Welcome to your Wide Open Space. Thank you for being here, for our inaugural experience, and for bringing your story. You belong here, this is your community.
I look forward to hearing about your experiences throughout the week. I am someone who cares about the details, the 'simple' or 'small' things in life that make a difference to you. I care about your unique perspective and story, please share your voice, it matters.
I have spent the last two days reflecting on what it means to be a part of something way bigger than myself and at the same time holding another truth about what it means to also be me, an individual, who matters and has a unique perspective, in this huge universe (past, present, future). It was humbling and it took me to a place of focusing on my intentions in life, and specifically around my intentions for this experience. In conversation with myself, I reflected on my intentions for you. My intention here, is to offer you an entry point, or, another entry point, into a ritual, one around new year reflections. An entry point to explore self reflection through a new lens, one that holds the same truths I mentioned above: simultaneous collective and individual/personal experience. As we begin tomorrow, I encourage you to pause for a moment and feel the power of the collective. Many people from around the world reflecting on the same prompt as you and beginning this experience together, individually.
An overarching focus here is the power of small and intentional shifts.
*Visualize This: A boat in the water and is heading straight (draw a straight line) It suddenly veers the smallest bit to the right. You can't tell it made any shift right away but if you draw another line straight from that small angle it turned right it will end up in a very different place.Overtime, the smallest shifts, that don't seem to matter at all, make huge changes. That one shift can spiral other small changes and can take you to a different place.*
Our goal is to bring awareness and intentionality to those choices and shifts we make, some that are conscious and some unconscious (blindspots: we all have them, many of them!) Our storyboard will help us visually see our thoughts, feelings and actions and then make an intentional choice about the next 'small shift' (read: potential gamechanger!) you want to make in your life to take you one step closer to what's possible for you.
The Experience
We begin our Reflection and Celebration Storyboard Experience tomorrow, Wednesday, September 11th. Your first prompt for Day 1 will be in your inbox tomorrow morning!
Preparing for Tomorrow: Complete Steps 1-3
1. Grab a pack of post-its (choose a single color or multi-colored pack) These will be our building blocks. (If you don't have post-its, improvise. You can: Cut pieces of paper, designate a notebook for this! etc) But post-it notes are best!
2. Find a space in your life whether that is at home or work that you can stick these post-its and build your storyboard- this will live here for these 7 days. Designate this space for the week to become your storyboard.
Note: You might want it to be a space where you have privacy so you can feel free with your expressions.
ie. bathroom mirrors, a wall in your room/office, the floor etc..
3. Choose the amount of time you want to allocate and make this experience accessible and realistic for you and your schedule so you will follow-through and show up for yourself! I will offer a prompt with a question for you to consider about yourself and your life exploring different timely and timeless themes that make up how we make choices in our lives.
4. Each prompt will offer a new lens for you to consider and will challenge you to be honest with yourself (again, it's whatever you want to put into this experience- you are the content!)
5. This will culminate with a final prompt for you to consider, a new lens, and an incredible tool, leaving this experience with an intentional choice you will make about the new year we are entering. (We celebrate four different 'new years' in Judaism- this being one, a new Jewish year of 5779! If you don't consider this time of year a new year one, no worries, reflection is a theme we get to partake in year round- this is a space to choose new for yourself whenever you choose.)
