3 Questions to Ask Yourself for the Journey Ahead | A Poem and A Prompt Series
This is a 3-part mini-series on preparing for the journey ahead, inspired by new book You Are Only Just Beginning.
Each part of the series focuses on one question.
Feel free to journal about this on think about it throughout the day!
You Are Only Just Beginning releases February 14, 2023 (pre-order here)
__
3 Questions to ask yourself for the journey ahead
Day 1 of 3: How can you take the pressure off yourself?
When it comes to thinking about the future, asking this question helps create space to breathe even before tomorrow arrives. This is a practice you will need to continue cultivating as you progress: building in pauses to reflect on how you might need to change or modify something to pace yourself. It's easy to think of the future as something big we have to plan for, but in reality, today is a day that used to be the future, and there's a good chance that something is happening in life right now that we could not have anticipated. This is why creating space to relieve pressure on ourselves in in the present can be beneficial as we look ahead, knowing that whatever mountains or valleys we may face, we will have already begun cultivating space to pace ourselves.
Day 2 of 2: What do you want community to look like from now on?
This question leads to more questions: How do you define "community"? What's different from a few years ago? How will you define what that means? What will you take with you and what will you leave behind? It might take some time to try to picture a future community of people who are healthy and supportive. Even if you're happy with your sense of community right now, it can be hard to stop and think about everything that could happen or change in your relationships in the years to come. But the reason these questions are important is that they create space. They give you something to explore the process of putting into words what's important and valuable to you. I hope that today's question will give you a chance to talk about looking ahead and thinking about your community in a way that it could be a chance for you to take a few minutes to think about what you want from your community and what unlikely places (such as, elephants - as mentioned in the book and in the video!) that you might be able to find inspiration and new ideas.
Day 3 of 3: Where can you build in a pause today?
To build a pause into daily life is to think of pauses as something we can slowly start to bring to life, like building a house brick by brick. To add a pause, you have to keep looking out for where the next brick could go. Sometimes, especially when we're trying to find more peace in our lives, taking a few seconds to breathe or express gratitude for a little thing may seem small and unimportant, but when we're able to slow down, even if it's just for a second, it matters more than we may realize. Because one day, we'll look back and realize that we were learning to be present in the smallest ways the whole time, and that's what gave us the skills we needed to get through the future. We can do small things right now to make space for a break, and no matter what comes next, that space will only grow over time.
Thank you so much for checking out this series!
-Morgan Harper Nichols