Hello 2015

I’ve been wanting to write.

Write a recap of 2014.

Write about our beautiful holidays.

Write about the new meditation courses and techniques I’ve been completing.

Write about the lessons I’ve learned and the ones I feel are set out for me.

But it’s school holidays. I’ve been busy. I have home opens to get ready for and renovations on the new place to complete.

I’ve also got out of the habit of bringing my laptop with me.

So times I’ve been inspired to write bu I have had to let the words in my head go, thinking they’ll be there when I need them, but they are gone.

This has also reminded me that inspiration strikes when you are least likely to be able to capture it so it’s not inspiration that keeps me writing.

It’s habit.

Dedication.

The everyday-ness of it.

I read an article over the break about cultivating who you want to be.

It wasn’t about resolutions or making plans and goals and working towards them.

It was about taking bite sized chunks of your dreams and making changes, one step at a time.

I took something quite small and set my task.

For the next 29 days I will drink only ONE coffee.

Easy peasy for some people but my consumption had crept up to three sometimes four a day (the average take-away cup has two shots in it so I was counting that as two).

I drink an expresso shot with a dash of cream so the problem with my coffee was that the whole experience was over within minutes.

I would make myself another but it was never the same.

I would start to get that dehydrated feeling or I would make it slightly different, or take-away cups would have disappointing taste – the point being that after the first cup it was never the same.

The thing I hadn’t noticed – until the break over Christmas –  is that it ramped up my nervous system.

This is fine when you are go go go and have a million things to do but sitting down with a magazine for five minutes was too hard for me over the break.

I started feeling anxious. What should I be doing? Why couldn’t I relax? I tried to force it by meditating but that made my anxiety worse – I could feel my heart fluttering and that feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach – but nothing was wrong.

I think that a lot of us get this way.

I’ve spoken to people who can’t read a book anymore. Who can’t sit down and focus on anything that is supposed to be relaxing as it stimulates a stress response.

For me, I think that stressed feeling was part of my everyday in 2014 and I hadn’t noticed it until I consciously tried to relax.

Anxiety, worry, stress – it’s not really me. I’m usually chilled and calm in most situations. So seeing myself so anxious stressed me out!

And it made me think about our love of being busy.

I compete with my husband about who is busier – who has more to deal with.

I speak with the Mums at school and we talk about how busy we are.

I hurry my children out the door because we are busy, we are running late, we are going to miss the activity!!

In 2015 I’m done with busy.

Starting with the coffee I’m going to slowly but surely wean myself of the need to do.

Wean myself off the to do lists.

Wean myself off the hurry.

With the aim to be happier, MORE productive, less stressed.

Chilled.

But HOW?????

My very casual year-long plan is this:

• Buy less
• Give away things
• Declutter inboxes, the household and mind
• Schedule less
• Focus on one project at a time
• Cultivate good habits through 29 day commitments
• Meal Plan
• Take holidays
• Meditate once a day
• Regular yoga and exercise
• Slow down
• Take some breaths
• Know that everything is as it should be

How did we get here? We want to do to many things quickly, multi-tasking, scheduling back to back and we’ve lost the fun. We’ve lost the anticipation and excitement of going somewhere because its a stress to make it there.

Have you ever felt like this?

I’m stopping it now.

Hello 2015.

I see you being calm, adventurous, blissful and exhilarating.

xx