So here it is my bucket list for 2017! It needs some work as the ideas I have been having are stored only in my mind and I am sure theres a few more tucked away in there which will come to the surface in the coming weeks however I will start here

• Start saying "Yes" more often, to things I would normally say "no" to. Invite more adventure into my life (feel the fear and do it anyway)
• Start saying "No" more to the things that I really don't want to do but I do to please others. Simply put stop the people pleasing behaviours and being a door mat.
• Get in the water more and practice being comfortable in my bathing suit. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.
• Consistently get up earlier (5.30am everyday) to walk my dog and spend some time with my husband
• Drink less alcohol, I know its not good for me. Practice moderation and self control.
• Be grateful for one thing everyday and make that my mantra for the day.
• Start meditating again. I know how good I feel when I allow myself 10 minutes a day to meditate.
• Grow stuff. I have always wanted to know what it would be like to be able to grow food and be semi sustainable. This year despite all my critics I am going to have a go at it, even on a small scale (and I am going to give it the love and attention it deserves)
• Increase my volunteer work. Look at other options of how I can give to others.
• Practice using more positive language and affirming to myself that I am worthy and wonderful
• Spend more time with my kids (quality time) and forget about the washing, cleaning and general house duties that can wait .
• Reconnect with friends that I have neglected over the past 2 years.
• Learn how to be more thrifty and resourceful. Up till now money could buy anything, now I have no money coming in, I will need to tighten the purse strings and use my imagination and problem solving skills
• Stop worrying about everything! Much less stress and anxiety this year. Practice the art of being calm and strengthening my emotional disposition.

So there it is, just a start. Ambitious? You bet. But anything is possible. I will be sharing the steps along the way about how I am flexing my muscle and putting these things into practice. I am excited, cant wait for story to begin!!!

So 2017 is going to be my year! that is the choice I have made.
At the stroke of midnight on the 31st December 2016 I will bid farewell to the year that was, and hello to a fresh start.  Opportunities still unwritten, the chance to change the course of my future and to start to claw my way back to emotional, psychological, spiritual and physical wellbeing.


2 weeks ago I decided to quit my job, actually I was never employed but self employed, trying to work my way through the pitfalls of small business. I had been working on my endeavour for 3 years with minimal to show except a broken spirit and empty bank balance.
With the prospect of facing the same grim future without some intervention I made the very scary decision to walk away.
I'm not sure how I got here, it was a gradual recognition of something unsettling. I have always been a motivated, enthusiastic person, with a love of life and people but I started noticing that I was losing my mojo. It became harder to find the joy in everyday things, where I used to be passionate I felt flat, where I used to love being around others, I started retreating into my own space. Where there was once compassion it was replaced with resentment. I was angry with the world, with my husband with my children, with myself basically I was throwing my discontentment around at any unlucky target and it was starting to deeply effect me.
I had this sense of helplessness which then became hopelessness and that's when it hit me, something needed to change because while ever I kept going through the motions, hoping and wishing for things to be different I was going to be stuck in this perpetual rollercoaster of ups and downs that threatened to destroy the relationships with all the people I loved including the relationship I had with myself.
My final straw moment came one evening as we all sat down at the dinner table to eat as a family when once I again I found myself hovering over my meal, tears flooding my dinner plate. Silently weeping to myself so not to disturb or alarm my kids. I eventually excused myself to go and lay on my bed when my 7 year old son came in with his favourite teddy wrapped in Christmas wrapping paper with a hand written note (barely legible) saying " I don't want you to be sad anymore mummy"
I realised at this point that my actions or lack of action was starting to affect everyone, that's when I made the decision to shake things up.
I had tried to take action in the past, but eventually talked myself out of it, the inner voice of wisdom saying things like " but you have to have a back up plan" "we cant survive on one income" "what will you do or be if you aren't your career? "try a different approach maybe that will work" but low and behold walking the same path I discovered the view never changed much.
The first time I stated my intentions out loud was quite surreal, it was as though now I had given the decision a voice, it was very real and it gave me the confidence to start to see my life beyond what I did for a living. I found that being consumed by all my fears around change, I had become very fixated on convincing myself why I felt things need to stay the same. It seems that its not until you are on the outside looking in that you realise its not really that scary at all.

So I am free, as free as a bird and while I am definitely still working through some anxiety around the uncertainty, I do know that I have an opportunity to create the tomorrow that I have so desperately been dreaming of. For now that exists only in my mind but 2017 will see some of my dreams come to life, fearlessly living the life I have always wanted.
I strongly believe that we all have a choice and we can choose to stay locked in circumstances that we don't like or we can take responsibility for life, for our own experiences and make a choice to act differently, think different thoughts, take on a different perspective, move in a different direction. Next year is going to test my convictions but I know I am ready for the challenge, ready to experience life through a different filter.
It is my hope that if you are reading this, you are ready to take the journey with me, this blog will be the diary of that journey and it will be the recovery of the me that got lost somewhere along the way, even better than that it will be the discovery of the best version of the most authentic me.