Your Story, Your Map

Unless you are brand new here (if so, welcome!), you’ve likely heard about my fondness for contemplative practices, meditation, and self-reflection. What you may not know is how these practices — and the stories we tell ourselves — can anchor us and help steer us through life. 

When you think about it, stories are how we navigate the world (quite literally, you’ll see) — they give us a sense of where we’ve been and guide us toward where we want to go. Stories are how we learn without explanation. Stories are the primordial meaning-making human tool, as essential to the sailor as to the writer or teacher.

This connection between storytelling and self-reflection has shaped my approach to finding alignment and meaning in life. Though sequentially, my journey started with being the ‘Fixer,’ I was always moving, always doing. Reflection, and my passion with story, came later. It wasn’t until I was forced to pause that I began to understand I’d missed a step in the process - and yes, I’d been going in the wrong direction.

Some thinkers consider all the ‘doing’ an attribute of our success-obsessed and productivity-inclined societies, traditionally masculine traits, denoting the anthropocentric slant of today’s societies.

Despite the dedication to the achievements of my inner taskmaster, I got to know and feel deeply that all the accomplishments and all the ‘fixing’ don’t lead to satisfaction.

The results mean little unless our deeds are anchored in our own personal truth, aligned to our unique desires. Do we even know what these are? Said truth can be hard to access unless we dedicate time to sit and contemplate what is held dear in our hearts, uncovering the dreams that are hidden deep within or those that were acknowledged once and promptly pushed away.

Like most people, I was catapulted into reflection after a catalytic event. A scary diagnosis upended my worldview, which precipitated my pondering on what truly matters. In the months prior, I sadly experienced several deaths in my family, landing me in a pit made for self-reflection after the loss of my mother.

So many years spent doing. I was constantly travelling full speed ahead, yet somehow in the dark. I only really started reflecting on the bigger picture when I hit a wall. Faced with pain, mortality, and impermanence, I finally found the need to make this time truly count. The signs had been there, starting with the widespread pain in my body. Signs which I willfully ignored, signs that indicated I was misaligned with myself, heading full wind in the wrong direction. I didn’t want to know. Prescience hinted that I’d need to reroute. Yet, in getting truly lost, I found my way. It involved going within, asking the right questions and paying attention to my heart, my feelings and my intuition.

A classic story, really.

Thankfully, you don’t need to wait for a personal tragedy to strike to make time for contemplating what matters most. At least, that’s my theory - and I’m joined by many wise teachers who advocate just the same.  

Maureen Murdoch, PhD and author of the Heroine’s Journey, puts it this way: 

“Our task is to heal the internal split that tells us to override the feelings, intuition, and dream images that inform us of the truth of life. 

We must have the courage to live with paradox, the strength to hold the tension of not knowing the answers, and the willingness to listen to our inner wisdom and the wisdom of the planet, which begs for change.’ 

This begs the question: how do we start to listen to our inner wisdom? 

That’s what Your Story, Your Map, is all about. 

Come to think of it, this first step is a lot like how you start with wayfinding.

If you’re not familiar with the term, that’s okay; I wasn’t either until it was introduced to me by coach, author, and Harvard-trained sociologist Martha Beck (I certified in her coaching training, aptly called Wayfinder Life Coach Training, so there’s that connection). 

The term “wayfinding” originates from American psychologist James Gibson, who used it to describe spatial navigation.

Wayfinding, historically, is the ancient art of navigating by interpreting the natural world.

As traditional navigator Nainoa Thompson explains in a BBC article, it’s about “using everything that’s provided to you in nature—the sun, stars, moon, waves, currents, clouds, and different animals”. 

This practice reflects a profound connection to the environment, requiring attention, observation, intuition and above all, trust in the journey. 

When embracing the metaphor of wayfinding, I find an invitation to apply these same principles of mindful, purposeful awareness to our lives: 

Pausing to observe the “landscape” of our experiences. 

Understanding where we’ve been.

Anchoring ourselves in the present.

Trusting the journey may feel counterintuitive: this process asks us to hold the destination in our mind, or hearts, yet stay focused on the present, feeling for and interpreting the signs around us. 

By doing so, we can chart an intentional path forward, guided not by rigid maps (to-do lists, New Year’s resolutions, etc) but by our inner compass and reading the signs all around us.

The gifts of our true nature 

To frame why this process is a nourishing and revelatory practice, let me lean on a nautical quote from Disney’s Moana:

Quick aside. I recently found out that Moana has been a sleeper hit for Disney since its original release in 2016. I only watched it for the first time a couple of months ago and yes, absolutely adored it.

ccording to Gizmodo, “Moana has ended up as Disney’s most-streamed movie of all time. Numbers-wise, audiences have watched 80 billion minutes worth of it, which equates to watching it 748 million times. Further Nielsen data shows it’s also been one of the four most-watched films on any streaming service on a yearly basis for the past half-decade, and for 2024 specifically, it’s been somewhere in the streaming Top 10 every month thus far. Add on the $687.2 million box office during its theatrical run, and it’s safe to say a lot of people looooooove this movie.”

The online review doesn’t attempt to analyse the success of the story of the young Polynesian girl chosen by the ocean to restore the heart of Te Fiti, a goddess whose power sustains her island's life. 

I’ll venture my opinion: Moana offers a tale that moves us from values of disconnection to connection, self-discovery, courage, forgiveness and redemption (for the demi-god Maui). Above all, it’s a story of wayfinding, a process that invites us to embrace the gifts of our true nature, even when that goes against the grain of our family and culture. 

Just like Maui says in the film, we need to know where we are by knowing where we’ve been before advancing toward where we want to go. 

Recently, I’ve felt particularly drawn to celestial imagery, from jewellery to tattoos to illustrations. It’s no coincidence: the moon and North Star have been essential tools for orientation and successful wayfinding since the dawn of time. They are powerful symbols that can help orient us as we approach this contemplative journey. 

Anthropologist Tim Ingold offers an insightful perspective: 

“We are not self-contained individuals confronting a world out there, but developing organisms in an environment, enmeshed in tangled relationships. As we move through space, our knowledge undergoes continuous formulation. Wayfinding isn’t knowing before we go, but, as he put it, ‘knowing as we go.”

We pause, we reflect and orient ourselves, but the goal is not to stay put for long. Instead, we move forward and embrace ‘knowing as we go.’ 

The worry, of course, certainly for me, is to go, go, go, and do, do, do, and let myself get caught in the current — again, finding myself off course. 

I want you to think of Your Story, Your Map, this process of metaphorical wayfinding as something that you’ll need to repeat, year after year, or if you’d like, month after month. 

An MIT thesis on the science of wayfinding — the ancient art has been repurposed and is currently used in digital and urban design — explains: 

"The first criterion, successful recovery of location and orientation, asks the navigator if he can definitively answer the questions, 'Where am I?' and 'Which way am I facing?' 

Successful wayfinding occurs when the navigator can make correct navigation decisions that take them from their present location to a destination that fulfills their larger purpose." 

I can tell you that a true examination of the question: where am I? ‘Which way am I facing’ earlier in my life could have saved me a lot of time (and trouble). 

Which way are you facing? What is a destination that fulfils your larger purpose? 

Well, if this sounds promising, it’s because it is. Let’s get to it.

You can use the guide below at any moment in your life — not just at the start of a New Year — simply whenever you are in need to orient yourself. 

Knowing where you are by knowing where you’ve been and envisioning where you are going in your mind forms the foundation of wayfinding. 

Successful wayfinding asks us to observe contextual elements and our environment for clues, from work-life balance to our connection to nature, our energy, and more. 

But how will it work? 

Some suggest that navigation is a story problem, as “the human mind is built to encode topographical information in the form of stories.” 

The neuroscientist Howard Eichenbaum noted, “The hippocampal system is encoding events as a relational mapping of objects and actions within spatial contexts, representing routes as episodes defined by sequences of places traversed.”

And so, too, do our brains learn to navigate our lives by examining the relational mapping of our experiences. We link events through stories, looking back on our life and our year, helping inform our path forward. 

Caveat. You may know that a single story can be told in a myriad of ways. In our reflections here, I invite you to step back and explore the elements of the last few months, observing rather than identifying with what happened. The invitation here is to relate the events with a measure of distance without taking things personally. 

Think of it as a creative, sense-making workshop. In revisiting the past, we’ll be drawing up lessons, gleaning stories and navigating the future guided by our inner light. 

The reflection 

In practical terms, the key steps in wayfinding are:

Orientation: understanding where you are.

Route Decision: choosing your path.

Route Monitoring: staying on course.

Destination Recognition: knowing when you’ve arrived.

The questions I share with you today only address step 1: Orientation, the part of the process which helps uncover patterns by reviewing our values and noticing what happened. We learn to read our decisions and learn from the positive and the negative, just as sailors used the stars and the moon for guidance. 

This creates a strong foundation for intentional goal setting, aka step 2. For the rest of the journey, steps 3 and 4, I’ll happily guide you through the year with other tools (guided meditations, reflections).

Plan for 2-3 hours, which you can break into hour-long sessions. 

- How to: use whatever format works for you, journal, digital notes, or the downloadable worksheet, but I’d suggest you try using pen and paper over digital if that’s available for you. 

- Setting: I invite you to create a reflective space. Choose a quiet and comfortable environment away from your usual desk. Music, tea, or practices like yoga, meditation, or a hot bath can help encourage a state of relaxed openness. 

- Approach: Answer all questions or just focus on the ones that resonate. Speeding through isn’t the goal here. 

- Be intuitive, be intentional, be playful: when a question feels hard, take a break, doodle, read it aloud and go for a walk. Holding a question in your mind and walking is a magical way to unlock powerful answers. 

Foundation

What is your ‘North Star’—the constant, reliable guide that has helped you navigate challenges this past year?

What is important to you? What do you want to move toward? 

What are your values? (If unsure, please stop here and download my free values exercise sheet. I promise it’s worth it - also it’s a quick and intuitive exercise)

Year in review

What went well this year? 

What needs to be celebrated (that you may have forgotten to celebrate)?

What was challenging, surprising, or disappointing?

How did you respond? What can you take away from these experiences?

What did you learn? What do you want to remember?

Growth & energy

In which situations do I feel both challenged and potentially ready for growth? Where do I sense both possibility and discomfort?

What do you want to deepen? 

What do you want to let go of?

What brought you energy? What depleted you?

Vision & identity

What new insights or perspectives did you gain t  es his year?

What kind of person do you want to be?

What resources do you need to grow into this vision? 

Who can you lean on for help and support in your journey?

Themes & transition

What was your theme for this year? 

What do you want your theme for next year to be?

How do your reflections inform what you wish to accomplish next year?

Integration & closing

What is the most important thing? 

Which way do you need to face to move toward it?

What is one thing that you’ve learned about yourself in this process? Or one thing you want to remember and make conscious for the coming year? 

Now, let’s pause. 

Take a moment to express gratitude for everything and everyone who has brought you to where you are. To anchor this feeling, you can read over what you wrote, and silently send gratitude to all the teachers who were sent your way. If you want to take it a step further, write a note of gratitude to those who have made a difference in your life over the past months. 

Let gratitude be an anchor for you any time you need to pause, get present and orient yourself.

Barbara O’Connor writes: “Wayfinding is how we accumulate treasure maps of exquisite memories… calling us to renew our […] love affair with freedom, exploration, and place.” 

May this reflection process be a treasure map of exquisite memories. 

May it help you embrace your unique gifts and help you navigate 2025 with ease 

Drop me a line and let me know what came up for you. 

Much love, 

Anne  

If you'd rather to use a downloadable PDF for this process, you're in luck, you can download it here.