As you work through them, you can use many different modes of reflection:

Of course, you cannot do everything. Part of the purpose of meditating and reflecting is to identify the experiences that matter most for you and find out how to make them possible.

Before each of the practical exercises in this book, I suggest that you try a simple meditation just for a few minutes, to calm yourself and focus on the questions you’re going to explore. Here’s one way to do this:

One reason you may not know some of your aptitudes may be the culture you live in. Biology affects the aptitudes that you’re born with; culture can seriously affect whether you discover and develop them.

One vital strategy is to do all you can to create those opportunities and to explore new avenues of possibility in yourself and in the world around you.

When you add the noise of the external world to all the roles you take in it, it is easy to lose sight of who you really are. To find your Element, you need to regain that perspective. One way is to create time and space to be alone with yourself, to experience who you are when no one else wants anything from you and the noise has stopped. One meth

What sorts of activities come especially easily to you? What do you feel your natural talents are? How did you first become aware of them? Do you have any aptitudes that you’ve never considered developing? Do you have any talents that you haven’t developed but wished that you had? Do you have any talents that you’ve been discouraged from developing

If you know what your Element is, you need the self-belief and determination to pursue it.

circle whatever phrases or words strike you as especially significant