Be Clear: Deep answers to meaningful questions are your best tools at the beginning of the new year

My goal for you in this class: “To open up a dialog with your inner self about what you want in the year to come.”

“We will open the book. Its pages are blank.

We are going to put some words on them ourselves.

The book is called Opportunity and its first chapter is New Year’s Day.”

~ Edith Lovejoy Pierce

There’s something about the new year that seems to fuel our interest in doing things differently. For most people, this takes the form of a New Year’s resolution. And we all know how long *those* sometimes last.

For me, looking forward to the new year means sitting down with myself and asking some soul-seeking questions about what I want for the new year, and how I’m going to get there.

In my search for questions, I find myself turning to some tried and true (and new!) books of the questions most likely to get me on to (or back to) the path I said I wanted to travel in the first place or to find a new path.

Another part of the process for me is looking back over last year and thinking about the events and actions that did one of the following:

* Brought me a sense of joy and purpose

* Gave me a new perspective on something I thought I already knew everything about

* Gave me a feeling of success

* Connected me with the people I love

* Connected me with strangers who it turns out I have something in common with, even if I didn’t know it

* Brought me closer to being my authentic self as often as possible

At the same time, I’m also thinking about how my new year is going to shape up. Sometimes I want to carry some actions forward into the new year, and some I want to abandon (hey ~ life can be trial and error sometimes!).

In the end, no one really knows what the year ahead will bring. The best we can do is to give ourselves what we need to be our wisest, strongest, most connected and compassionate selves when it counts.

Be Clear: ways to do it ...

• Plan ahead and gather whatever writing resources you need
• Create an environment where you’ll be relaxed, comfortable and open
• Arrange to be undisturbed by outside distractions, such as visitors, TV, radio and/or your phone
• Get into the right frame of mind with a few deep breaths before you begin
• Let your answers come from the truest place possible. The deeper you go, the more meaningful your answers will be
• Don’t be afraid to write down things that seem scary. Some part of you wants these things to be known. Acknowledge and work with them, and they’ll lose their scariness.

Here are some books I go to when I'm looking for questions to answer, interesting answers to questions and meaningful insights ... 

Gregory Stock's The Book of Questions was the first book I bought when I first moved to Vancouver, and still one of my favourites. Pocket-sized and full of deep ethical dilemmas to ponder. I start every year by choosing three questions to write about in my journal. 

Stefan Bucher's 344 Questions is page after page of colourful flowchart-style questions ~ all sorts of questions about you, your life and how you want to fill it. Another slim, pocket-sized book, there isn't room to write your answers in it, but that's what our journals are for. 

I kind of fell in love with Elle Luna's The Crossroads of Should and Must the first time I saw it. Knowing the difference between "should" and "must" is a handy thing for the year ahead,
and this book is a colourful, chatty down-to-earth exploration of the author's insights
and discoveries in her own journey ~ which are useful to everyone.

Brian Andreas' Traveling Light (and almost all his other books) are short, poetic insights into life,  usually just a few brief lines of text paired with a quirky, colourful child-like drawing that hits home in a sweetly disarming but deep way. He's another artist I've been following for years, and still do, receiving A Story A Day by email from him and his partner Fia Skye through their Flying Edna website.

Here's a sample for you to get an idea ...

I decided to take one of my favourite quotes and give it the "Brian Andreas" treatment:

I wanted to mention that I achieved his childlike drawing style by holding the pen quite loosely
and  NOT resting my wrist on the table. When you rest your wrist on the table, your drawing lines become very "anchored". Lifting your wrist off the table lets the pen wobble a bit and adds some "life" to the drawing. The text was stamped on, letter by letter, using a set of alphabet rubber stamps
and I also let those letters "wander" a bit to add to the childlike quality of the page.