The Invitation on the Table
A question I'm pondering. A quest I'm endeavoring on.
What’s the invitation on the table?
This is a question I desire to ask myself more often than I do. I feel it’s a question that beckons me to recess, reflect, and ruminate. It’s not a question I can answer swiftly or superficially. It’s a question that pushes me to dig a little deeper and truly consider what is before me.
What’s the invitation on the table?
As a new year has commenced, this question is front and center. On a podcast I host, I talked a little bit about what I feel to be the invitation on the table and how it will relate to the conversations held in that space. I shared my phrase for the year on my blog: thriving in my becoming. For me, that is the invitation on the table.
2022 was one of the most unexpected years of my life. It was riff with grief and disappointment as I lost three monumental figures in my family and navigated a pregnancy that looked and felt nothing like I’d ever imagined. In that same breath, it was full of simple joys and celebration (though it was hard for me to allow it) as we prepared and welcomed our child.
It was hard and stretching because giving birthing is hard and stretching (figuratively and literally), and those newborn days are not for the faint of heart. Through sleep deprivation and the onslaught of swirling hormones and emotions, 2022 was a lot.
Towards the end of my maternity leave, I started a journal that asked me to consider a theme for the year. A lot of words came to mind but thriving and becoming reverberated the loudest in my heart. After the year that was 2022, I knew that I wasn’t the same.
Witnessing death, living with grief, birthing life, and becoming a mother have ushered in a new iteration of myself. I am different, I am new on the other side of 2022. There was an invitation to become, to know, and embrace this new layer of me.
I knew I didn’t want to shy away from this process. I knew I didn’t want to be afraid of this becoming. I knew I wanted—-needed to thrive in it. I don’t know yet fully what thriving in my becoming means or even looks like. I openly admit that it may be something I don’t completely understand until the end of the year.
I’m okay with that.
I do know that there are anchors that I feel will best support and encourage thriving in my becoming. I hold these loosely and openly but, I believe, consistency and discipline, rhythms and flows, exploration and creation, and mindfulness and connection are anchors that will encourage me to thrive in my becoming however it unfolds. I'll say it again, I hold loosely and openly what these anchors look like in practice but here’s what’s on my heart.
Consistency and Discipline
This anchor is the foundational anchor. Whatever my becoming looks like in 2023, I desire to walk it out, embrace it, and grow in it with consistency and discipline. As I reevaluate habits and systems in my daily life, this anchor will be crucial in sustaining and ultimately thriving.
Rhythms and Flows
I live for rhythms and flows. Daily life is full of rhythms and flows whether we see them or not. As my becoming unfolds this year, finding the right rhythms and flows is important to me. This anchor is a grounding anchor that I hope will allow me the space and permission to fill my cup and structure my days. This anchor is one I probably hold the loosest because #parenthood. I know it will look different often but that does not deter me from working on rhythms and flows that make sense for me, my home, and my family.
Exploration and Creation
Something that surprised me during the first forty days post-birth was how much I craved creating. I thought it would be an aspect of the ‘old’ me that I would have to ‘give up’. I thought I wouldn’t desire to create anymore. I was completely surprised by the deep urge and need to create. It was pretty all-consuming. That’s why I believe it’s another important anchor to my thriving in my becoming. Developing the space to explore and create is deeply important to and for me and I desire to give myself permission to explore the new things that spark joy and to continuously make room to create, and embrace what creating looks like now.
Mindfulness and connection
Life unfolds quickly. A phrase I’ve heard often as it relates to children is that the days are long but the years are short. I feel this can be applied to life in general. Time waits for no one. It’s moving and it’s moving fast (or so it seems). It’s important to me in this year of becoming that I am more mindful and connected.
To me, this means being intentionally present. This means doing what is necessary to prioritize connection to myself, my family, and my community. To me, this means leaning into the practice of meditation and doing the heart and soul work that therapy offers.
In this pursuit of thriving in my becoming, I desire to be as mindful and connected as possible. In the process of learning this new version of myself, I don’t want to ‘lose’ myself. Sometimes we get so heads down in the work and process, that we miss out on the living. I want to live in my becoming as much as I thrive in it. Mindfulness and connection will be key to this.
As I wrap up this very long note which I’m thankful you are reading, I want to ask: what’s the invitation on the table for you? What are the anchors that will help you not only accept but embrace and live the invitation offered?
I hope you take some time this month, if you haven’t already, to allow yourself room and permission to consider the invitation your life or current season is offering you. Take time to recess, reflect, and ruminate over the invitation and determine the anchors that will support and guide you through it. Know that I am rooting for you and this new year you will have. I hope you will thrive in your becoming, whatever it may be.