Science fiction writer Ursuala Le Guin talks about a forest that is bigger on the inside than the outside. I’ve loved that image since I first heard it. It’s mysterious and magical and other-wordly. What could that possibly mean in our everyday lives? My housemate John’s piano playing comes to mind. I always love hearing him play, but if I stop and listen, really listen, I am transported into a much vaster universe.

My Year of the Child blog was birthed because I wanted to expand my universe and I needed something to keep me accountable. I also wanted to explore the question, Are we better when we’re watched? I was likely influenced by Lynn Twist, the founder of the Soul of Money Institute and one of my teachers at the Money Course. Lynn urged us to ‘box ourselves into greatness’ by declaring to the world a goal we wanted to fulfill and then using that declaration to help us see it through.

I had no idea what I was getting myself into. For most of my adult life I’ve felt perplexed by my interior world. Memories and events from my childhood seemed tightly contained and surrounded by an almost impenetrable force field, like a dark forest I wasn’t able or willing to gain access to. Some therapeutic modalities allowed me to break though for occasional connection, but the essence of what I was seeking—to find some essential Amy-ness that I could bring back to my regular existence—remained elusive.

I studied the Enneagram during my Integral Coaching™ training—an ancient synthesis of techniques brought together to describe nine different personality types. It was years after the training completed before I was able to accurately determine my enneagram type. When that happened I suddenly felt anchored, like I had finally found home base. I’m a Type Nine—the Peacemaker—and there are certain attributes that are common to all of us Nines.

Riso and Hudson talk about the ‘passion’ of each enneagram type in their book The Wisdom of the Enneagram. They define it as a particular way we lose our center and become distorted in our thinking, feeling, and doing. None of the passions are very flattering: anger, pride, deceit, envy, avarice, fear, gluttony and lust, with Type Nine’s sloth completing the list. In this sense, sloth refers to “…a desire to be unaffected by life. It is an unwillingness to arise with the fullness of one’s vitality to fully engage with life.”

Winston Churchill said, ‘When you’re going through hell, keep going’ to which a friend of mine added the postscript: ‘and don’t go alone.’ I can attest to the wisdom of these words. I will be forever grateful to Pat Dobie, my dear friend, reader, writer and editor extraordinaire, for her accompaniment on this journey. Pat not only taught me the value of structure, but also the necessity of digging deep enough into my inner world to produce a satisfying post. At times that felt virtually impossible and I would default to writing about the difficulty of the process instead. “You can’t share about how hard it is in every post!” she admonished. Then with a suggestion or two she’d send me back to work.

My year of blogging has been about learning to pay attention. Connecting some of the long-ago dots has been ‘the crack that lets the light in,’ and with that light comes a level of internal coherence that I didn’t know was possible. I’ve developed more trust in myself and in my ability to follow through on things that are important to me. I am finally starting to know where I stand on things AND I’ve discovered that I’ve actually had a pretty interesting life.

In answer to the question I posed at the outset—Are we better when we’re watched?—my conclusion is yes, at least from a distance, and ideally by people who love us. I’m taking Ursuala Le Guin’s beautiful words away with me. My year of blogging, and your presence in it, is like a forest inside me that will continue to grow. Thank you for being a part of it!

Is there something you would like to do, that declaring to the world might help make happen? Let me know, I’d love to hear!