The New Year

I wanted to share...

  

I always find it really difficult in January to start again. This year, for the first time ever I have taken it really slow, with no pressure, to give myself that time after Christmas to just recallibrate.

Truth be told, I have never liked the January, "new me" thing. Don't get me wrong, I have tried to do it many times but have always fallen into the trap of do it all at once and then suffer as I try and meet unrealistic goals that I never should have set myself. A good few years ago Rob and I would set a resolution that would centre around learning/doing something, not any type of short term vanity-based goal; something that would feed our souls a bit better. However, this year, after having had a few years of really great growth success, I decided to not choose anything and just see what happens. 

Because my views are quite drastically different to the online petitions of "change" I thought I would take all of January off writing or starting the blog back up and launch for the NEW YEAR in February; a month that naturally works in tandem with regrowth.

 I really love to focus on the natural world and February sure is a time to see growth that comes after a good rest. Just look to the ground and see the snowdrops and daffodils shooting up. It is quite unbelievable really. 1st January we think we need to completely overhaul our life. In the darkest and bleakest time of the year we are gearing ourselves up to be quite definitively the "best versions of ourselves", even though everything around is staying quiet, still, slowly working up to reach the fresh air. I couldn't do it this year. I couldn't release to the world some short sighted idea to make me a "better person". No. Instead I made a choice. I made a choice to DO, as I have for some years, to support my own idea that if I want to live well and long enough to see the kids grow up. I keep being fit, I keep not drinking, I keep learning to laugh at myself, I keep pushing myself to face my fears, I keep building myself up from my brokenness. It doesn't stop, it doesn't end, it is ongoing, just like the natural world, like the daffodils and snowdrops that grow in the same place every year.

The New Year is always a daunting time, Did I do enough? Did I waste my time? Did I achieve? The New Year should be a reminder that time passes (more quickly than we realise) and instead of making ourselves become perfect to live a perfect life, we need to take control of our time and use it to fuel us in an entirely different way. 

Pushing myself to keep walking daily, to jump higher in my Zumba classes, to get in cold water more, to eat more greens. These aren't just for this month, the next six months, for this year; this is to make me stronger far beyond now, to help me get to a place where health and life work in unison, where my body keeps moving and my mind keeps growing and where I can be comfortable with my thoughts and the noise and feel strong enough for the tidal waves as they come.