Self-Reflection Questions for a Pandemic

Dear friends,

A few years ago I posted up the end-of-year questions I send to my coaching clients. It has become something of a tradition, and people have been requesting it again this year.

I have noticed some hesitation in myself, as I don't want to pretend that 2020 has been just another year, or that I approach 2021 authentically with a level of untempered optimism. For me, this has been a year when I have felt my life stripped back to its very bones - and then the bones bleached. Even though our worlds have been reduced, the wider world is still in us, and on a personal and systemic level we carry its shock, fear, uncertainty, grief, loss and loneliness. Some of us have been struggling with illness and its after-effects whether Covid-related or not, some of us have been caring for those who have been ill, and some of us have lost loved ones this year. All of us will have been affected by the suffering and loss of others across the world, and the compassion and sacrifice of those who risk their own lives to care for others. We have all at times been in survival mode - and need bear no judgment or ill-will towards ourselves for that, and towards our need to recover and rest.

You may, as I have, become more appreciative of the small wonders and joys - a new bud on a plant, hearing birdsong in the city, the loving connection of a friend or partner, the compassion of people you may have never met, a wonderful piece of music, the sense of our interconnectedness with all beings and responsibility for our community through small daily acts of care.

You may have noticed ways you were living your life up to the pandemic that you can now see have not have been of service for a while. Rather than hope, with its sometimes unfocused large brushstrokes, it may be more defined moments of clarity, that will guide you forward.

So, because we are already always going forward, and yet continue to bring with us the evolving accumulation of our lived experience and the sense we make of that, I have put together some slightly adapted end-of-year questions for reflection. As always, it's quite a list (brevity not being my strong point), but it's not a test in which you have to answer every one. I find that shaking a bigger tree sometimes helps people find the particular questions that drop down and land with them.

If it feels too overwhelming to reflect on 2020, then drop any "shoulds", return again to your connection with the ground beneath you, as if the Earth itself was gently pushing up to support you; breathe slow, and with each inhale, softly touch everything that is alive in you (including overwhelm), and as you exhale, befriend everything you touched.

Rilke remains my guide: "Live the questions", he suggests. We have become too much answers-seeking people, forgetting that we are fundamentally meaning-seeking, and - rather than the solution being out there somewhere, it is time and experience that can reveal this to us from within, like Michelangelo's angel in the marble.

I wish you a peaceful end to 2020. fx

1. What am I most grateful for in 2020?

2. What am I most proud of?

3. How did I take care of my body, mind, and soul?

4. How was I compassionate to myself?

5. How was I compassionate to others?

6. What were my greatest challenges? How did I approach them?

7. What did I overcome?

8. What did I have to accept?

9. What did I have to let go?

10. What did I learn about myself?

11. What became clearer?

12. How have I grown?

13. What is something I did in 2020 that I believe I will remember for the rest of my life?

14. What was something that was hard for me earlier in 2020, but is easier now?

15. What was the best decision I made?

16. Where did I find the most peace, calm and alignment with my values and purpose?

17. When did I feel most connected to myself? To others? To nature? To something greater than myself?

18. What was out of my control?

19. What was in my control and what did I choose to be and do?

20. What was the most loving service I gave myself?

21. What was the most loving service I received?

22. At the end of 2020, what have I realised or clarified is most important to me?

23. What will I take from 2020 as best practice for the rest of my life?

24. What do I commit to now?

25. What’s my first small step?

Photo credit: Timothy Dykes