Prompt: Who have you not adequately thanked this year?
And a note from me about how much I appreciate you.
Each Monday this month, I’m offering a prompt to encourage you to reflect on the (Gregorian calendar) year. Today happens to be Christmas, so Merry Christmas if you celebrate, and happy final Monday in December if your holiday has passed or is yet to come, or if you choose to abstain. Wishing you a peaceful day and week ahead.
Dear Friend,
Appreciation is essential to deep, lasting, and fulfilling connection. At all levels—self, other, nature, ancestors, spirit—appreciation draws us closer to what gives us life.
So in this final week of December, I invite you to spend some time extending your appreciation to yourself, someone close to you, and some place or element or material object that has supported you in a significant way this year.
The people and things closest to us are often the ones we take for granted and neglect to appreciate at a deep level. We may thank our partner or mother or friend for consoling us or picking up the gallon of oat milk we requested. But less often do we write a letter or honestly share from the heart how much their support means to us, changes us, enriches us, sustains us. We need each other far more than we recognize, and this is the beautiful and frightening vulnerability we carry as human beings.
I believe appreciation needs to be made more explicit, and done so regularly, even if it feels awkward and sometimes hard to receive.
I can think of many people that support me in my life who really have no idea how much their support means to me. They have no idea that I regularly think about that thing they said or how that one conversation pulled me out of a dark place or how their steady, mundane, everyday support provides the ground that makes so much possible. We underestimate how much of an impact we have on each other.
And this is true for the earth elements and material objects that support and sustain us as well.
Let’s enrich our lives and draw from this deeper well of appreciation to tell others how we wouldn’t be the same without them.
Prompt: Who might you want to thank that has no idea how much of an impact they had on you this year? Sit down with them, writer a letter from the heart, or reflect upon them in meditation or prayer.
More questions to inspire:
Whose support was invisible but essential to your year?
Who helped you grow this year and what real impact did that have on your experience?
Who helped you get through a difficult time that maybe didn’t realize how difficult that time was and how much their support made it lighter?
Who showed up to celebrate you?
What elements in nature can you recognize that supported you this year?
What places did you take refuge in when the world felt like too much? Can you thank that place?
What material objects (like the literal roof over your head or your favorite cast iron pan that is the vessel for your nourishment) can you appreciate at a deeper level?
I appreciate you, dear reader:
This all brings me to you, who I have not adequately thanked for reading what I write. Thank you for opening these emails, for sharing them, for responding with kind words, for responding with courageous words that help me learn about my own internal biases and worldview.
With all the noise and brilliant ideas on the internet, it is truly an honor that you read what I write, that you trust me in this way, that you take time to be with me in this way.
You help hold me accountable to this burgeoning creative act called writing. You provide a container for me to explore and experiment. You help me grow and stretch in news ways, just by showing up to read.
Writing regularly has helped me find my voice, build confidence as a writer and person, and practice a deeper and more public form of vulnerability that I value as a great teacher. I literally wouldn’t be writing in this way without you.
You think you’re just reading what I write, but you are gifting me something so valuable: your time and presence in a very busy, very full life.
This is my best attempt for now to tell you how much your support matters to me, how much I appreciate you for reading.
Your neighbor,
Ryan
Beautiful as always, I am very appreciative of your writings! They are inspiring and help me slow down a bit. Thanks for this month of steady inspiration :)