A feeling has been building in me over this past year, a new mood that has been changing the way I live, the way I move through each day. I remember it began about this time last year and now it is resurfacing again with a fierceness that is moving me deeply and at times leaving me at a loss for words.

Every year, sometime between christmas and new year, my sister and I and whoever else happens to be around and interested, sit down together and do some Big Dreaming together. We write what my sister and I call ‘wish capsules’. Usually this involves reflecting on the lessons learned, the personal self-change and the goals achieved over the past year, then thinking about what we might like to create for the year to come.

This year, when I began this process, I found myself simply wanting to choose some words which would sum up my intent and values for the year past and then find some new ones for the year to come. My words for 2013 were simplicity, freedom and humility. I started the year with a bucket-load of regret over a failed project. I had put my faith in someone, hoping they would come through for me and they didn’t, blowing the costs of the project out by mammoth proportions, with nothing viable to show for three years of hard work.

I cried bitter tears for weeks. I would never have thought bitter tears could be cleansing, but they were. Nothing like a bit of pain to strip you bare and help you get real with yourself. I emerged feeling fragile, but determined to reclaim a voice lost to excessive politeness and a ridiculous need to please people. I had finally had enough.

But this transformation was about more than just reclaiming my honest voice. I’d had a gut full of the hype about ‘bigger and better’, with other people trying to make money out of me by encouraging me to push and strive. Just the thought of spending more money to make money was enough to turn my stomach and make me feel sick. I was well and truly cured.

From that moment forth, I started falling in love with less. If it isn’t simple, I’m not interested. If it isn’t humble and small, I’m probably not interested either. I’m in love with down-sizing. It’s not just about stripping things back to bare-basics, it’s about loving what I already have, and who I already am. How strange to think that I had already ‘arrived’, but couldn’t see it because people kept telling me I didn’t have enough (because they were trying to make money out of me or ‘ride my wave’.)

Now I love taking my time and doing things slowly.

I really, really love my life just the way it is. It’s perfect.

I already have all the freedom and money I could want.

So let me tell you universe, I’m not buying. You can send the slimy salespeople elsewhere. And I’m not going to make friends with people just because they want to be friends with me. That might sound rather unfriendly but it has occurred to me recently that there needs to be something in it for me, and I’ve noticed a few people taking advantage of me without giving much back.

I’m reclaiming my inner teenager, with all her glorious rebelliousness and stubborness. Last year was absolutely magical, in terms of clearing toxic shame. As a result, I am able to look back at my teenage self and see what a magnificent creature she was.

So. If you want me to do something and I don’t want to do it, I bloody well won’t. Nothing personal. I just really, really like doing things my way. I really like being me.

Blessed Be.

xxx