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"Mapping the past: a path to moving forward."
The end of a year tends to arrive with a certain amount of pressure attached — that this should be a celebration, that it should feel like family, that you should have something to show. For plenty of people, us included some years, it lands darker than that.
So here is an alternative use for the same weeks: make it a ritual of transition instead. Notice where you are, how you got here, and where you would like to move next — with your Parts (in IFS) in the room rather than talked over.
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What's inside
Four movements
Written for a year-end, and the dark-evenings framing is still in there. Nothing about it needs January, though — it works whenever something is turning over.
- 01
Notice where you are
Before anything else, an honest inventory. Not a gratitude list and not a problem list — just what is actually here, including the parts of it you would rather were otherwise.
- 02
See how you got here
Which decisions were yours, which were made for you, and which were made by a part acting on information that has since changed. This is the part people skip and the part that does the work.
- 03
Map where you want to move
Wishes allowed to be unreasonable. The sceptical parts get invited in rather than managed out — they usually have the most interesting objections and occasionally the most interesting wishes.
- 04
Prepare for the adventure
Small enough steps that failing at one teaches you something instead of costing you something. Which is the whole design principle behind how we set up practices.
A note on doing this alone
You can, and the workbook is built for it. The one honest caveat: it is very hard to notice when you are blended, and the parts most likely to volunteer to run a solo review are managers who like a completed worksheet. Those are not Self. If a section produces a tidy answer suspiciously fast, that's the place to slow down.
If you'd rather do it with someone, this is roughly the shape of the Align Your Life process, at the scale of a year.