The mundane + the magic of a weekly review practice

On embracing duality and being in conversation with ourselves

Dec 02, 2023

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river in the surrounding trees — *Photo by Noah Silliman on Unsplash*

The trees along my usual neighborhood route are painted shades of marigold and rust. Leaves float down from their branches in amber flurries, blanketing the pavement and crunching under my sneakers.

I’m always listening to a podcast on my walks—this time, the October episode of Nicole Antoinette’s Rose Thorn Bud which she co-hosts with her friend Julia. At the end of each month, these two friends gently check in with each other on the mic and exchange thoughtful questions about the last 30 days: what’s been working, what’s not working, what they’re learning, struggling with, celebrating, questioning, and bringing with them into the next month.

There’s something about women supporting each other that always moves me. Listening in like a fly on the way to two friends holding space and exchanging reflections with resonant honesty and specificity stirs something warm in me that feels fitting against the autumnal backdrop—layers of copper trees against deep green pines, crisp air, dappled light.

Their conversation is a sweet reminder of how grounded and supported I feel when I’m anchored in a regular practice of reflection and review: of pausing to look back, reflect, recalibrate, look ahead, and set gentle intentions. It all stirred something in me.

I miss this.

For years, my weekly review ritual was a staple in my Sunday afternoon routine. At the end of each week I’d open a weekly page in my Notion workspace and respond to the same three questions:

what went well?
what was challenging or disappointing?
what am I learning?

Week to week, mining through the mundane and answering those three questions never felt particularly exciting. But it was a humble process that, without fail, offered flashes of resonance and recognition.

What a gift that was.
God this has been hard.
I wonder…

I find there’s so much power in documenting the details of my life as I’m living it, both for Current Me and Future Me. It’s a simple act that helps me crystalize my lived experience on the page and simultaneously uncover how I feel about it in real-time—and then when the end of a year rolls around, all those weekly lists of ordinary minutiae pile up to paint a vivid picture of a life filled with texture, and worth remembering.

(If you want to gather across time and space and try out this humble weekly ritual together, go ahead and give it a try!)

—

If I know my weekly review practice is a supportive and fruitful one, why have I let it die?

I’ve haven’t sat down to do a weekly review for months. At best I’ve been noticeably inconsistent since May. Why? When I really think about what’s going on there, when I ask myself what’s getting in the way, I recognize that seeing the words “weekly review” on my calendar or my to-do list each week just feels so…

Tasky.

Choosing to crank through a pile of admin-y tasks on a whim when the mood strikes is one thing. (ahem, Manifesting Generator 🙋🏼) But having to do them, today? Just because my to-do list is taunting me with a deadline of my own making—when I could be journaling, or brainstorming my next project, or pulling tarot cards, or watching a workshop recording instead? Why would I ever choose to spend my Sunday afternoon doing something cerebral and task-y, when I could be doing something romantic and creative?

And there it is: that ‘left brain vs. right brain’ binary thinking. The notion that any activity is either analytical or creative, systematic or spiritual.

Duality has always felt like an important piece of my identity: I’m a Gemini. I’m both people-oriented and introverted, systems-oriented and creative, analytical and intuitive. In a world that loves a binary, I’ve often felt like I dance between two worlds, somehow belonging to both. I feel equally at home in both left- and right-brained modes—which, I’m realizing, means the two can never really be fully separate for me.

The logical is the creative. The cerebral is the spiritual. Not competing modes, but stackable lenses.

When we find ourselves resisting a thing we know serves us well, how might we use a different lens to find a more compelling entry point?

I’m thinking about this question a lot in the context of my weekly review practice—and how I might answer it in a way that doesn’t feel hollow.

What would it really take to dissolve some of the resistance I feel, and shift the energy around it? How can I make it feel less like an admin-y task, and more like a spiritual practice?

The thing about feeling spiritually connected, for me at least, is that it happens when I’m in conversation: with the universe, with art, with my tarot deck, with another human, with parts of myself, with ghosts of what used to be.

I think about the stirring I felt as I breathed in fresh air and listened to two women in conversation with each other, allowing me to eavesdrop as they shared, witnessed, responded, probed, unearthed, absorbed, and allowed themselves to be affected by what unfolded… the way it stoked curiosity and reverence for my own reflection practice. And I start to wonder how reentering my practice with an open viewfinder and a deeper devotion to being in conversation with my own life might support me in showing up in the world the way I want to more often.

—

Maybe my weekly review isn’t just a looming mundane task.

Maybe it’s an invitation to widen the viewfinder and be in conversation with myself and with the universe, both in the present and across space and time.

Maybe it can be both.

🐰🕳️ Diving Into

…the obsession with personal essay writing writing continues! For any of my writerly friends, Cody Cook-Parrott is leading class called Writing the Personal which starts this Sunday, December 3. It’s a three-week class with guest teachers where we’ll talk and learn about bringing the poetic, personal, and political together to create essays of self-discovery and service. I’d love to see you in there!

🍒 Savoring

I have to say… as of now, I’m really loving writing on Substack. I could ramble on about the reasons why, but the exchange below captures one aspect of it pretty well: I love that it’s generally, uniquely safe to get caught trying around here. (Are you writing on Substack? Leave a link to your publication in the comments! I’d love to follow your work.)

💭 On My Mind

I’ve mentioned before that I dip in and out of Glennon Doyle’s podcast We Can Do Hard Things. But there have been a couple of just incredible episodes recently. This episode in particular where Abby shares about the work she’s doing in therapy to unearth and fully feel her shadowy, uncomfortable feelings for the first time… WHEW. I can almost guarantee I’ll be writing more about my own experience with this soon, but suffice it to say… can relate, Abby. Can relate.