What is the vision for your future?
It’s December and I find myself in the womb of winter. The dark feminine is present everywhere, she has me reflective and contemplating life. I have spaciousness in my days and the time to reflect upon who I was at the beginning of this year, who I am now and where I am going.
I came into this year feeling like a white-tailed deer ready to bolt in fear at the slightest noise or disturbance. Thankfully that was the beginning of a powerful journey back to me but not the old me, I am realizing that this journey has taken me to a totally new version of myself, a self-assured, powerful version of me that feels so startlingly true it gives me goosebumps.
When I began this year, I had signed up for a program called Lifebook through a company called MindValley. Lifebook had me answering deep questions about each of the 12 categories of life from Health & Wellness to Intellectual & Emotional Life, even Quality of Life was on the menu.
This process had me questioning my beliefs, asking about my vision, questioning why I wanted things or had that vision, to begin with, and then identifying strategies I could use to achieve the vision. By the end of February, I had completed my Lifebook. I had defined what I wanted in all the categories of my life and from that, I had defined a two-page synopsis for my Life Vision. It was a powerful process to get there but that vision has guided me since.
As I approached this December it is time for me to revisit that Life Vision, make any adjustments to it, and then look at my strategies to get there. I will then determine what I want as my goals for 2022. Finally, I will revisit those daily habits that support me best in achieving that plan because true momentum is found in the simple daily choices that we make.
In February, when I wrote my Life Vision I did so by using the process of Writing Wisdom to uncover that vision. I created a guided meditation to take myself on a journey into my future, capturing as much of the subtle details of that future time as I could. How was my health? How did I feel? What were my relationships like? Where did I live? How did I spend my time? Who was around me? Capturing as much detail as I could during the guided meditation in my memory.
When I finished the guided meditation, I put pen to paper and as fast as I could I captured as much of it as I could, every detail that came to mind. I wrote like a frenzied ball of energy, not wanting to lose any detail of that vision and everything I knew that that vision stood for. That was my future and I wanted to build every bit of it.
Once I wrote that Life Vision, I used it to revisit each of the categories of my life just to see how closely my vision lined up and as you might have guessed, it all lined up perfectly, after all, it had all come from me in the first place. It was that vision that helped me to create my goals for this year which focused heavily on my health, emotional life, spiritual life, and my quality of life.
I have learned that I no longer need to follow the orders of my inner taskmaster so my to-do list gradually morphed to a suggestions/don’t forget list but no longer something I must check off before my head hits the pillow. I have similarly changed my relationship to my goals. While my Life Vision is just that, it is well defined and a destination I want to reach, I will still revisit it and refine it each year.
My goals are really my target for the year, a list that I also revisit and can change as I move through the year. If something no longer feels right, it is removed from the plan. I recognize the items on the list that I want to make sure I get to, I know that I will naturally focus on those, my inner drive will ensure those happen and then there are the things that I would like to get to but if they don’t happen I am going to trust that it is just not the right timing or perhaps that is an item that is just no longer important and needs to go away.
This reflective time of the year is an important and powerful time as I was reminded. I recently went to a retreat in Canmore, Alberta, Canada. The first day was all about reflecting on the year and I told the story about coming into the year as that frightened deer. That afternoon we went on a hike around a frozen lake, surrounded by snow-covered mountains. It was beautiful!
As we walked the trail, I was talking with the guide and I asked if they ever see deer when they take groups out and she responded that they do see mule deer and white-tailed deer but not very often. The words were just out of her mouth when out of the woods about 20 feet in front of us walked a white-tailed deer. The deer just looked at us and then started to walk on the trail just ahead of us. As the deer moved along the trail, she stopped and looked back at us as if to say, “follow me”. We started to walk with her but in my fascination, I stopped to take pictures and video her for a few minutes. She stopped and walked back toward us as if to say, “come on now, follow me” and she turned, and we followed along again. Now, this went on for about 10 minutes, finally when we stopped walking again, she stopped and looked at us as if to say, “if you aren’t going to come with me, I am going to go back” and with that, she walked back into the woods.
I was so struck by the synchronicity of this interaction, as she left it felt like it was a sign that she was taking that frightened deer that I had been into the woods with her and I would now be forevermore solid in my own sense of self, surer of who I am than I have ever been. No longer the frightened deer but becoming the humanitarian mystic I am meant to be but that is a story for another day.
Want to try Writing Wisdom to vision into your future? Here’s a guided meditation where I walk you through the step-by-step and set you off writing into your best life!
Happy Holidays! Happy New Year and may your 2022 be your best year yet!
À bientôt,
Renée