Holiday Curiosity
Sheri Lynn Fella
Questions for Curiosity This Holiday Season
What has shifted for you in the last year?
What have you learned about yourself that has caused you to make changes in your life?
How have your priorities shifted and why?
What are you most looking forward to in 2022?
How does gratitude show up for you?
What might possibility and curiosity look like for you as you reflect on 2021 and look ahead to 2022? Last year I shared a list of questions that you might explore over your holiday season with those close to you. Here I have shared that list again with a few tweaks, and as a team we've decided to write this holiday blog together.
And before you dig into the questions, a few tips to keep this adventure space open, safe and fun to explore. Please don’t allow judgment in the cave with you. Hear what folks are saying and ask for clarity if you don’t understand, and try to stay away from challenges and critiques. Accept what emerges with grace and love, and be open to learning. And seek gratitude for whatever comes up as a way to learn about the people around you.
Hear from the Team
Our team reflected on the questions and shared their thoughts below.
Alison's Response
As I start to reflect on 2021, I feel like I (and maybe the rest of the world) had high hopes for how differently 2021 might feel than 2020. I was hopeful that we would show up for each other, so that we could get more ease in our day to day lives. Though 2021 was still not an easy year for me, I am grateful that I understand more clearly the amount of ease I can still have when I’m in a hard places.
What I know more clearly from this year is my capability for holding light and dark at the same time. My priorities shifted in 2021, and while some of those shifts brought me closer to myself in many ways, some were very challenging and not full of choices that I was excited to make. I’m grateful for both. Those shifts have brought me so much learning about what I’m capable of, what I really want my life to look like, and how love, while always there in my life, is now something that I do, not look for.
Molly's Response
The best way I can describe 2021 is a rollercoaster. I’ve gone from the top of the ride to the bottom in a matter of seconds, with a million twists and turns in between. What I’ve learned through it all is a need for stillness, reflection, and soul connection. On one hand, I need to create time and space for myself to breathe, meditate, and process. I must fight my default of keeping it all buried inside and pretending it's not there. I’ve noticed activity and busyness are extremely self-soothing, but ultimately not sustainable. On the other hand, I’ve never needed connection more in life. My heart is beyond grateful for the people that have shown up and continue to be by my side through this ever-changing year. As I look at the ride ahead, my hope for 2022 is a new rhythm, deeper breaths, and an ability to ride this continuous loop of life with love and strength.
Amy's Response
I love to give to others and to do that well, my cup has to be refilled constantly. This year’s lesson is that it has to be refilled in new ways. I’ve taken on new roles in just about every part of my life which I’m grateful for and excited about. The learning is that those new roles mean I need new ways to adapt, to grow, to nurture myself, to ask for what I need in order to give to others. I also learned the really hard lesson this year that my strengths are definitely assets, but they are sometimes incredibly complex. Those new roles mean new identities and letting go of some things I thought I needed and have served me well in the past. As I formally become part of a team again, I have to shed some expectations of myself and habits that helped me succeed in a corporate structure like: ‘having it all under control’, ‘knowing everything’, relying on rules. My gratitude and growth is for the people surrounding me who encourage, inspire, support and yes, require me to be vulnerable along the way, and who are amplifying my strengths and learning. So much fun in the hard stuff!
Maggie's Response
I realized this year that the lessons I’m learning just keep on showing up, in new ways and in new contexts.
In 2020 and 2021 so much changed. And while so much was happening outside, for me, it has also been a time of change inside. As a mom of two little ones, it’s fair to say I’m new to the role of “mama” and the pandemic actually offered me, in some ways, what I needed most – a cocoon – to be new at this, to shed old parts of me and let the new emerge.
This year, more freedom has also meant disruption. It’s challenged me to maintain the space and boundaries I’ve built to an intruding “outside.” It’s helped me get clear about where and how to draw lines. I’m grateful for that. My work in 2022 is continued patience, acceptance and learning. And my goal for my family – health!
Nicole's Response
What am I most looking forward to in 2022? While I try to find the balance of my focus in the present, instead of rehashing past or outlining future possibilities, I am looking forward most to what is Next. I don’t know what that is. I don’t know the balance of times more painful than pleasurable nor how difficult or at ease I will be. What I do know is I intend to approach the opportunity with curiosity, hoping for awareness and finding relative wisdom in the end. As we have witnessed over the past few years of turmoil and sickness, no version of the future is guaranteed. I am grateful to have had the past, even more, grateful to embrace the present, and am ready for the next.
Sheri's Final Reflection
Last November I shared on this blog, that my strongest desire was to have deeper connection . . . that hasn’t changed, but who I wish to connect more deeply to has. After the isolation of COVID and the distance it created in my network of loved ones, I was thirsty for connection with others . . . and I realize that kind of thirst will never be quenched totally - at least I hope not.
But this year, in 2021, in our second year of the pandemic and its aftermath, and following the liberation that vaccinations have brought us, I have found myself craving connection to myself. I remember my first trip earlier this year and how thrilled, and anxious, I was to be out in the world again. How grateful I was, and am, for my freedom to be mobile again and for the relative level of safety I feel for myself and others as I move about again in public places. However, as I opened myself up to resume connection with others, I lost some of my intention to stay connected to myself and this November I am regrounding in my awareness practice for me.
The awareness of this gap was revealed when in September, when I travelled to out of country to get off the grid. There I gave myself the gift of tranquility, of no schedule, no client work, no phone, no nothing but space for me to rest, to reground and to soak up the natural beauty and rhythms of the ocean right in front of me. Until I hit the pause button, I had no idea how much connection I had lost with myself and I had no idea the level of fatigue I had been carrying around with me.
Physical fatigue I can sense easily, even emotional fatigue is something I have deep awareness around. But my ability to detect my cognitive fatigue was not as accurate as I had thought. The pause button helped me realize the gap I had in my self care practice and it has been enlightening to share this learning with my teammates. Because when I need help building awareness - even when it is about my own fatigue - the people around me can help support my practice of awareness building. They experience the symptoms of my fatigue in different ways than I experience it and vulnerably asking for their help has already reaped rewards for me.
As I enter this month of thanks giving, I give thanks to this incredible team around me. They are not only superb at delivering for our clients, they are superb at delivering for each other. Working as a family feels like a dream to me on the daily and while this awareness building I have in front of me is my work to do, it helps me to know that I don’t have to do it alone. Sharing with them all that I learned about myself while in my off the grid pause, has already created lots of areas of possibility and curiosity for us to explore as we close down 2021 and look to 2022.
