An Inner Manifesto

There is nothing in your inner life that wouldn't benefit from you writing an inner manifesto. A inner manifesto is a declaration of commitment to your inner development.  It brings together your thoughts and your feelings and points you in a direction of actions that are personally, morally and spiritually meaningful. You make your inner development manifest through thought, word and deed. You create an inspired set of inner aims and goals.

A Seasonal Inner Manifesto

Seasons represent a rhythm of attention that successfully evolves from one state into another. We would all feel more capable and more harmonious if we  thought and acted seasonally, inspired by the loving wisdom of nature. Each season consists of thirteen weeks filled with a creative focus. 

After years of working with clients, I have come to know that it will take 13 sessions to bring about a desired shift or development. A single session can be quite valuable for insight but for manifesting development it takes a commitment of 13 or a season of focused and supported inner attention.  

What do you commit to this season? Each season?  Sit down, reflect, and write your seasonal inner manifesto. State your goals. I offer some guidelines below.

If you are artistic, you can bring creative expression to your manifesto.  After you have written down your needs and goals, you can create a collage, write a poem, compose a tune, make it beautiful and full of feeling.

Your Autumn Inner Manifesto

Autumn comes at the end of the year.  Darkness grows, drawing our souls into a mood of self-reflection seeking a sense of our relationship to what lives in the shadows of our souls. What is unseen or no longer seen. It looks in the soul's closet, dark wood and deep seas.

How would you undertake seeing what is hidden in your soul? What about you is seeking the light of self-development? 

1. In the image of Michaelmas and the slaying of the dragon, you might want to seek out and slay an inner demon or two. 
2. In the mood of All Soul's Day you could choose to contemplate death itself or seek a more active relationship with someone you loved who is now gone across the threshold of death.
3. For fun you might want to imagine your perfect Halloween costume and see what it says about you. 
4. Or you might want to design a metaphorical feast for expressing gratitude for the lessons you've learned this year or the books you've read or the movies you've seen that have opened up a hidden feeling in you.

For my readers in the Southern Hemisphere: if you have lived there long enough for your soul to really identify September with Spring and growing light, please think of your needs specifically living in your social life of relationships or how you organize and relate the different parts of your life - your inner life, your outer life.

Suggestions for your Inner Manifesto

These are REAL goals, not dreams.  Keep this to a doable number.  You will have thirteen weeks.  I would say 1-5 goals - 3 is probably ideal.  Design them for success.  Know that this is an exciting and creative way to find, know and become yourself.

Then just read my guidelines here.  Go to sleep tonight with the thought "What is my autumn manifesto?" When you wake up in the morning ask the question again and during the day you will find surprising goals coming into your thoughts. Capture them and write down your responses to the following:

WHAT:  What is the successful result/manifestation? What do you want to feel when this goal is achieved?

HOW:  How will you accomplish - plan, initiate, execute and complete - this goal?  Be realistic.  Will you meditate? Read some healing or inspiring books?  Spend time walking in nature or listening to music? Take a workshop?

WHY: Why is this important?

WHO: Who else - whose help and support do you need? Will you seek a wise and compassionate mentor, friend, counselor to support your process and hold you accountable to your manifesto?

Be practical and don't fantasize. This is an investment in your selfhood.  It will take a commitment of time, energy, focus and, possibly, money.  You and who you are becoming is worth all this.  But it is very important that you budget and not deprive or indulge.  (If you haven't paid attention to budgeting time, money, attention, emotion, selfcare, othercare, etc. you might want to make understanding your relationship to budgeting part of your Autumn manifesto!)

Be truthful. A manifesto is an expression of yourself. Tell your truth. do not overestimate or underestimate.

Be playful. Make at least one goal fun!

Do share your thoughts and manifesto with me. I will be honored.

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More Complex Questions

to Consider in Your Inner Manifesto

Here is a brief sense of what you might consider as you articulate your inner manifesto for this season.

I Will Accept Myself...
What needs to be spoken, heard and revealed without any judgment?

I  Will Heal Myself...
What needs to be brought to wholeness and harmony?

I Will Educate Myself...
What needs to be learned that takes you closer to maturity in thinking, feeling and behavior?

I Will Awaken Myself...
What moral imagination would prepare you for acts of freedom and gestures of love?