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Vol. 11
I’ve kind of been feeling a lot around everything in my life at the moment and it's probably been heavily influenced by the turning of clocks, so to speak. We find ourselves in another year, a new number that’s making a turn on this Gregorian calendar. I could talk about what kind of year this is going to be according to numerology (7 number year) or Nordic animism, or what kind of astrological year we’re welcoming, or what kind of year it is based on shamanic cultures or other belief systems but, I am not going to. Rather I am wanting to talk about reflection.
Reflection is powerful in that it gives us a beautiful perspective towards our own growth and transformation. It shows us how we’ve grown, how we’ve transformed. Reflection enables us to be less rigid, less dogmatic, more flexible and open minded. When we look at ourselves through the eyes of reflection, we discover how much wiser we are now than we were before, because we are continually evolving, learning, adapting. We are always moving through things and coming out of them on the other side. Just think about the major leaps you have had to take in the last year and how somehow you did it and got through it, you too are welcoming 2023 healthy and happy (or so I hope). But sometimes it is hard to think that there is a side to come out of, other than the trenches we find ourselves in.
Over the last two years, and especially over the last year, I truly did not know how I was going to come out of it: out of paying these huge bills for certain expenses within my business, for instance. But little by little, I've been paying things off, skimping here and there, putting off getting a new car (and I’ve needed a new car for years now!), and oftentimes, it was hard to see the other side, or know that I would be free of it. Debt is that shadow that hangs over you, isn’t it? But eventually you get there.
Oftentimes, we don’t realise what it is that we have achieved or moved through because we are focusing so heavily on pushing forward and not sinking with the tides. That’s the nature of this Gregorian calendar, isn’t it? Time tick, tick, ticking away.
Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Monday. Tuesday, Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Saturday. Sunday. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday… And on it goes, that feeling in the pit of your stomach, that angst.
It’s this laborious repetition, repeating over and over until the year is done and gone and you realise: I just repeated everything, time and time again; moved through the months, moved through the seasons; a year’s gone and another one’s here. And shit! I am another year older.
This way of doing things doesn’t really support or acknowledge our personal lessons and blessings as I like to call it. We are taught to put time limits on everything: how long do I have to dedicate to this task or that task? How long do I have to get into shape? How long do I have to reach this health goal or financial goal? When is the exact time these bills have to be paid in full because this is what the contract says? Chasing deadlines or opportunities but always chasing.
If we only navigate this way, it makes all our decisions one sided: we have the option of a or b or c, and we are expected to make the decision quickly, limited to only one, so that we can move forward because time is ticking, the days are passing. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Monday. Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday… and so it goes that we have to keep going and moving forward because another year is going to go by.
This way does not allow us to think of things differently because this is just how it’s been done and this is how we must go. The few times I've jumped on social media over the holidays, I have seen a couple of posts of people claiming (announcing, really) that they don’t follow the clock or the calendar. In my head I find it completely absurd to make such a statement. Because of course, you fucking do! At a certain point you have to know what day it is, what date of what month so that you can pay a bill, so that you can have an appointment or so you can meet up with someone and make a reservation. As much as you think yourself cool to say it, you aren’t completely exempt. You have to subscribe to it! So yes! Great that you live your life by the oceans and the tides, but you also live by the Gregorian calendar like everyone else in the world, Nomadic Cultures perhaps being the exception.
So while we might have to navigate the world a certain way, we might privately choose to think of it in another way. And this is how reflection allows us to think of things differently. Reflection allows you to pick and choose, to evaluate what’s worked, what you’ve learned, and see a bigger picture.
I have been meaning to share something myself that applies to this idea of reflection but that I have been reluctant to because it’s embarrassing: it’s embarrassing to share when you’ve been a bit narrow-minded. But I want to share something that I’ve realised and it’s that you don’t have to do things one particular way.
In my own life, I have noticed some rigidity. I often journal and write ideas down, rarely looking back at them, but more so as a way to get things out and every year there’s a new Moleskine stacked on the next. A black pile of books becoming rather dangerously high on my the corner of my desk. I am aware of the things that I’ve wanted to achieve: whether it be numbers for my business or things I have wanted in my own health. I know what I want. For those of you that have met me in person or come to events of mine as well, you will know (and probably be having a bit of a chuckle) that I am extremely strong-willed: I don’t let anybody get in the way of what I want in life. When I know what I want nobody else can tell me otherwise. I take a rather less fluff approach to everything. It makes me like marmite - you either love it or you can't stand it.
Although I know what I want within my business, the long-term idea that I have, of what it looks like to run my business and all the things within my business, the people and the places, the books, the classes, the workshops, the magic number (we should all know our magic number, knowing that as we grow, it will change and expand), I feel like I haven’t allowed much room for other potential opportunities to flourish. Truthfully, reflection has shown me that I have been flip flopping the most within my personal life. As many of you know, my children are home schooled and it’s been extremely challenging and hard on my kids and on me and I am at a point where I’ve hit my limit. It is not something I ever planned on doing but something rather that had to be done due to severe bullying at school. I saw it as an opportunity for healing. Currently I am struggling to decide where to send them now we have moved through that awful experience and what I have to do to make it all happen. What once seemed like there were no options, there are not half a dozen.
This same flip flopping has presented itself with our families goal of moving to France. Things that we didn’t think of or that have been out of our control are often at the root of the delay and I have had to humble myself to that knowing that I cannot control external circumstances. AS much as being clear and working at manifesting something, I can't change laws and government paperwork. And in this process, I’ve realised how naive I've been. Funny how when I become rigid and inflexible, everything around me begins to crumble.
I have not been allowing space and time to see what’s bubbling beneath. Some of you may be like this but when I have a goal or idea, I very quickly put all my eggs in one basket, and let everything go that is not in line with that goal and I become this stubborn bull (hello Taurus rising!). But this is when the process becomes dogmatic and narrow minded. So when the world is full of so many beautiful things and possibilities, when you have a bower bird eye like me, how does one make a choice that has ripple effects? When there are so many things that you love that contradict one another, how do you come to a place of certainty? How do you gain clarity around getting what you want and then having another huge opportunity thrown at you but you didn’t even have a moment to say yes or no and it just happened. You tell yourself that you're going to keep up and ride the wave all the way to the shore. Until it gets to be too much, until you realise that the shore is not actually in close sight.
So how does reflection work in all of this? Reflection is like a portal or a mirror that we can peer into. By looking at our lives in this linear form, going backwards from now this is where you are able then to see the recurring cycles, linking things together. You start to put things together: things reappearing or an idea coming back to you, and it can happen consistently over time and over years in specific areas of your life and this is where you can gain clarity.
Reflection therefore is a very empowering process because it helps you make sense of your day: you come to the point of being able to make a decision, change the course of a direction, or set a course in action. It enables you to step away from your habitual way of doing things and thinking, and discover new ways, new freedoms, new opportunities. This is what reflection does. It is what enables you to have more joy by seeing all the things that you’ve worked toward and achieved, it reminds you of how much you’ve done right. And without reflection, you might just forget or focus on the difficulties, the failures, the things you didn’t achieve.
So although my goal of being where I want to be has been dragged out so much, it doesn’t mean that the goal isn’t there anymore. It just means that perhaps things need to look a little differently. Because for a very long time I’ve been pulled between two continents (for over a decade, really). And I often feel that as I take one giant step forward toward one, a truckload of opportunities happen in the other and vice versa. And it’s frustrating because like I said, I can get very pin-pointed with my goals and I just push forward.
Through reflection, by seeing how I came out the other side, by gaining perspectives, I can adjust and move forward. It’s not that I am not moving to France. But it's different in that I now notice that there are multiple ways of doing something and perhaps choosing one of those ways instead might be more beneficial. It’s changing my perspective and coming from a place of abundance, rather than scarcity. I am so close to where I want to be but now I am at a point where I have to look at my drawing and colour it in and shade it in from the outline that I have sketched out.
Stepping into this year, reflection has been my guiding light. Reflection has been where I find clarity. It’s not about resolutions. I still want these things, but my heart is being pulled in many directions, so how do I make that work? Through reflection. Rather than focusing so strongly on what we want, we put the picture of it in front of us and leave room to discover how you will go from here to get to the finish line.
Reflection has allowed me to let go of the habitual parts of me, it has helped me see my blind spots, to see where I need to be more gentle with myself, or explore other possibilities, without a time limit, to slow down and see what unfolds and what becomes. Because when you do that, you’re allowing the subconscious to enter. And by allowing, you see the blessings that are right in front of you. Being grateful and in the moment.
So as we prepare to move into this first part of a new year, we might look through the mirror, that portal of time to see how far you’ve come, to see if the goals are still the same or if they’ve morphed or expanded into something greater. Because you’re not the same person you were yesterday or last year. How have your desires changed? What have you come through? And become? And see the joy and gratitude of that and start to map out your own picture.
In love,
Brooke x
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