Closing 2021 and Welcoming 2022
By: Matt Auron, Janet Logothetti, Stuart McCalla, & Miriam Meima
Each year, we encourage those we support to use the end of the year as a time to slow down, go within, and take stock for this year and the next. It can seem arbitrary, but the turn of the calendar allows for an inflection point where most of the world is quieter than normal. This quiet is a place to reflect, away from some of the noise, on the things that bubble up that are worth paying attention to; what is meaningful, who we have been and are becoming, what we want most, what we are learning, who we are evolving into and how we feel about that.
It’s been another year of liminal space and transformation in how we live, and amidst the challenge, life persists. It has indeed been another hard year, and despite this many of us are finding our way to new ways of being and enriching how we live. I know 2021 has made me a better person on many fronts, and in the end this is one of our core tenets as a company: helping us all become better versions of ourselves.
The reflections below are curated from Evolution’s three Managing Partners, who help lead Evolution and guide Partners as they practice in the world. They are a special group of people, unique in their own talents and as a whole some of the most masterful coaches that exist today. They have a dual role as a coach and leader, and hold it gracefully letting one inform the other. All have a sense of depth, insight, and wisdom that is unusual and embodied, filtered through the lens of their own personality. I am grateful to lead with them.
We encourage you to sit in your favorite chair, maybe with a blanket, your notebook, and a warm cup of tea, and allow yourself to sink into a reflection about your life and work over the winter break. It’s an important ritual, and the act of reflection on the bigger arc of our lives sends ripples long after the event. It helps to find a quiet space to do it in, in this place we can access our depths, finding the gifts we can bring to the world in the road ahead.
We support you in taking stock of your life, as we believe in your ability to make the world a better place through your life and leadership. As more of us take this on, evolution occurs at faster and faster rates. We wish you a happy and peaceful holiday season with those you love and a happy new year. We look forward to journeying with you in 2022.
Yours in Evolution,
Matt Auron
Managing Director
Janet Logothetti
Many of us started 2021 with the hope of a return to normalcy. Covid vaccinations were set to roll out, a presidential election had been won. If 2020 had been a year of disruption and upheaval, 2021 would be a year of settling back down and resuming some semblance of the life we knew.
This year was not a return to normalcy.
Instead, perhaps it was an invitation to learn to be grounded in groundlessness. Rather than cling to our ideas of what life is and how things should be, we can let go into the uncertainty of life as it unfolds. Rather than waste time wishing things were different, we can learn to find our own inner calm in the midst of chaos. Our wisdom in the midst of madness. Our essential nature when our reference points for what life is, and even who we are, dissolve.
From the Tibetan wisdom tradition, we can look to the Dakinis for inspiration. Dakinis are female embodiments of enlightened wisdom and compassion. Known as “sky dancers,” they are depicted as dancing in space, free from any reference points. When the known world falls apart, they dance in freedom. When there is no ground below, they dance without fear.
True resilience and freedom come not from clinging to ideas of how things should be, but from opening to what is with wisdom and compassion. Life will not return to normal, whatever we thought that was. It will unfold with uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. We don’t know what will happen. The good news is that, as Zen Master Seung Sahn has said, the “don’t know mind” is the enlightened mind. As we relax into uncertainty, we can find unconditional confidence that isn’t dependent on things being a certain way, but on our openness to life as it is. We can find the confidence, resilience, and wisdom to take care of ourselves and all those around us.
May we end this year in reflection and insight that we may meet the next with grace and care.
Stuart McCalla
This is one of the most hopeful times in the year for me. It is a time to slow down and reflect. When I moved to the United States as a child we moved in the middle of winter from Jamaica to Long Island, NY. Cold and snow have always been indelibly marked with transitions and family. In those early years in the US, this time felt special, magical, and also a time to recharge oneself.
So this year, in the background of a deadly pandemic and a country in the throes of cultural and political upheaval it seems more important than ever to recharge and help family members reset as well. It is exactly in the moments of turmoil and instability that we actively think about what we want for ourselves and others for the upcoming year.
I usually ask myself more detailed questions at the end of the year and in the spirit of slowing down, I decided to simplify my year-end questioning.
What were some of your biggest successes?
What were some of your biggest challenges?
What did you learn from those challenges?
Which of those learnings will guide you to the 2022 you want?
I am one of those optimists that believe in the upward trend of life. We are at an existential crisis in so many areas and yet I can't help think that community, compassion, and connection are the values that will help us all through this time.
Use the questions above if they help you and I wish you and yours a safe, healing and healed, New Year.
Miriam Meima
In a society where we use the calendar and the clock to measure the passing of time, year-end is a natural time of reflection. In the northern hemisphere, this aligns with the winter season. The further north we are, the more the natural world is encouraging us with shorter days and cooler temperatures to go inward (literally and figuratively).
I like to use the transition from December to January to support two different processes: reflection and intention.
Reflection for me is about remembering and acknowledging what has been. It is VERY easy for me to lose sight of all that happens over the course of a year. I like to set myself up with at least an hour, my iPad and Apple Pencil, my journal, my calendar, and my favorite beverage of the moment (probably warm cider this year). I start by writing out each of the 12 months. Then I aim to put myself back in the body, mindset, and reality I was in on January 1. As I visualize the passing of the year I write in the corresponding month key events - milestones, bright spots, moments of accomplishment or celebration, pain points, life events. I use my journal and calendar to support my memory, slowly reconstructing the year I want to remember and acknowledge.
Often what emerges from the color-filled page (I use different ink and highlighter colors to bring the words to life) are themes.
Where did my attention go this year?
What did not?
What do I want to celebrate?
What do I want to carry forward into a new year?
When I feel complete in my reflection I shift towards intention. In the last five years, I have radically changed my relationship with goals, mostly letting go of them all together as I find my unconscious attaches to them in unhelpful ways, setting up my self-critic to carefully scrutinize my lack of progress. Goals have been replaced with intentions, which I revisit often (at least monthly). My intentions are clear and powerful yet held lightly, updated with the inevitable unanticipated changing tides of life.