A Year of Questions: How to slow down and fall in love with life [Kindle Edition]

Fiona Robyn's new book is a great read for those who appreciate a sympathetic companion on the road to intentional awareness.

I have enjoyed Fiona's sharp eye for the overlooked and missed treasures of each day regularly recorded on her "a small stone" blog. Fiona has the enviable ability to capture salient feelings, insights, and humour in a few choice words. Her gentle encouragement to face the complexities of being who you are is a happy antidote to the many voices trying to convince you to be someone you're not. Her friendly voice and cheerful enthusiasm are infectious.

I also like Fiona's honesty, and she starts her book the way I wish all books started, with a clear outline of what to expect from, and how best to use, the book. She wonders aloud about her reader, and through this wondering I felt included. What a thing to be included right from the start of a book. She gives her credentials, and answers the "why should you listen to me" question. Have you ever wondered, "Is this author's advice coming from an academic understanding, personal experience, or both?" Fiona tells you right from the start. Like a good writer should, she has ingested whole years of words, ideas, observations, and poetic turns of phrase, from countless books, and synthesised it all into accessible prose, studded with observations from her daily life. The beauty of literature married to the experiential.

Each selection starts with an anecdote or experience from Fiona's life, followed by some questions and a suggestion for the week, and a couple of choice quotes. The questions are not the sorts that have yes or no answers, they are the kind that make you look into space while your inner eye probes the neural web of your heart, coaxing out answers that you want to find. There are themes that run through the book such as simplicity, the importance of reflective thinking, and making friends with the difficult bits of you.

As part of the age-old and newly discovered wisdom of adequacy, Fiona appears to believe that her reader has the answers to the questions she put forth. Think how nice it would be to spend a year with a fellow traveler like that!

It's amazing how fast a year flies by. So this year, I've deliberately taken time each week and month to reflect on what's happened and record it for myself: the emotional ups and downs and what I've learnt about myself and those around me. In this book and the accompanying e-course Fiona offers suggestions for valuable questions to ponder, just like having a coach beside you encouraging you to think and act differently. I've found it a gentle and powerful companion along the way. Thank you, Fiona, for the wisdom and guidance.

This book is a lovely treat for any writer or anyone who wants to create more time for reflection. I joined the online "Questions" course (run by Fiona at Writing Our Way Home) in January 2012, a little bit midstream (the book is divided by seasons and starts with autumn), but the beauty of the book's structure -- and of life -- is that a year can start whenever you want it to. You can jump into "A Year of Questions" any time and return to it forever. It is truly a keeper.

As a bonus, I think Fiona might be a touch psychic -- I find that one question naturally leads into the next, and the themes often dovetail with ideas that have already come up in my own life. Or it could be that the course has raised my antennae for paying attention in general, which I'm sure is true.

Each week has a two-piece set-up -- a short but sweet essay in which Fiona shares her personal insights and experiences around a theme, such as "Feeling Lost and Being OK with Feeling Lost" or "The Secret of Life." She adds a few questions to live with for the week, along with inspirational quotes, prompts for writing and suggestions for how to explore the questions in the real world.

The book and the course have a gentleness that is carried over by the Rilke quote on which they are based: "Have patience with everything unresolved and try to love the questions themselves."

Two thumbs up for this deeply felt and expressed, juicy and accessible treat.