ArleneFL

What Next?

It’s easy at this time year to feel a desire to get going and get doing. Yet here in the northern hemisphere, nature is still sleepy above ground. The energy is all below ground in the roots.

The ‘No Dig’ calendar on our kitchen wall says no seed planting in January. You can spread compost on the soil, but otherwise leave it alone.

Indoors though we can browse our metaphorical seed catalogues.

On Sunday evening, husband and I created vision boards to capture what we each REALLY want for our lives in the year ahead. It’s a process I’ve used for years.

Blank page

If ever there was a year to let go of the life we thought we ‘should’ be living, then this is it!

In the space that’s opened up, I reckon there’s an opportunity to let go of the same old, same old approaches to planning and making things happen. Instead to approach the year ahead with a spirt of curiosity: what’s possible?🤔

Pause

It’s Winter Solstice today and, drum roll please…..day 50 of writing these daily posts.

Yay! I did it!⭐️

Winter Solstice marks a key transition point in the seasonal calendar: a time to pause between the two halves of the year.

When you look back at your journey since Summer Solstice,

Completing the year powerfully

It’s easy, and understandable, to just want want this year to be over, to cross everything and hope that next year will be different.😳🤞

In so doing, might you be missing the opportunity to acknowledge and feel good about yourself? Also, to let go of ways of habits that no longer serve you? What we resist persists and all that!

Over the next couple of weeks, in our family, we’ll reflect gently on the year that was.

My favourite questions

I love open-ended questions!. They are where it’s at!

Think ‘who what, when, where and how’ – all asked with a genuine curiosity and willingness to be surprised.

As a coach, I love sitting there not knowing what someone is going to say.

Powerful question🤔

Going round and round in circles inside your head? Trying to figure out a way forward?

Maybe you’re struggling to make time for what really matters in your life?

Full day ahead and wondering how to make it all work AND feel alive while you go about it?😳

Welcome to my question of the moment!

5 tips for better sleep😴

I love sleep. Seven hours please! I can manage on less, but it’s hard to do anything which requires sustained energy: like getting up early and writing daily posts!

Good sleep creates the conditions for your to flourish. It sets you up to tend to what matters.❤️

I’ve gone through a number of years of very disturbed sleep.

Taking the festive reins

For years we did the alternate ‘Christmas here, Christmas there’ routine familiar to many with loved ones in different parts of the country/world. If it wasn’t the turn for Christmas itself with my folks in Ireland, then we’d head over at some point just after, usually for new year.

The time for dreaming has begun

As the energy contracts, it’s time for that final letting go.

The last of the leaves are falling🍂. The sweet chestnut are gone. There’s a few left on the beech tree. The silver birch looks odds on for last to release.

Creating some ease for yourself

Regardless of what your focus is on right now – creativity, a health goal, a work project – it likely involves some sort of balancing act with other areas of your life.

How do you give yourself to what really matters AND get the other stuff done?