A Simple Guide to the Meaning of Your Inner Year ... Just four reflections.
Published: Sat, 12/01/18
The next four weeks bring a close to the year. 2019 will appear very soon but before it does, don't you want to understand the meaning of 2018 in your life? It will never come again and it is so easy to forget and let one year pass into the next as if it had no impact on who we are.
So many of us are beginning to set our goals and resolutions for the new year, the next year of our lives, before we have made sense of the old year. That seems rather foolish...more evidence of self-neglect when what we all need is self-care. We are so future oriented. So much of my life has been spent on wanting the future to be better, to be the best ever (a self-soothing for my life-long struggles with depression and anxiety). Looking back seemed to be a returning to not being good enough, to feelings of failure, to lack of fulfillment, to emptiness and regret, to shame and guilt. More of a task of self-disappointment, than self-understanding. Sure, there were bright spots here and there, but my melancholic nature experienced these as fleeting moments.
I suffered from a treadmill life...same old, same old. The seasons might change, but I didn't. I was actually growing and maturing, accomplishing little acts of meaning, sometimes feeling joy but I was not aware of the substance of my life. Then someone asked me a question!
Somehow I had found my way to the Holy Nights between Christmas and Epiphany and been inspired to write the Inner Christmas Messages. One of my readers asked me about "inner"Advent. I thought about it. Inner Advent was not about a wreath and candles and church. It wasn't about Nature and the four kingdoms of creation. Like Inner Christmas, an inner Advent would be about the soul of the individual.
That was about 10 years ago. Now my personal Inner Advent practice anchors my Inner Year with four inner reflections. You can reflect on these, too.
1st Reflection: I recollect the outer circumstances and events that impacted my inner life. Just a few of my recollections: This year I had surgery on my right wrist. I read Michael Pollan's "How to Change Your Mind" and "Alone of All Her Sex - The Myth and Cult of the Virgin Mary" by Marina Warner , a dearest friend came from England for a wonderful visit and offered to help me write "Inner Mother Inner Father." My daughter turned forty! The world of politics and climate change became more disturbing. What happened in your outer life?
2nd Reflection: I reflect on my inner life and the thoughts, feelings and deeds that emerged and evolved in my soul. Many came through conversations with friends and clients. Many came in the loneliness of the night and the writing I would do to move away from my nightly miseries. Leading the year long course on the 12 Soul Comforts demanded of me deep thought as I had to bring new understandings about self-compassion, self-expression, self-acceptance. Over the next four weeks I will review the course. I had to move to new perceptions of my children as they are in the midst of a relationship crisis. I will attempt to write down many of these thoughts and feelings and the deeds that manifested. I might make a collage as a creative expression always brings much to the surface.
3rd Reflection: Now I go very deep and very high and reflect on the truth, beauty and goodness appearing in my soul in 2018. I reflect on my moments of new illuminating truth (getting close to capital T - truth). I wonder at a new beauty or harmony in my feelings...less confusion, doubt. less need to be superficially happy. I look for the moments when my actions contained goodness. What were the thoughts, feelings and deeds that breathed more joy into the world ethers? I can share these yet as the reflections have not come to light.
4th Reflection: This is the most challenging reflection. I look at my year for sparkles and glimmers of true inner freedom and overflowing, utterly unselfish love. I sweep away my stories, my ideals, my oughts and seek my I...the active kernel of the Divine within my soul.
Four reflections which give me the yearly Imagination of my SELF. What will I learn about How my inner life evolved in 2018???
I have given you a simple description of the work of Inner Advent. You can spend some sacred time reflecting on your inner year using this brief guide.
If you would like to more guidance, please enroll in one of the Inner Advent courses which offer audios and lots of inspiring materials to support you. I also offer a special Inner Advent if you have had a very dark and difficult year. The courses go much deeper into the process and elements of your Inner Year Reflections. I really feel this are the most amazing Imagine Self Academy courses. Read the descriptions below.
If you have any personal questions, please email me.
Inner Advent occurs over the four weeks (a lunar month) before the Winter Solstice (Northern Hemisphere) and Christmas Day.
Advent begins next Sunday, December 2, 2018. Inner Advent follows the Sunday rhythm, but you don't need to follow it. Advent is the season and the mood of reflection. You can do it all in one day or several evenings. I just want you to do the work of ending your year before your Inner Christmas begins.
Inner Advent is simply a guide, a compassionate and creative structure for shaping the work of integrating your soul’s year. There are four audios and lots of handouts to support a truly elegant design for celebrating your inner year. Inner Advent reflects the traditional Christian Advent of the four Sundays before Christmas. The difference is in the focus of attention. Christian tradition focuses on the four moods of Christmas: hope, joy, peace, love.
Inner Advent focuses on your soul’s activities of thinking, feeling and willing over the previous year and guides you to...
Recollect your memories of how you lived the year and expressed yourself.
Review and discover your the meaning of your thoughts, feelings & deeds.
Release your memories in to the world ethers and create within your soul a new openness for wonder, warmth & wisdom.
If you choose to work with the artistic suggestions of Inner Advent, you will develop a mandala filled with images of your soul over the four seasons. You will see your year in language, form, color or whatever you choose. Or your Inner Advent activity may be journaling, active thinking, or conversations with a friend or therapist.
The true gift of the Inner Advent program is the beauty and usefulness of the design, structure, and process. You learn how to create a spiritual practice that brings depth and rightness to your inner work. You will find the union between your soul and the cycle of the year in nature. You will discover the spiritual meaning flowing through your inner development in each season.
If you feel you don’t remember your year, that you couldn’t recollect it, the guidance of Inner Advent will awaken memories, but will also create a foundation for your relationship to 2019. Inner Advent serves the past year and the future year equally.
Inner Advent offers a creative and illuminating spiritual practice. You will feel a new freedom and a deeper compassion filling your heart and mind as you arrive at the Holy Nights. There are two Inner Advent programs to choose from.
Inner Advent - Your Year of Light recollects, reviews and releases your soul's activities in thinking, feeling and willing throughout the year. It leads you to the truth, beauty and goodness in your life. Learn more and register here.
and
Inner Advent - Your Year of Darkness recollects, reviews and releases what you experienced in the darkness of your soul. It leads you to the light beyond the shadows, sorrows and sufferings of the year. Learn more and register here.
Dear Lynn,
Your posts awaken senses and memories long lost, and it is such a comfort to find them again, especially at this time of year.
I have been working with your Holy Nights posts for the past 5 or 6 years (?) and I so love them!
This year especially they provided some much needed healing to myself.Your work is so wonderful and I look forward to it every year. I also did your Inner Mother and Inner Father workshop a couple years ago and for the first time worked with your Inner Advent material. I can not describe the healing it has brought me.
Thank you for all the gifts you give us! Maggie