What to learn from a sh*t year

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”

Viktor E. Frankl in Man’s Search for Meaning

The lull of the last week of the year often allows space for reflection. This year I didn’t get to tuck away for a day at Cavallo Point’s Spa in Marin County. Today, that opportunity feels distant. And my longing for it has only grown.

Like everything this year, the standard process doesn’t seem to fit for the wild year we have had. The year left abandoned plans and ideas in its wreckage. Dreams that did not come alive.

Don’t get me wrong. We did create a lot. New programming. New marketing materials and plans. New practices for working with one another.

But the heavier feeling is that so much of this year’s energy output was simply to stay above water. To muster the energy to do the next needed thing. Which made it hard to feel like we were at choice. More often, it felt like the universe was choosing for us - mandating the next required thing. Very little came easy. Creation came from necessity rather than from a deep well of inspiration.

This year we learned (again and in a more profound way) that we are rarely in control of our circumstances. Sometimes we get lucky and what we plan for lines up. But that was not this year. The world served us a set of circumstances that no one anticipated.

Hidden behind those circumstances is one thing we can control. How we respond to our circumstances. Maybe not right away. We are human, after all. But with practice and focus, we are able to step into the version of ourselves that has choice in our response.

And the choice piece is very important. It is the difference between reacting to circumstances and responding.

When we react, we are on auto-pilot. Generally following patterns that experience has wired into us. We find ourselves doing the same thing over and over again. Often getting the same results we’ve always achieved.

Responding allows space to step back and determine how we want to be with our circumstances. What we make of them - with the narrative we create about our experience, with our actions or both.

So the question that I asked myself this week was:

What have I learned about my relationship to my circumstances? What did I learn about myself as a woman who responds to her circumstances?

There is no right or wrong answer to these questions. Or some optimal type of responder to be. The intent is to begin to see yourself as a person who is able to respond to your circumstances.

The one nugget that feels true to me as I round out the year is that I find power by focussing on the simple things. I reactivate my senses. I find awe in nature. When overwhelm engulfs me, my best response is to shut my laptop screen. Step outside. Breathe in fresh air. Feel the breeze against my face. Smell the pine trees in my yard. Soak in the depth of the forest.

My wish for you is that you see yourself as respond-able. And that you can see the brilliance of the unique way in which you have responded to this hell of a year.

Shine On,
Alicia