Connection and Completion: A New Paradigm for a New Year

Jan 5, 2012 by charity

“The perfect gift for me would be
Completions and connections” – The Waitresses – “Christmas Wrapping”

My word for the year for 2011 was “Action.” It served me well—I took a lot of action. From finding myself a whole new lifestyle based on whole foods instead of processed to quitting my job and staring a business and moving across the country. Looking back on the year and all the blessings and upheaval it brought, I find myself both proud…and vaguely exhausted.

It’s a good exhaustion, the kind you feel after a series of accomplishments of which you are proud, but it, like all exhaustion, has its harried edges. This December, after final papers were written and graded and fun but flurried weekends away were embraced, my body decided to shut down on me. It’s a common happening for students, I’m told, but this one hung on, dragging me under for well over two weeks, leaving me wanting to do little else but sleep even on Christmas day.

The forced downtime gave me a lot of time to think, however, to look at my life and my choices and consider how I wanted this new year in my new life to shape itself. I’m a firm believer in this type of reflection on a regular basis. It’s why I journal, why I commit to my morning pages. But there is a level of ritual attached to the work we do when the wheel of the year turns itself over once more, and with ritual comes an element of the sacred, encapsulated in our daily lives.

There is a lot of work to be done in the coming year—shepherding a fledgling business takes a lot of care and attention. But in my ruminations on what I want 2012 to look like, I kept coming back to my why.

Why do I do what I do?

What am I seeking?

What am I offering?

What is it that fills me up and makes me whole?

What is it that much of 2011 felt like it lacked, despite the business launching and the accountability partner and the joining of a mastermind group?

The answer was simple, and, as it often does, came to me in snippets of song and poetry, winding it’s way through my heart.

Connection.

Not superficial, not the moments of passing words and casual nods, though there is value in them. But I am aching for true connection—connection with myself, connection with my readers, connection with my clients, connection with my family, connection with my roots, connection with God, connection with friends, connection with a romantic partner. I am an NF, according to Meyers-Briggs, and NFs need connection, but in my busy-ness and action filled year of 2011, I felt that I had only moments of it, there to tease at me, but not pursued to the depth I needed.

So, 2012 is going to be the year of connection—deep, soul-level, intimate connection. With myself, with you, with my friends, with my family. Tied up in connection is also the idea of presence—presence truly and fully within my life.

It’s a little frightening. After years of living a fragmented life, I’m starting to pull the pieces together. Things which do not serve me are falling away. People who only seek the superficial may be confused and fall aside, as well, not willing to walk this road with me.

But there is a need for connection in the world today, and I challenge all of you to step toward it, as well, even if it isn’t the word you feel calling you, shaping you right now.

How can you make your friendships a little truer, a little deeper?

How can you make your life feel richer?

Is there someone to whom you need to reach out?

Is there a bridge that needs repairing—or one that needs burning so that you can nourish something new in the ashes?

Do you need to offer forgiveness? Do you need to accept it?

Do you know what you value—and do those in your life reflect those values?

Can you take the steps you need to take in order to fill your life with depth and richness?

I’m tired of the superficial. I’m tired of unkindness. I’m tired of people not connecting, soul to soul, instead of finding all the things that separate them. I want to take the conversation to a deeper level—and I’m looking for people to join me.

We’re at the beginning of a new year—a time for renewal and rebirth. What are you being born into?

I want to say to you: I am here. I want to help, to listen, to support you. I want to grow with you, each of us on our own path.

I want to hear your story—your true story, your life-long story—and I want to help you reconnect with the story you are wanting to live.

That’s my invitation to you, and I close it with words from Oriah Mountain Dreamer, and her Invitation, which I haven’t been able to get out of my head for weeks. You can find the full text on her website—these are my favorite bits:

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.

Will you answer the invitation? I’d love to hear from each of you what it is your soul is longing for this year!