Our final Stories of Our Lives session of the year took place on 20th December at Chorlton Library. It was a really lovely one to end with as we gathered with brews, mince pies, notebooks, and put some time aside to pause and gather our together our thoughts before the year turned.
We moved through three main reflections: time spent thinking about Stories of Our Lives and community, and time reflecting on the year in a more personal sense, both looking back and looking ahead. Each reflection began with a few minutes of quiet writing or reflection, and then a wider group chat at the end.
Rather than writing about personal reflections, which are not mine to share, I will write about what surfaced in terms of community and Stories of Our Lives.
Our September session was beautifully led by Karen Whittick, who shared a heartfelt piece of writing to guide us in. Her words got us thinking both philosophically and personally, and set the tone for a session that felt both reflective and connecting.
We began by exploring the act of saying hello and goodbye. We talked about how in some languages the same word is used for both greeting and parting, for example aloha in Hawaiian or salut in French. In Islam the phrase as-salaamu alaykum means “peace be upon you,” with the response wa alaykum as-salaam meaning “and peace be upon you too.” This struck us as a beautiful way of not only wishing peace in both directions, but also of recognising the cyclical nature of life
From there our conversation moved into the different ways hellos and goodbyes show up in our lives. We spoke about the safety created by acknowledging someone on a hike (they might remember you afterwards if you go missing!) while others are told that its not safe to say hello. For children especially it can be confusing to be told to beware of strangers and also to be polite. We also thought about the everyday moments when a hello opens the door to respect, conversation and connection.
Our reflections then widened out into life changes ; moving home, changing jobs, the end of relationships, and the opening of new chapters. We noticed how every goodbye can carry the possibility of a hello, if we are open to it, and wondered whether that life lesson get easier with practice. How sometimes we can feel a bit stuck, while others we might flourish because we have learned to take something from the goodbye and carry it into the next chapter.
Philosophical threads ran through the whole session. We thought about the infinity symbol and how beginnings and endings are never really separate, how in Buddhism everything is interconnected and always in flux, and how nothing is ever static. At any moment there can be fullness or absence, and it is always shifting.
We touched on the whole spectrum of emotions that beginnings and endings can bring – joy, sadness, excitement, loss. Ceremonies, seasons and phases all hold that mixture. Airports and train stations came up as places where hellos and goodbyes are especially present and felt.
It was a session full of richness. There was a zooming out to the big philosophical picture and then zooming in to the specifics of our own lives.
Read on to see what our participants wrote and shared in response…
In our last Stories of Our Lives session, we turned our attention to the idea of groups – the ones we’re part of, the ones we’ve left, and the ones that have shaped us along the way. The conversation was a little shorter than usual because it was also our annual feedback session, but it was still a really rich and thoughtful exchange.
As we gathered for our end-of-2024 session, we shared a wonderful time connecting with one another and reflecting on the year that has passed. It was a session filled with honesty, contemplation, and the beauty of sharing. Together, we distilled the year into key words and phrases that encapsulated our collective experiences: friends, the beauty of ordinary gentleness, challenge, chaos and disorder, annus horribilis, and perseverance. These words painted a picture of the struggles and triumphs that shaped our journeys over the last 12 months.
Looking forward, we explored the themes we hope will guide us into 2025. Words like acceptance (while seeking ways to move forward), clarity, spaciousness, facing fears, resolves, hoping for improvement, cleansing, and decluttering resonated deeply. By the end of the session, we were left feeling connected, happy, hopeful, and relaxed, with a greater sense of purpose.
Here are our writings about the year that has gone and our hopes for the future…
The Stories of Our Lives 