Here they are.
As per usual, despite having a really codified, documented process for creating my 'New Year's Intentions,' I ended up following my flow and mixing up my major annual reflection session, or what I've also taken to thinking about as my 'annual review' of sorts. Hell, as most of my work is independent contract-based, no one else gives me one, so I do it myself! This is NOT a complaint - I love it this way :). The twist this year took was feeling the push to document my major concepts I extracted from this most unusual of years. Normally, the product of this process would be really focused on how I intend to frame my upcoming year, based upon what I gathered in the previous one. This year, it felt really important to include a summation of what has been gathered.
This process took a good ten hours (as it often does), including re-reading all of my personal writing from the past year and journalling thirteen new pages. As for the take-aways extracted from the year, I didn't simply Google "What 2020 Taught Us" or "Mantras for a Great New Year": the below is another example of consciously and carefully pouring time, energy and focus into long-form reflection. Now, more than ever, I believe so deeply in this practice. With that said, below are my major themes I extracted from this remarkable year. Most of them are far from new to my musings, but rather, an 'at this point in time' sum of them, framed in unexpected ways by the year's circumstances.
EXTRACT:
WONDER: In all its forms.
CHALLENGE: Needing to be.
MISSING v./ + DISCOVERING: Sometimes one is disguised as the other.
ADAPTATION + LIMITATION: Being flexible while creating and respecting boundaries.
CREATE <---REFLECT---> DESTROY: One isn't always better than the other.
NOTICE, SIT WITH, BREATH THROUGH, ACT UPON: Don't stop at step one or two.
LOGIC + EMOTIONS + EMPATHY + KNOWLEDGE: One without the other three just doesn't cut it.
SEEKING TO UNDERSTAND: And in turn, being understood.
YES, AND: Multiple, simultaneous truths.
GROWTH: Despite, within, because of.
UNEXPECTED GIFTS: A pleasant side affect of expectation management.
NORMALIZING "I LOVE YOU": Self-explanatory :)
I could expound on each of the above at length, but I've already done that in my journal, and I'm keeping it all to myself: I'd rather let the above retain an air of mystery, depth, knowing . . . :) So what will I do with all these lessons extracted from 2020? It seems we don't extract just to bottle up the precious result: next, we instill it somehow. As strange as it may sound at first . . . I wish to instill some of 2020 into 2021.
Many have hopped onto the "2020: Is It Over Yet?" bandwagon. On the other end of the spectrum, there's a lot of "Maybe this was the year we didn't know we needed" perspectives floating around too. I haven't haven't felt pulled too much either way: perhaps this is a result of coming to embrace "the grey area," as Kris conceptualizes the idea of understanding and appreciating that not everything is 'cut and dried,' as 'they' say. I think it is shortsighted to believe that '2020 being over will solve everything.' It won't: the process of 'bettering' is always ongoing. I also think it is shortsighted to think that '2020 was somehow a grand lesson we need to appreciate all of.' While I clearly believe in extracting value from my experiences, I'm not stuck behind rose-colored glasses that keep me from admitting that there were many ways that 2020 was awful. There's a third thing here. Yes + and.
That third thing, for me, must be Extract + Instill. I think I'd like to let all I extracted from 2020 be potential ingredients to instill into 2021. That said, it's quite a list, and trying to memorize and use it all, all the time, doesn't feel simple enough to me to really be effective. Another way I've never found too effective: literal, action-based intentions like "drink a gallon of water a day": to me, these sorts of directives have always felt bound to fail when not backed up by a deep understanding of why such habitual changes are important. It's that 'know your why' thing, as 'they' say.
Nonetheless, I have two such things I'd like to give mention here so they, along with all my extractions, may spill into the 2021 soup: 1) I'd like to take larger windows of writing time on Friday, Saturday or Sunday to get deeper into the 'big things' than my typical weekday windows to allow, and 2) I'd like my self-directed movement practices to include, in this order: centering/ groove + musicality/ stretching/ strengthening/ balance.
Back to those extractions, and how they make quite a list I don't think effective to try and memorize. Rather, I'm going to choose one item to really focus on instilling into 2021: the top item, the one that felt and feels MOST important, what served/s as a baseline for the rest: WONDER.
INSTILL:
WONDER
I found this on an everyday basis in 2020, more than ever before, in all its meanings: a feeling of surprise mingled with admiration, caused by something beautiful, unexpected, unfamiliar, or inexplicable/ to desire or be curious to know something/ to feel doubt. That last meaning can seem like a bit of a downer, but I don't interpret it that way. In this case, I read 'to feel doubt' as to question, to follow curiosity (one of my carefully-defined values). While I do take the first two meanings more to heart, this third meaning feels like an apt bonus that can be used a particular way :)
In 2020, I didn't often find/ feel/ experience WONDER when I went looking for it. Rather, I had to cultivate being ready for it when it presented itself. This is much like my realization that in order to fly my kite more, I have to be ready to notice and harness when the wind presents itself. I'll admit that my ongoing high hopes to fly my kite more have not really been realized. That said, rather than believe I've failed in that way, I'm going to interpret it as 'perhaps you are just not as moved by getting your kite in the air as you wish you'd be, and that's ok.' It's there for the times it feels right. I digress.
I see the desire to instill WONDER into my 2021, and therein, my ongoing approach to life, a conscious choice to cultivate my senses of appreciation and imagination. Honestly, nothing I can think of feels more important to how I wish to work as an artist and a human. An artist-human.
So here's how I leap and bound into 2021: with a sense of wonder instilled into my beliefs and values, and they ways I manifest them - also known as my approach to life:
CONSCIOUSNESS ---> VITALITY & PURPOSE:
SIMPLICITY | KINDNESS | CURIOSITY | CREATIVITY
- BEING/S - MOVEMENT - FOOD - OUTDOORS - MUSIC - STYLE -
The above is what feels most important for me to memorize, take to heart and consider - even if subconsciously - on a daily basis. It's taken me many years to define with words my beliefs and values, and how they manifest. They continue to shift over time to ring even more true to me. Even just at the start of 2020, they sat within slightly different words that made me consider them in slightly different ways. I am grateful for this ongoing process of looking inward at the New Year that began for me in eighth grade: I believe it's a crucial part of my developing ability to understand and appreciate that things are always shifting.
With all of this, I welcome 2021. 2021, I am prepared to meet you where you are, led by my carefully-defined beliefs and values and an understanding of how they manifest for me, instilled with a sense of WONDER extracted from my past experiences. With that, I'll finish with a bit of whimsical, direct-quotation from the journalling that led up to this post, inspired by my love for and sense of WONDER surrounding clouds:
"I love oscillating between grounding myself and floating among the clouds . . . I have my breath and they have their drift . . . together."
