From Christmas reflections to insights and a poem

Did you answer the questions I posed in the last blog?  Or any you came up with yourself?

I did … and it turned out to be a bigger exercise than I envisaged.  But also an investment well worth making.

What I found was unexpectedly illuminating.  A lesson in the power of actively reviewing things (tip: looking back at my diary helped).

Reflecting not just on what happened but why things stayed with me or mattered more.   And getting pointers that I hadn’t picked up before.

For example, finding that most joy came from unexpected moments and the seemingly smallest of things. Striver in me, take note!

And realising that I’m being much truer to myself, braver and self-compassionate than I’ve ever been before.  Really feeling the benefits of that.

New Year resolutions often feel like too much pressure, with their focus on targets that can be hard to hit.

But something about reflections feels different.  More like insights than objectives.  Something to build on rather than aim for.

And for me, this poem – “The Most Important Thing” by Julia Fehrenbacher – captures that.  I share it with thanks to Peter Gill for introducing me to it on a course I did with him.

I am making a home inside myself. A shelter
of kindness where everything
is forgiven, everything allowed—a quiet patch
of sunlight to stretch out without hurry,
where all that has been banished
and buried is welcomed, spoken, listened to—released.

A fiercely friendly place I can claim as my very own.

I am throwing arms open
to the whole of myself—especially the fearful,
fault-finding, falling apart, unfinished parts, knowing
every seed and weed, every drop
of rain, has made the soil richer.

I will light a candle, pour a hot cup of tea, gather
around the warmth of my own blazing fire. I will howl
if I want to, knowing this flame can burn through
any perceived problem, any prescribed
perfectionism,
any lying limitation, every heavy thing.

I am making a home inside myself
where grace blooms in grand and glorious

abundance, a shelter of kindness that grows
all the truest things.

I whisper hallelujah to the friendly
sky. Watch now as I burst into blossom.

May you burst into glorious blossom in 2025.