Hello and happy new year.
One of my annual traditions is to set myself an ‘inquiry’ for each year. This is a guiding question that I use to learn my way into the life I’d like to lead.
It is inspired by Rilkes letters to a young man where he said:
“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves…Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”
This year I have a GINORMOUS question – my inquiry is ‘how do I continue to come home to myself?’
For me, this inquiry is an opportunity to rest into who I am and what I really want from 2023 and beyond… To locate my own path within and outside of the many shoulds and musts, away from all the voices telling me who I am and how to live. It is about finding space to reconnect with my own voice and return to my own dreams and desires…
I want to gather any fragmented pieces of myself lost after disappointment and trauma. I’m keen to learn how to create better boundaries and to know whats me and whats them. Its an inquiry about making peace with all the dreams that didn’t come true – and for those that did and weren’t actually mine. It is to find clarity on purpose in a world on fire. To ask and answer ‘what is mine to do’.
I want to continue to come home to that small voice within that helps me live this question into a future that is truly mine.
There is a beautiful poem by Derek Walcott called love after love that expresses the feeling I want ot hold in this inquiry…
The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,
and say, sit here. Eat.
You will love again the stranger who was your self.
Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart
to itself, to the stranger who has loved you
all your life, whom you ignored
for another, who knows you by heart.
Take down the love letters from the bookshelf,
the photographs, the desperate notes,
peel your own image from the mirror.
Sit. Feast on your life.
If you felt an inner tug on any of that, or a big ‘yes, please – me too’ – if you’re holding any questions on how to navigate this year from an authentic place – if you want peace outside of all the noise and inside of your own possibilities… perhaps you’d like to join me?
I am looking for fellow travellers on this journey of inquiry into 2023. for people who want to come on a limited 4 month programme with me and others to explore their related inquiry.
We will draw on the wisdom of one another, the learning from 5years of she leads change and the world around us and perhaps find beautiful ways to live into meaningful answers.
Keen?
Send me a note with your motivation and I’ll send you more details.
May you have a truly beautiful year. May you find meaningful ways – your way – to lead change.
With love…Nic xx
That’s a deep inquiry made up of lots of other questions – questions like –
How can I create space away from the many musts and should to hear my inner voice more clearly?
How can I learn to trust that voice in the decisions I make and the tricky things I navigate?
How do I reclaim the pieces of me I’ve lost after trauma and bring them home?
Where do they fit into an authentic vision for my best future?
What is mine to do in the world?
How can I serve others and the world and still keep myself centred?
Does this resonate with you? Perhaps not exactly – but perhaps in certain parts you feel an inner ‘yes – me too?’