We can easily go from one year to the next, but before you start the year, you need to stop the year. Stop it well.
As I write this, it’s the middle of the most interesting week of the year. It’s the week between Christmas and New Year.
Here in New Zealand, it’s summertime,e and for most people, it means the beginning of the summer holiday period. Most businesses close, and people often head to the beach for a swim. It’s a ‘kicking back’ time of year when all you want to do is to eat the leftovers from Christmas day, find a good book to drift off into, and swim, sleep, and relax.
Stop before you start.
In this week, I like to stop before I start. I like to stop the pressure of the normal, where it’s going from one thing to the next before I start the next year.
For me, this week is where I make sure to have time for personal reflection. I pause before I hit the pace again of another year.
It’s a time to note the changes, feel the losses, value the gains, and lean into the learnings.
This stopping before you start could be done any time of the year, but it requires some intentionality to hit the pause button. To slow down the machine of your life and retreat to an internal place of rest.
It’s allowing yourself to discover yourself and letting it catch up to you. You’ve had so many things happen to you that they are like little children tagging on behind, crying out for attention. They want to be seen, known and acknowledged. If you don’t, their wisdom for the next stage may well be lost.
So please stop before you start.
How to stop
It’s not slamming on the brakes. It’s more of a gentle slowing down to a place where you can rest.
It’s that rest spot on the side of the road. All over New Zealand, we have little places on the roadside where you can pull over, rest, and possibly take in some scenic views. But, of course, before you get there, a sign will be on the road saying something like ‘Rest stop’ or ‘Scenic Views ahead.’
Stopping requires you to give permission to your self to stop.
I want to stop because I might miss out on the view of where I have come from and the view of where I hope to go.
Can you give yourself permission to stop?
It takes practice. Some of us are so busy hurrying from one day to the next that we never sit in the day long enough to smell the roses blooming around us—what a waste of a good rose.
Stop for half an hour, then extend it to a morning, and soon you will stop for the day. Then you will be planning for a day a week where you will stop and discover God at the rest stop welcoming you to the Sabbath – to cease.
Perhaps, at this time, some reflective exercises might be in order.
Stop zone questions
You’ve found a place to stop. You have given yourself permission to rest and reflect.
Some suggestions to make the most of this time.
- Grab a notebook
It could be your journal or simply a blank sheet of paper. It’s merely a place to write your brain out on to. - Blank page
That page is empty until you scribe. - Write like no one else is going to read it.
It’s simply between you and the page. No one will mark your work or check your grammar or spelling. Write random and free. - Draw pictures.
It may be that words don’t capture the essence of your thoughts. Perhaps you a drawing might capture your ideas better. - Reflect on your journals and photos.
Look over your journals and note what has happened to you. Check out all the photos you took over the year. Images transport us out of the now into the past, then influence our present. - Answer some questions
- What has filled your cup this past year?
- What has drained your cup this past year?
- What challenges did you face?
- What losses did you experience?
- What joys did you experience?
- When did you feel lost alive?
- When did you feel like you were wading through porridge?
- How have you changed over this year?
- What have you learned about yourself?
- Where have you found delight?
This self-reflective work is work. So be gentle with yourself and do it in little bits.
Write until you notice that you might feel exhausted by it. These are precious and fragile gifts to you, so take care of them. Don’t hurry something that must come to at its own pace.
The Red Dot.
There is often a map, whether in a shopping mall or in the park. On the map is an arrow pointing to a location; above it are the words – You Are Here.
You have looked at where you have been. You are turning to look to where you are about to go, but at the midpoint, you look to the ground you are standing on now. Right now, this moment.
You must go through the Red Dot moment before seeing the next day.
Pause.
Where are you right now, emotionally?
Are you
- Scared?
- Fearful?
- Grieving?
- Hopeful?
- Excited?
- Pensive?
- Thoughtful?
- Tired?
Every journey begins where you are. So be honest. It’s okay to inspect your wounds from the past. They may need some tenderness and compassion before they become scars and medals of a previous time and a previous battle.
To start the year well.
You’re at the beginning of a pilgrimage. You have a rough idea of what lies ahead—Hills, mountains, valleys, streams, bridges, rest spots.
But for now, you are at the beginning.
The map says, ‘You are here,’ but a trail of unknowns is before you.
Some questions to start well
- From all your reflections in stopping, what will you carry forward as the most valuable items in your knapsack?
- What would you delight in seeing happen in the next year? Some people call these goals, but the word ‘goal’ can be loaded with pressure and obligation. So instead, focus on the word ‘delight.’ What gives you delight?
- What are the millimeters, and maybe even nanometres (brain synapse width), required to achieve the kilometer of this delight?
- Are there echoes from the past wanting to hold you in the past?
- Where will you need to possibly walk on water?
- What has a sense of allurement to you?
He got up trembling
As you enter the next year, may you enter it with a sense of knowing you’re not alone but that you have a mission and a beauty to fulfill.
May you be like Bilbo Baggins.
And suddenly first one and then another began to sing as they played, deep-throated singing of the dwarves in the deep places of their ancient homes; and this is like a fragment of their song, if it can be like their song without their music.
As they sang the hobbit felt the love of beautiful things made by hands and by cunning and by magic moving through him, a fierce and jealous love, the desire of the hearts of dwarves.
Then something Tookish woke up inside him, and he wished to go and see the great mountains, and hear the pine-trees and the waterfalls, and explore the caves, and wear a sword instead of a walking-stick.
He looked out of the window.
The stars were out in a dark sky above the trees.
He thought of the jewels of the dwarves shining in dark caverns.
Suddenly in the wood beyond The Water a flame leapt up – probably somebody lighting a wood-fire-and he thought of plundering dragons settling on his quiet Hill and kindling it all to flames.
He shuddered; and very quickly he was plain Mr. Baggins of Bag-End, Under-Hill, again.
He got up trembling.
The Hobbit
Questions to consider
- How hard is it for you to stop?
- What brings you a sense of delight?
- What do you think Tolkien meant when he wrote ‘something Tookish’?
Quotes to consider
- There once lived a man who never risked.
He never tried, He never laughed, He never cried.
Then one day, when he passed away, His insurance was denied.
They said since he never lived, Then he never really died. (Anon) - One faltering but actual step is more valuable than any number of journeys performed in the imagination. Brennan Manning.
- Whatever you do, you need courage. Whatever course you decide upon, there is always someone to tell you you are wrong. There are always difficulties arising which tempt you to believe that your critics are right. To map out a course of action and follow it to the end requires some of the same courage which a soldier needs. Peace has its victories, but it takes brave men to win them. Ralph Waldo Emerson
- Goal setting is the only antidote to simply drifting along. ‘Opportunity’ thinking is the only antidote to ingrained pessimism. D. Riddell
- A goal without a plan is just a wish. Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
- Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first and we lose both first and second things. C.S. Lewis
- If the ladder is not leaning against the right wall, every step we take just gets us to the wrong place faster. Stephen R. Covey
Further reading
Barry Pearman
Photo by Tsunami Green on Unsplash
