Category: Mindset

It’s that time of year again when we find ourselves nearing the end of a full cycle around the sun.

As a teacher of mine says: “December arrives with her bag of paradoxes: joy and grief, victory and defeat, beauty and difficulty all tangled together.” This is the season of remembering, not as a dusty archive of “what happened,” but as a living practice of honouring what was, so that it can ripen into fuel for what wants to come.

It’s also a time when we start to think about next year. As we approach the new year’s moment, it is a transition we cross never to return again. This year we are in—2025—takes its place in the library of the past. And as we continue to move into the future, things of this year that felt so important and urgent begin to fade as new priorities take their place.

The Problem with New Year’s Resolutions

The challenge in this great arc between past, present, and imagined future is that we live in a culture intensely future-focused. Exhibit A: the tradition of New Year’s resolutions — “This year I’m going to be better!”

And yet, we so often repeat the same patterns.
Because willpower isn’t enough. Motivation isn’t enough. Good intentions aren’t enough.

The Real Condition for Change

There is only one real condition for change from my perspective: seeing.

We have to be willing to see ourselves clearly. Awareness itself contains all the ingredients for the changes we are looking for. It’s unusual to think about it this way, that we don’t have to try so hard to change. In fact, the trying often gets in the way. Every year we witness people making bold resolutions, keeping them up for a while, and then falling back even harder into the old ways.

But what if the issue isn’t the resolution?
What if the issue is our relationship to the old ways?

Take an extreme example: someone whose old way is drinking too much decides to stop. It’s probably an intelligent idea. But it also reveals one of our human blind spots — the belief that we can simply decide to change and that will be enough.

The decision isn’t the problem. The how is.

How to Change

How do we change?
How do we dream a future that actually fills and guides us?

We are dreamers by nature. Every night we drift into that mysterious inner landscape of imagination that feels utterly real. To dream deeply is to be in communion with something larger than ourselves. And the dreams that most fulfill us are always, in some way, in service to life.

So the real question for the dreamer in us, the one longing for a more honest, grounded, or sober life is:

How do we move with the dream in a real and embodied way?

And here comes the part many of us resist.

The Practice of Composting the Year

The Akan people of Ghana express the art of remembering through the symbol Sankofa, a bird walking forward while turning back to retrieve an egg. Its teaching is simple and profound:

“Go back and fetch what you left behind.”

In this worldview, the past isn’t something to escape.
It’s a living source of guidance.
Nothing is wasted, every experience contains nutrients if we’re willing to look.

Sankofa is mythic composting:

• Feet in the present
• Body moving forward
• Awareness turning back to gather what’s useful

It’s not nostalgia. It’s integration.

We must look backward and make it a practice. Not clinging to what was, but composting it. The triumphs, the failures, the awkward moments and the shining ones—all of it belongs. When we bring it into the circle of our awareness, memory transforms. It becomes medicine instead of baggage.

This is not indulgence. It’s evolution.

So we reflect on the kinds of people we have been. See ourselves with compassion and clarity, with a little distance.

Watch this character go about their year. What stood out for them? What was difficult? What did they do with the difficult? To see the ways that they persevered and got through hard things. The fact that we’re still here is a testament to our strength.

We acknowledge the times that we fell down. The ways that we got up again. What is it that we learned this year about who we are and what truly matters to us?

What will we take with us next? Think like we might have left parts of us behind that had important things to tell. Now is a good time to remember, to make a space for the field of past and allow the memories to surface.

The Invitation

If this practice interests you, there are two ways to engage:

Join the Sankofa Writing Journey – We Go Further Together
A guided group experience where we reflect on the year through writing and ceremony. All sessions are online via Zoom. Three meet-ups: 10th – 22nd December. Find all the details on my website here or on Facebook.

Solo Reflection – If you prefer the recollection project on your own, here are some prompts to guide you:

• What stood out this year? What moments feel most alive when you think back?
• What was difficult? How did you meet those difficulties?
• What parts of yourself did you discover or rediscover?
• What do you want to acknowledge about your journey—both the falling down and the getting back up?
• What wisdom from this year do you want to carry forward?
• What are you ready to leave behind?

You might follow the morning pages ritual, you can read more on that here.

Set aside time. Light a candle. Write with honesty and compassion. Let the memories surface without judgment. This is how we change our relationship with the old ways—not by forcing them out, but by seeing them clearly and choosing how we carry forward. The meaning that we give these experiences, or finding the stories to tell that acknowledge the past and also give us strength to meet the future.

The dreamer in you knows what wants to emerge. Give yourself the gift of looking back, so you can move forward with clarity and truth.

Art: Sankofa by Aaron F. Henderson

The Art of Being Real (Without Losing Everyone)

A friend of mine once tried an experiment: for three months, she decided to be 100% honest with everyone. No filters. No polite fictions. Just raw truth.
She lost most of her relationships.

It turns out we’re not built for complete transparency. The social fabric depends on a little pretending. Belonging, evolutionarily speaking, kept us alive

But where’s the line? When does performance stop serving connection and start working against it?

The Phoney Layer

Fritz Perls, the unusual therapist who founded Gestalt therapy, used to say his task wasn’t to fix you but to bring something out of you, the way a sculptor coaxes form from stone. What is there in you that wants to come out?’ he would ask

Sitting with Fritz wasn’t easy. He met people where they were and gave them back what they brought to him—unfiltered. He saw the psyche as a series of layers, and the first one we meet in ourselves is what he called the phoney layer.

If you were sitting with him and he sensed you were in that layer, he would call it out immediately. “Do you know you’re doing that?” he might ask. “Do you realise you’re acting?”

People would often get defensive. Some would break through. All of them would have to face what they were hiding.

That was the giveaway. In the phoney layer, you’re not being real. You’re saying what you think someone wants to hear, trying to make an impression or avoid being seen a certain way. You’re managing the room instead of being in it.

Perls saw these pretences as the first barrier to self-actualisation.

Why We Need the Mask

We learn to perform early. Psychologists document the “social smile” appearing within months of birth; we’re trained to manage others’ feelings before we can walk. We smile when we don’t feel like it, cry when it serves us, present a version of ourselves that will keep us safe and accepted.

The phoney layer isn’t a personal failure. It’s a survival strategy. A cultural requirement.

How often do we ask “How are you?” but hope the answer is “fine”? The phoney layer has become the norm. The culture rewards positivity and punishes vulnerability. Being too real, too honest, too soon can make others uncomfortable or push them away entirely.

So what’s the cost?

When life energy is spent on performance rather than presence, something real in us gets buried. We start to forget we can drop the act. We lose touch with what actually wants to come out.

When Realness Backfires

There was a woman in one of my university classes who taught me a lesson. She brought herself so fully and vulnerably—that it became hard to watch.

She would start with “I must be honest…” and then offer something raw and unfiltered. Once, in a group discussion about family dynamics, she shared intimate details about her mothers mental illness and how it made her feel unlovable. The room went silent. You could feel people pulling back. Some subtly rolled their eyes. Her honesty was pure, but it wasn’t attuned to what the group could hold.

Later she learned to hold back a little, to read the field, to sense what the space could carry. She still brought depth, but with discernment. Authenticity without awareness isn’t strength; it’s vulnerability without protection.

As an Enneagram Four, I understand her impulse. Authenticity feels sacred to me. But I’ve also learned its shadow: oversharing, offering truth where it isn’t yet safe to be received. There’s a difference between being real and being reckless.

I’ve made this mistake more times than I can count, bringing my full self to rooms that weren’t ready, thinking honesty was always the answer.

I had a good friend who was upbeat and playful. She wanted lightness, fun, easy connection. But I kept trying to push her deeper, into more sincere relating, more vulnerability, more “realness.” I really believed this was a good impulse. But instead, my authenticity ended up pushing her away.

What I needed to do was attune to her. To meet her where she was, not where I thought she should be.

One of my biggest learnings over the years has been surprisingly odd: getting better at being in superficial conversations and spaces. I had so much resistance to it. Who would have thought I could develop that skill, or that it could actually be fun?

Sometimes the deepest act of connection is allowing things to stay light.

The Middle Path

The writer Carlos Castaneda called this dynamic “controlled folly”—a kind of conscious play within the performance. You recognise the mask, but you wear it with awareness. You act, knowing you’re acting. It’s not naivety; it’s wisdom.

In societies where sincerity can cost you belonging or power, controlled folly is a kind of self-protection. You choose when to reveal and when to conceal. You learn to read the field.

This isn’t the same as the phoney layer. The phoney layer is unconscious—you’ve forgotten you’re performing. Controlled folly is conscious—you know exactly what you’re doing and why.

Noticing the Act

So what do we do with this phoney layer and the performing parts of us?

We don’t shame it. We thank it. It helped us belong, survive, navigate unsafe spaces. But we can also begin to see it. To recognise when we’re in performance mode.

You can feel it in your body. There’s a tightness, a holding. Your breath gets shallow. You’re monitoring yourself, calculating responses. You’re not quite there.

The question isn’t “Am I being authentic enough?” but “Do I know when I’m performing?”

That awareness changes everything. Once you can see the mask, you can choose when to wear it and when to let it slip.

The Practice

Think of it as a spectrum.

On one end: fake, inauthentic, insincere. On the other: real, authentic, true.

Where do you find yourself most of the time?

Here’s what one notch closer to real might look like:

• When someone asks “How are you?” saying “I’m tired” instead of automatic “fine”
• Admitting “I need to think about that” instead of immediate agreement
• Sharing your actual opinion instead of mirroring theirs
• Saying “I’m not comfortable with this” when something feels off

Small moves. Nothing dramatic. Just slightly more true.

The invitation isn’t to strip away all masks; it’s to know when they’re on and to choose when to take them off. To move one notch closer to the real without losing the grace that keeps you connected.

Maybe that’s what Perls was getting at: not a demand for raw honesty at all costs, but an invitation to notice the act and ask—

What’s underneath that wants to come out?

Maybe the real work of authenticity isn’t tearing masks off, but learning which ones still let us breathe.

Writing as a way of listening — a gentle daily practice for clearing the noise and meeting yourself on the page.

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The Mind Is Noisy

The mind is noisy. Morning Pages are a way to clear that noise — three pages, first thing, before the day begins.

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What Are Morning Pages?

Morning Pages, developed by Julia Cameron in The Artist’s Way, are a daily writing exercise designed to unblock creativity and foster self-awareness.
They’re a stream of consciousness on paper — three longhand pages written before the day starts.

You write whatever comes to mind, without censoring or editing.
Even if it’s “I don’t know what to write; this feels pointless,” — that’s what you write.
The process is as simple, and as profound, as that.

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Why Morning Pages Matter

Each time we return to the page, something small reveals itself. Patterns emerge. Clarity deepens.
The practice builds trust — not in having all the answers, but in your ability to meet yourself honestly.

Morning Pages help us stay with what’s unfinished. They create space for what we’ve been carrying to shift into something more life-giving.
There’s no end goal — only the slow work of becoming clearer about what’s true.

And sometimes, when we can finally say something clearly enough, we find we’re no longer holding on to it quite so tightly.

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How to Do Morning Pages

1️⃣ Write first thing in the morning.
Before checking messages or engaging with the world, give yourself this space to meet your own mind before it becomes crowded.

2️⃣ Write three pages by hand.
Julia Cameron insists on longhand for a reason:

“Velocity is the enemy. It takes longer to write by hand, and this slowness connects us to our emotional life.”
The slower rhythm invites the deeper voice beneath the surface chatter.

3️⃣ Don’t worry about grammar or structure.
Let it be messy. This is about honesty, not performance.

4️⃣ Don’t aim for art.
Morning Pages are not “art.” They are a clearing — a space to empty what’s been stored inside so that something new can move through.

5️⃣ Keep them private.
They’re for your eyes only. This privacy makes honesty possible.

6️⃣ Be consistent.
The magic happens over time. Some days will feel alive, others dull — both matter.
It’s the act of returning that builds trust.

7️⃣ Use them to explore or vent.
Write about what’s on your mind — your worries, hopes, lists, dreams. Over time, clarity deepens.

8️⃣ Don’t overthink it.
If you’re stuck, write about being stuck. Keep the pen moving. That’s the only rule.

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Writing as a Way of Listening

In Parts on Paper, we call this writing as a way of listening.
The focus isn’t perfection — it’s hearing what’s actually there beneath the noise.

You might write something simple, like I take you as you were, Dad.
At first, they’re just words. But when you stay with them — day after day — something shifts.
Meaning unfolds, and what began as clutter becomes clarity.

This is the work — not forcing clarity, but allowing it to emerge through repetition and return.
What begins as scattered thoughts gradually becomes something you can see more clearly.
And in that seeing, something releases.
Clarity becomes its own reward.

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Permission to Be Honest

Byron Katie says, “Judge your neighbour.”
It sounds strange, but it’s a permission slip for truth-telling.

Let yourself write the judgments you normally suppress — the person who irritates you, the friend who let you down, the family member who drives you mad.
Brené Brown calls this the SFD (Shitty First Draft) — and that’s exactly what Morning Pages are for.

When we write our judgments down, we can see them clearly instead of acting them out unconsciously.
Sometimes they’re valid; sometimes they turn around and reveal something about us.
Either way, they move from the shadows to the page — where they can breathe.

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A Note on Community

Though Morning Pages are private, sharing the experience of the practice can be powerful.
In our Parts on Paper groups, each person writes alone — but reflecting together on what the practice brings up reminds us we’re not alone on the journey of self-discovery.

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Final Thought

Let yourself watch the words pour out of your pen.
The more you do, the more you’ll see — you’re not really doing the writing.

Writing, like breathing, just happens.
You catch the current and let it flow.

What a strange and beautiful thing — to witness life pouring itself through you. 🌿

“The greatest thing in the world is to know how to belong to oneself.” — Montaigne

Belonging is not just a nice-to-have. It’s a fundamental human need. Without it, we wither. At times, it can feel easier to starve than to live without a place where we are truly received.

And yet, so many of us carry the wound of not belonging. There is hardly anyone on this planet who hasn’t, at some point, felt the sting of exclusion—being pushed out, turned away, or conditionally welcomed. You can stay, but it’s going to cost you, goes the unspoken contract.

Witnessing the Wound

I once participated in a training where we each took turns standing outside a circle while the rest of the group turned inward. It was only an exercise, but the feelings were achingly real. On the outside, pacing, the body remembers: I’ll do anything to be part of this. And beneath that, the grief of all the times the circle never opened—no matter what we tried.

This is an experience so deeply human that we will do almost anything to avoid it. Sometimes we give up our principles just to stay in the circle. Perhaps this explains some of what we see in the world today.

These experiences don’t vanish with time. They shape how we show up, what we allow ourselves to do—or not do. And because they cut so deep, the wounds of belonging are heavily protected.

A Dream of Belonging

On the very first night of my 21-day writing journey, I had a dream. In it, all the wounds I carried around belonging were suddenly gone.

I knew, without question, that I belonged. That belonging could never be taken away. Wherever I went, this knowing accompanied me. It was like the innocence of a child who has never been excluded—now present in the adult who has lived and seen the world.

The change was remarkable. Without fear, I could bring myself to anything. Life became more like a dance—fluid, responsive, impossible to be apart from. There was no loss to fear, because the movement never stops.

What Participants Discovered

I wasn’t alone in these discoveries. Others in the Parts on Paper: Belonging & Roots group shared profound insights:

“I’ve been searching for belonging most of my life and realized I was unconsciously resisting it. When I discovered why, it felt like the floodgates opened. This has been a small but deeply significant pause on my journey.”

“I realized that more often than not, people accept me. There are many places I belong. The rejection I felt was rooted in my own shame, not reality. People accept and love me just as I am.”

“The group was transformational. Ryan’s guidance, the group insights, and daily writing allowed rigid parts of me to shift. This led directly to improved relationships and a deeper sense of acceptance.”

An Invitation

Belonging begins with ourselves, but it flourishes in community. Writing together opens doors that are difficult to find alone.

The next Parts on Paper group begins in September. If this resonates with you, you’re warmly invited to join us.

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