Sun flower

So it is December...the third Christmas without Gary bursting in the door on Christmas Eve sweeping me up with a come-hither look saying ‘Baby its holiday time…what can I do?  

Holidays are so good and essential for connecting with your significant others.

I am making Christmas dinner this year at my house as I have done for so many years in the past except for the last two.  I am looking forward to connecting with my family and cooking for them. I have yet to put the tree up but hopefully with the return of a girl home this weekend it will happen.

 I am also slightly restless, I have just finished my dissertation, which was a mammoth piece of writing and self-therapy.  Today I am flat fish because of the finishing and letting go. This year has been challenging to get through study wise… I truly didn’t think I would be sitting here saying I am finished for the year and I completed it

I now know the value of doing your own work and it is critical to do this, if you wish to live a whole-hearted life.  This doesn’t necessarily mean that life gets any less painful, but it does mean that you get to make mistakes, own them and walk in your own integrity.

This coming year for me holds decisions on where to live next, as I will be selling the house.  What work to do and where?  I start my clinical year in Arts therapy and need to work as an Arts therapist.  I have a few ideas and plans of my own…but they will be self generated and self starting so take energy…here’s hoping I can fill my tank in this brief summer on offer.

Something I am thinking about yet again is the gratitude list which I have started and stopped so many times…I am thinking each day until Christmas I shall look for something of beauty to take a picture of and acknowledge at least one thing I am grateful for and why and post up on face book (of course).  One thing I have liked since the media spotlight on the Paris bombings is the human spirit of resilience that has shone through in creating a counter balance to fearful living. 

I would like to send this challenge out to anyone who reads this and wants to join in…not sure how to connect all the dots with this so we can all see each others offerings...if anyone has any bright ideas? Feel free…maybe we all just stick to adding onto the same post?

The only way to effect change is through ourselves.  The answers are never found in someone else or from the outside, they come from within and by seeking and looking deeper into who we are.  Not in a narcissistic way but in a explorative and honouring way, acknowledging and getting to know ourselves in our entirety and accepting all parts including our shadow.

Stephanie Dowrick when discussing about the beginnings of self says that the self-love aspect of narcissism in childhood is a necessary part of development, and that this is the essential component we need to carry through into adulthood.  Self-love that, is really seeing all of who we are and accepting it, it’s a hard ask at times when we stuff up, but worth working on.

I have days or moments in the day when I know this and the next day I might be tired (or hung-over), at these times, this feeling absents itself, I am learning to recognize these moments too.   Another piece of wisdom this time from Nietzsche which has held me through darker days is  ‘When we are tired, we are undone by things we conquered long ago’.

This year has gone whizz bang…lots of processing growing and learning.  My two girls are home for a week or so around Christmas (lucky me). Lots of gardening to do and organizing for next year…and painting..this one is nearly finished..

Happy holidays and summer to all you beautiful folk who are in my life or passing through..xx