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A New Perspective of New Year

Dear Reader,

Wishing you, my dearest fabulous one, a very Happy New Year!

The start of a new year has a tendency to connote expectations and in turn induce pressure to live up to these. This is where our friend fear makes an appearance and dances upon joy, which should be soaring at the prospect of a new year! We hear chatter of ‘new year resolutions,’ spoken half-heartedly not because they are lying but because somewhere deep inside they are questioning themselves: “Will I be able to fulfil this resolution?” “How long will this resolution last?” I have done this. I have done this sooo many times. I said I would do this, this and this and by the end of the month most of my aims, if not all, would be inactive. I then might feel like a fraud to myself and go down that rabbit hole for a while. Then I might think ‘oh new year just sucks.’ This is a sequence of events that have been repeated several times, until one year I this skipped to the last part and completely forgot the beauty of a new year!

I recently read how we get a brand new year totally for free. A- HA! YES! BINGO! Finally it has clicked I thought! I interpreted this as going back to being grateful and thankful for the opportunity of seeing a new year! We have a whole year to fulfil our wishes, create our own magic and evolve into the person we want to be, developing in our strengths! We can do all this without setting New Year‘s resolutions and chiding ourselves for not doing the thing that we think we should be doing! So what if you have a bad day; as much as it would be a brilliant to be a go-getter every day, we all have dips of motivation. But that does not mean that you have failed, or that you should give up, or that your spark has gone forever, it just means you need to rest and retreat in another love to reset your mind for a while.

If you resonated with my first thought of the idea of New Year, thinking it was something to be feared doing a negative introspection, please I ask you now to stop this. Stop wishing your year away and remember the beauty that maybe uncovered in the year ahead. Who knows what this year could bring you?

All my love XX

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Choose To Be Grateful

*This photo was taken by my beautiful Sister

Dear Reader,
What are you grateful for? What, in reflection, makes you thankful for the breath you are breathing?

Gratitude for the life I lead is something I have felt so deeply recently and want to share my thoughts with you! My trail of thought has been inspired by the multitude of devastation that have occurred in the world over the previous months and just this week the horrific conditions of the third world have been highlighted  once again- kindness is still in a severe drought.

We so very seldom stop and think; living in a fast paced society, trying to ‘keep up with the Joneses,’ pushing to be the best, and maybe, when our ego comes into play, try to outdo others. These primitive activities that society has created leave little or no room to think outside of our bubble, or what this bubble even denotes. So often we complain of not having enough, beginning sentences with “I wish I had,” but in fact those desirers- you and I- have hold of things others just dream of. This leads me to the thinking, and I will speak for myself here (as I don’t know your situation), how in fact I do have a luxurious lifestyle. Before you get ahead of yourself and create ungraspable, idyllic picture perhaps thinking that I’m some pompous jerk, not actually aware of what I am writing and how you may feel as a result of this-let me explain. When someone thinks of luxury and being luxurious they may associate it with having glistening diamonds, designer clothes, going to dinners at fancy restaurants etc., but in fact luxury is more to do with the ability to choose.

The ability to choose is something for I have in everyday day life. For example right from the morning I can DECIDE if I WANT to shower and with what soap, I can DECIDE whether I WANT a strong coffee OR tea and DECIDE how much milk and how many sugars I WANT, I can DECIDE whether I’ll start my day with cereal (and what type?) OR toast (and any toppings?) OR a cooked breakfast, then I can DECIDE what to wear, which could be based on weather OR the activities of the day, the day goes on I make more decisions- how I WANT to communicate with others by face-to-face OR ringing OR texting OR emailing OR through social media and what other activities I WANT to do that day and what, where, when, to have lunch/dinner. All these decisions that I make are MY choices in order to carve out the day and life I WANT.  These decisions and the notion of making everyday decisions, denotes luxuries yet I forget this way too often, luxuries that for many are unheard of- if I exchanged a ‘day in the life of..’ note with someone less fortunate than me, what  would I uncover? What would be different? Would anything be similar? What decisions would they have? How would this make them feel? What would they be grateful for?

I’m not saying that I should or anyone else who is lives a day made from a library of choices should feel guilty, unworthy or deny ourselves of the things, but we should be grateful; grateful for the environment we live in, grateful that live the life we do, grateful for the people round us and grateful for ourselves to experience the wonders our life however happy or sad as we can develop from this, allowing us to become stronger people. We were given this life to live it our way, using the tools we have; yearning for things we wished we had or that we think would make life better is ludicrous. Look within; what do you have to be grateful for? Look around you; what do you have to be grateful for? Celebrate your life and ALL you have!!!

All my love XX

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Stop Thinking and Think!

Dear Reader,

How is that year, you called THE year going? What changes have you made? Have your desires to put your thoughts into action been fulfilled? Or has time slipped, deeming it as ungraspable and a greater force, sitting in the same chair as yesterday, wishing of a planless daydream and none of the goals of 2017 being ticked off? This platform allows the voice in your mind to be a passive nurturer that enables maintenance of this unhelpful stream of thought. The voice grows louder, keeping you stationary, as time moves forward.

Well, I’m sure I am not the first person to tell you that this dwelling on what could be, what if’s, what not’s and what could have beens’ is an experience shared by many –including myself. This thought process is something that causes utter panic and fear, by perhaps stimulating some sort of need to enter the nostalgic garden, a place where I sometimes find myself meandering, thinking the air was fresher and safe when I leave I ask myself “that was then, where am I now?” People are very talented and skilled at thinking about the past and imaging the future, but the middle bit, the bit that gets forgotten is the present. This present, as I write it. comes to me, is actually a present. While we are preoccupied with everything but the now, we are ignoring the insistent knocking of the character of the present from being let in. The sound of the present may provoke unpleasant and uneasy feelings, BUT we can use the present to change what the present echoes, and that’s why the present is a present; unwrapping its dreamy complexities and work with what is actually there!! “Good one, great, unrealistic point made” you might say. But wait before you change your choice of read, think about what you are doing right now. You are turning off the present switch and going back to your dreamland. Wouldn’t it be nice to stay and put in good grounded plans in place to have a reality of you dreams?- Come on, stay! You will also get a huge thanks!

The truth is I also had a big idea of how I would start off my 2017. The stereotypical, eat well, sugar only on weekends, keep fit and the more personal, write to you more frequently and get a plan together for what the heck I want to do next. Results from the first twelfth are in and shows a slight detour from this grand idea. I have eaten well, if this was to include my love affair with biscuits –sometimes Sugar Sunday is just not enough-, I have tried to exercise more though- maybe once a week sometimes twice but for me that’s good (I am not going red…I just got… warm all of a sudden), I am trying to plan to write to you once or twice a month, I was very lax in my first year of blogging and that didn’t sit well with me- so  I will work harder, designating time each month to try and achieve this aim! Okay I haven’t exactly demonstrated the story I sold myself before New Year, but I am trying to at least grabble with and trying and make possible my intentions. In some ways it is a very, snail-paced process BUT I am moving!!! I am trying to adopt and attitude that says don’t let your next present moment be filled with thoughts which echo ‘actually I could have done that, but I was thinking ‘what if.’ Be present now!!

I am writing this post not only to remind others and myself about the limitless wonders of the present, but to pose a question, ‘what can you/I do now?’ and with this hope that you let yourself hear the knocking of the present. In addition to this hopefully provoking thoughts, I hope that this will facilitate conversation, maybe the present has just revealed itself, maybe the plan-that was just left entitled ‘THE PLAN’- have now mapped itself out, maybe you only now have a vague idea of what you want or maybe you are just shaking your head and saying  “Sorry chick, you lost me at ‘Dear Reader’” . Whatever thoughts you have on this I would love to know!!!

I hope, for those of you still reading this, you have enjoyed you extended stay in the present- a huge thanks!!!

All my love XX