Fundamentals

Whilst I do have intentions around better eating, better sleeping and more exercise, those are not the most important ones. I have realised that underpinning my sense of wellbeing is a resolve not to let other people’s opinions have any power over me. This can be difficult when we are talking about people close to us, with whom we may have shared history, or familial ties. This year though, is the year that I wipe this slate clean.

I have held some skewed ideas about relationships with my family (and I do mean the one I was born into, not the one made of chosen friends). I really did make huge efforts to see all of us as different but equally wonderful expressions of life. It turned out though, that they did not hold the same regard for me. My acceptance of this has been slow and reluctant. I did not want to believe it. But time after time, the comments, the jibes, they continued to come in my direction. Disguised as ‘harmless’ jokes, I was often declared to be making things difficult if I dared to question or to challenge. Sometimes they were blatant remarks, or conversations that obviously implied something negative or demeaning. I adopted a tactic of silence. I was always shocked by the meanness, and usually taken by surprise. I knew I would have to fight a lot of voices at once, and so I retreated, retracted back into myself. But not anymore.

I now know that to fully forge ahead, with all my power, requires the complete dismantling of any out-dated beliefs and the removal of anything negative in my world. I have felt it clinging, creating disharmony in my mind and in my life. I would even say it has been, at times, debilitating. I am no longer able or willing to carry around false ideas (how heavy they are), and nor do I wish to expend any energy feeding superficial relationships. There isn’t time. I want truth, authenticity, deep and interesting conversations and connections.

The way to resolve this, I have come to understand, is to know my own value. To really feel it in my bones, my blood. To wake up feeling clear and happy for the day ahead. To really know and understand that I am intelligent, capable, creative and fun to be with. To trust that knowing and be confident in it. My resolve is to create, day-by-day and piece-by-piece, an unshakeable platform on which to build this new year, this new me, and this new chapter of my life.

To do this will require concerted effort: I am talking about re-learning a way of being. An about-face from the survival and self-protective techniques of the past. I must shore up and tend to the health and clarity of my mind and emotions. A good starting point, I’ve decided, is to celebrate. Yes, celebrate. All of my achievements, all of the obstacles I’ve overcome, all of the things that no-one thought I could do but I did anyway. All those things that I wasn’t ‘supposed’ to do, simply because in my clan it hadn’t been done before - or not in my particular way at least.

So, I will be my own cheerleader. I will take charge of patting myself on the back, and giving myself credit. And on those days when I don’t feel up to thinking of the big things, I will focus on the small ones. If there are days (and no doubt there will be) when accomplishing anything seems impossible, I will congratulate myself for doing the washing up, or the laundry, or keeping my space in some sort of order. I can do it, I know I can. I can rebuild myself, apart from the old stories, and away from the judgements and put-downs. I will learn to re-tell the story of myself. Perhaps this will assist me in becoming better able to speak up in the moment as well. My first aim, however, is to pull back all those parts of myself, of my soul, that I have extended to others. Those parts that were not treated as kindly, as delicately, as beautifully or as lovingly as they deserved.

My fresh start is a celebration of my uniqueness. The creation of a clean slate from which all future choices and actions can be born, in the knowledge that I am a person of worth, with much to contribute. I wish to move forward with every ounce of my energy available to focus on whatever adventures and challenges come next. It is a no-holds-barred gathering-up of my life force, so that it may burst out of me with its sheer brilliance. I plan to surprise even myself.