Behind all of the 'stuff'

Musings on skeleton leaves

I was getting more wood in to keep cosy this afternoon and walking back I noticed this skeleton leaf. It stuck me that it can be so easy to miss these miracles of nature as we go about through our day.

It also jolted a question to mind, a question of ‘what is left when all the stuff goes away?’ Not in a morbid way, more in a curious way.

Over the last few days I’ve had a lot of thinking time - thanks body! But with this time to be still, it’s given me a bit of a gift of being able to revisit values, boundaries and remind myself of what’s important (highly recommend Jessica Rose William’s ebook A Simplified Life for this). A gift that only being bed bound can give.

Reconnecting with our values is such a powerful reminder of what we hold most dear to us. They’re like our North Star when things get choppy and hard.

Exploring values is something that I’ll often do when I start working with clients. And those that are business owners will happily reel off their business values but not have a clue where to begin when it comes to their own.

A lovely exercise to uncover your values is to ask yourself the question; What words would I like to be remembered by? Perhaps a morbid question but one to contemplate. Allow yourself to free write whatever words or phrases come to mind - try not to think about it too much. Then score the words from 1-10, if they’re a nine or ten pop them on a new piece of paper.

Now that you’ve collected some words that resonate, leave them for a few days before coming back to them and editing as needed. Perhaps it’d feel good to write a definition of what each of the words mean to you and why it’s so important.

Again, leave them for a few days, come back and edit.

Repeat these sets as frequently as needed before settling on your final few words - as many as feels good to you.

I’d love to hear what your values are, I’ll leave mine in the comments (because who doesn’t want to be nosey?!)

It’s amazing what a skeleton leaf will spark in your mind.