Curating a Reflection Collection

A Reflection Collection is a selection of items gathered in one spot intended to stir memories of your learning over past period of time. The visual created by gathering certain items in one space works to remind you of the lessons that have come to light, the messages you wish to hold close and build clarity for taking that information forward with you as you continue your journey.

This past weekend I had plans and like many others, the snow changed them on me. I was asked to step up in a Circle that I am a participant in and lead my Soul Sisters in a vision board activity that focused on thinking about our learning together this past year and how that will affect our movement forward. We were supposed to be sitting together around a big table surrounded by a beautiful forest, but it turned out we had to gather in front of yet another screen. Cue sadness, madness, frustration & doubt…until one of those magical phone calls where ideas are being bounced back and forth more quickly than I had time to gather them all it seems. We hung up and I was hopeful & curious again.

The process of creating a vision board, of sitting in slow and intentional thinking is so much a part of me at this point I truly feel a safe ownership of it. There is no hesitation when someone asks me to facilitate this type of learning for them now because I have seen time and time again the leaps of progress and connection that happen each time a group sits together. Putting spins on it, like more of a backwards focus, was interesting and I want to share this practice with all that are interested so I am willing to pick it up and see what I can squish it in to.

I didn’t start out telling those with me on Saturday that we were Curating a Reflection Collection, that came to me during the sharing, which only happens when you create enough space during your moments for things to come to you. And it did!

So away we go into the process. This group, my Soul Sisters Circle, has journeyed together for a year. Our guide on this process has been nothing less than a master of holding the energy of the circle and clearing things out of the path of where this circle calls to go.

She gathered us and settled us in to the day. And then it was my turn. I shared my gratitude that we were still all able to be together, to clear some of the remaining sadness that it had to be Zoom and I shared my thanks to my Sisters for stepping on to this path with me that I had never walked before.

I provided prompts and time. Everyone was invited to sit with these questions.

· What is something that a Sister has said that has stuck with you? What do you
think made it stick?

· What was your intention/goal/focus for the year? Did that change
during our time together? What is your satisfaction level when you think
about when you started and where you are at now?

· What have you learnt throughout the year and how will you use it?

· What is a success you would like to acknowledge?

· What needs more attention?

· What do you want your next year’s journey within, or without, the Circle to look
like?

· Consider the guiding vision of the Circle itself and your own guiding vision. How are your living
these visions and how could that look different this coming year.

Our guide prompted us into a nature connection after lunch and it seamlessly wove together the learning that we discovered in the morning while giving us an opportunity to give thanks to the same outside world that caused us to change up our plans.

I then invited the Sisters to take all their reflections; all the lessons, learning, insights, hurts & loves that they discovered in their past year and go on a scavenger hunt through their house to find objects, books, pieces of jewelry, and pictures that symbolized these things for them. As in a typical vision board practice we tend to over collect and that’s good, it gives your creativity a lot to work with. There were giggles shared about the piles of stuff sitting in front of us and what we were going to do with it all and this is where I opened it up.

The invitation at this point was to get creative and quiet. I encouraged my Sisters to take a peek at their collections and listen to what they were being called to do with them….clear a shelf, create a frame, fancy up a cardboard box….find some way to beautifully display your scavenger hunt finds.

I invited them to curate a Reflection Collection that was going to be a visual depiction of the journey they had been on the past year of trying to be their most authentic selves.

And then we shared. And the knowing and settling that came through the voices of my sisters was heart filling for me. This process worked; this path I had never walked down led to something absolutely & amazingly beautiful.

As sisters shared I wrote down some of the words that they used;

·         Healing

·         Awareness

·         Realization

·         Celebrations of success

·         Connection

·         We focus on moving forward and it’s ok to look back every once in a while

My reflection as a Facilitator is that if I am brave enough to trust myself to create a safe space & container with a prompt I feel value in than I can create an exploration that will matter to others.

My reflection as a participant in this process is that we deserve to take time to look at the paths we have traveled on to inform the turns we want to take on the journey ahead. Slow reflection is necessary.

My collection sits beside me, and I move past it each time I sit down here at my desk, and I think to myself, what a wonderful journey I’ve been on, and I wonder what I will add by the end of next year.