Category: Unfolding the Year: 2020

May’s theme is Perseverance, and I’ve got a really tactile, easy exercise for you to try this month to remind yourself of your own strength.

Well! April certainly was… a Month, with a capital M, wasn’t it? I hope all of you lovely folks reading this are safe and well!

I’ve found myself trying to stay light and positive on my Instagram captions and Stories, but these blog posts are inherently more serious, and a little more vulnerable. It’s funny to change my tone in a way that feels so drastic here, but the intention of Unfolding the Year was always to be a place to investigate how our feelings, moods, and realities affect our productivity. So perhaps it’s not surprising that these feel so different to write than an Instagram caption, after all! Still, I appreciate you being here, whether you want the escapism of minimal planning photos or are interested in digging a little deeper here on the blog with me.

I know I said this last month, but wow, when I planned the themes for this year, I had no idea how topical they’d really be. It’s still blowing my mind!

When I first came up with the idea of a month of perseverance, I was thinking about how the past few months’ themes have been cognitively challenging: from reflecting on your inner self to grappling with the concept of holding two conflicting things in your mind at one time. Internally, those are massive steps to take towards beginning to understand yourself better and I definitely think perseverance is the last step in that process: to keep going and keep practicing reflection, sitting in the grey area, and being present. That’s when it becomes a way of life rather than a habit you’re trying to stick to. When you know yourself and are honest with yourself, you can be more productive and creative all at the same time.

April’s theme is “The Grey Area”: finding the both/and, the multiple interpretations, rather than assuming something is firmly one way or the other.

I chose all of the themes for my Unfolding the Year: 2020 project in December, and I’m pretty surprised at how “right” this month’s theme feels for our world right now.

There’s a lot of uncertainty and scariness out there right now, and it can feel overwhelming. In addition to, of course, social distancing and staying home to protect those most vulnerable, I highly recommend you first and foremost practice self-care, whatever that means to you. It’s the best way to care for ourselves and others.

This month’s theme is The Grey Area. It’s the idea that we have to move around from binary thinking — and/or, yes/no — and into both/and.