin is tapping into the times when you felt like this or like that. In fact you may remember the feeling and not the time frame at first. What you will discover is that the feeling goes with an experience and the experience relates to something or someone and as one thing leads to another the time frame will present itself. When it does write in down and underline it. Again, this will be helpful when you put your year in review together as a flowing work of art from beginning to end. These are just a few ways to begin a year in review. I will cover the mapping of a Total Life Review next year.
Some of The Benefits:
* You will grow in self awareness, personal power and spiritual awareness. Conscious living will become far more than words.
* You will discover that an ordinary life is truly extraordinary and your life has been just that Your Life! A real gift to you and those around you.
* You will uncover patterns of behavior that either support you or do not support you. With this awareness 2011 will be filled with more conscious choices that support the life of your desires and the “authentic” you.
* You may discover some relationships are truly complete and the ending was or is necessary for all involved so growth may continue. You will find the strength to let go so the new may find you.
* You may come to realize you played an important role in the support of another.
* You may discover new relationships came to provide you with support and opportunity for growth, pleasure and expansion. Some may come and go while others may be the bonds of long term relationships with like minded others. The soul family takes shape.
* You will see your strengths and areas that could use a little more of your time and attention.
* You will discover that your life reflects the amount of energy and passion you put into it.
* You will realize the time is now to become a bit more bold, shine your light brighter and know that you are worthy of time to reflect, rest and ponder your life.
Wrapping it up:
Regardless of what approach you use the time comes when you put it all together in a “beginning to end” story of your life in 2010.
After you have read your amazing story, ask and answer these few questions to help provide you with greater clarity. Write them at the end of your review as a quick reminder of your strengths, successes and perhaps some areas that are calling for your time, love and attention.
1) What are you most grateful for in the year 2010?
2) What worked and what didn’t work for you?
3) What will you continue to cultivate with your time and attention and what will you bring to an end?
4) Did you feel supported in your growth this year? If so, in what areas? If not, in what areas?
5) Were you supportive of others? If so, was it energizing or draining?
6) Did you allow yourself sufficient time alone to recharge your batteries?
7) Did you spend time in nature, in meditation?
8 ) Was your 2010 an expression of balance between:
work and play~ activity and rest~ time with others and time alone~giving and receiving?
9) Did you learn anything new?
10) How well did you care for your body, mind and emotional nature?
The first phrase written over the gateway to the temple at Delphi was “Know Thyself”. You now know yourself better than you did! What better way to set goals for the upcoming year than to realize more about you. Create life by conscious design. Should you need a helping hand creating life by conscious design call or e-mail me for a free consultation.
May your review of 2010 inspire you to create ever more consciously in 2011 ! 😛
peace and love, Astara
