Your Year-In-Review

It’s New Year’s Eve!  The last of the decade, never to be repeated.  I will spare you my own, ‘Hannah’s year-in-review.’  However, it was a wonderful way to while away the snowy morning – scrawling it down, luxuriating in the recollections of my own life after a banner holiday season of three full blown Christmas mornings in a row.  If you’d like some quality time with yourself,  this list-making (or prose if you prefer) venture is low-stakes and high reward.  Also enjoyable with a close friend, or small group if everybody’s in the mood.

In this year, what were your…

soundtracks of choice

favorite books

life changing books

memorable movies and shows

sweet and savorable moments

what is new to your life and your routines that was not in place last January

hardest moments, and what strengths you brought to them

what you choose to take away from them, and what you choose to leave behind

pivotal events in your year

new friends, communities, people in your life this year

things (also people and places) you’ve let go or that are no longer in your life

memorable meals

trips not to be forgotten

important choices in this year

new tools and skills in your ‘toolkit,’ spiritual, professional, or other

people you may be ready to forgive

people you’d like to acknowledge or thank

what you’re celebrating today, thanking yourself for, grateful for

what this year has taught you

experiences and qualities you want to bring with you to 2010

what you’re willing to consider leaving behind

It’s snowing out, it’s cold here in Boston, but in six months, what might you possibly be entertaining?  What is it that you would delight in, what might have moved on past?  Use all of your senses here.

This life experience is strangely collaborative.  In working with others, and in my own life, I’ve seen this time and time again.  If I name the things I love, would love to experience, and then offer them up or throw them over my shoulder like salt for good luck, I am showing up and making space in my life for them.

So I’ve started this massive year in review list, and I now plan on looking into what might be delightful, just for me, to encounter, to experience more of.

If all this ruminating makes you antsy, then open a closet and make some room for what you’d love to welcome in, starting with the concrete reality of your stuff.

And thank you very, very much for being a part of my 2009.  I’m honored to have you as part of this year, and look forward to further adventures in the next.

with love,

Hannah B (aka Good Bonfire)