Tuesday 27 December 2022

Year Compass Time...

It's Year Compass time again!  

If you’ve never heard of this, it’s a wonderful, free, online resource to help you evaluate the year that has passed and plan for the year ahead. It asks questions so you can reflect on what happened throughout the past year and what you hope for in the next. I usually complete mine on the afternoon of New Year’s Eve, it has become a ritual for me now.

This is not about New Year's Resolutions...

The Year Compass looks at all aspects of life, so it can help you to see if life has been in balance or not. For the record I don’t think we ever get perfect balance; well maybe for a nanosecond, I think it’s more that we are constantly “balancing.”  Our lives are like very sensitive scales – easily tipped in one direction or the other.

There is something special about the contemplation of the questions in the Life Compass, but also the physical writing down of thoughts and feelings in response to the questions. But the real fascination for me is reading the previous year’s book. I’ve been doing this for about 6 years now and even from one year to the next I’m intrigued by what I’d written down 12 months prior. Some things I don’t even remember writing! On occasion I’ve felt some things I’d written were penned by someone else…we can change and evolve so much during a year.

One of my favourite quotes is by Joan Didion, “I write entirely to find out what I am thinking, what I’m looking at, what I see and what it means. What I want and what I fear” – this is very true for me, sometimes my mind is a tangled jumble of thoughts, but spilling it all out on paper helps me to process, organise and integrate it all. Whether this is my weekly email to my subscribers, my blog or simply a scribble of thoughts in an old notebook. Free writing has also brought me some incredible insights, but I only started doing that after using more structured techniques like the Year Compass.

I would encourage everyone to check out the Year Compass website and print the booklet, get a brew and go through it, but remember to put it somewhere safe, so you can find it next year! I have hope that 2023 will bring much joy, but am open to whatever unfolds! 

To print out The Year Compass, visit: www.yearcompass.com

For more info about my classes visit:  www.yogiclaire.com