No matter how the week went, let's reflect on what we have learned, so we can gain wisdom. As we reflect, let us bring abundant kindness and grace to our attempts to live our lives differently.

Use the prompts below - - or create your own self-reflection process.

• What went well? What didn't go as you wished?
• What was your connection deepening focus for the week? How did that go?
• What is the wisdom you are gathering? What have you learned?

What went well? 

Even though we were on spring break and I was sharing a small hotel room with 3 other people, and it wasn't as tidy as I would have liked it to be, I was able to stick with my morning self-care, self-nurturing chain of Coffee, Gratitudes, Yoga. I believe that it was possibly even MORE important to do it under these circumstances.

What didn't go as well?

My connection focus for this past week and the next one is CURIOSITY. 

While we were out of town, an old friend emailed me asking for referrals regarding a mental health crisis in her family. After expressing empathy for her struggles and giving her a referral, I threw in a little line about remembering self-nurturing. She responded with gratitude about the empathy and referral, and added that she knows self-care is important right now but really has no room for it with all that is going on.

Instead of letting it go, I persisted with one more email, trying to convince her that it would only take 10 minutes in the morning to self-connect before everyone got up, and even mentioning the Purpose Program. I haven't heard from her since, and I cringe even writing about it here.

I regret this impulsive decision to persist on sharing my "wisdom" when it was clearly unwanted. Even though my heart was in the right place (worrying about her and her marriage), I feel embarrassed that I did this, especially in the midst of participating in the program!

What can I say? It's a bit painful and cringy but the most important thing is that I learn from it and re-commit to my focus of CURIOSITY above all else. This will serve me in the following week when I will travel to see my family of origin on the east coast.

How did my connection deepening focus work out?

Besides this cringy incident, I had another attempt that went a bit better.

At one point, two of my close friends became upset with each other and both called me to talk about the other. With one in particular, I was able to go to the hotel lobby and talk for a while. At first, I totally forgot about the curiosity and started to give her my wisdom. I wasn't empathizing with the other friend, but I was still reminding her about the danger of trying to please other people and stuff like that. Even though she was seeking my perspective, I could tell she was not benefiting from it - because she kept saying things like "I know but..." and "You're right. I don't know why I'm like this..." 

After a while, maybe half way into the conversation, I paused myself.

I didn't want my friend to judge herself for not being able to follow my wisdom or to spend time defending herself. I wanted her to feel empowered.

So, I switched to curiosity and explored with her WHAT WAS IMPORTANT about the other friend's reaction and what she longed for in relation to that friend. This seemed to bring her deeper into some authentic grief (tears) but also she stopped expressing self-judgment and defensiveness and shifted to talking about what she really desired in that relationship.

I think the switch to curiosity was much more satisfying to both of us, so I'm glad I had the word in my mind somewhere, even if it took me a while to get there.

What have I learned?

1. That it's important to keep doing my self-connection and self-nurturing, especially when other things around me are more chaotic or less stable.

2. It's ok to switch to my connection focus HALF WAY through a conversation. It's not too late and still brings the conversation into a more connecting place.