This year will be a year I remember as a significant rung in my journey’s ladder. A lot of heavy life challenges were presented to me and I was forced to handle the fuck out of them. I was forced to question, to heal old wounds. I allowed myself to cry, to feel intensely, to revisit therapy, to be strong, to rebuild, to set boundaries. At times earlier this year I have felt periods of darkness and complete hopelessness. Times where it has felt like everything was happening around me and no matter what I did everything would never be ok again. During these times I couldn’t imagine ever feeling a sense of light again, I fought through. I found the strength to warrior on but it all felt surface level, getting through each day was enough.
I decided to work from the inside and improve and I dove deeper in to I guess what could be referred to as a spiritual practice. Throughout my life I have found it so easy to to get overwhelmed by wanting to fix things which are just simply outside my control. Things such as disheartening world events or even just people you love who just don’t want to accept your help. Through reading ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People’ by Steven R Covey, I found something that suddenly clicked. Covey mentions about how everything in the world that you care about is your ‘Circle of Concern’ and that a lot of these things you won't be able to influence or resolve. But he goes on to explain that how within that circle is another, smaller circle called the ‘Circle of Influence’. This smaller circle is full of all the things that you DO have an influence over. Things such as making your child smile, developing healthy daily habits and spending time around people who make you feel sparkly. The more we work on things in our Circle of Influence, the larger it gets.
This mental adjustment has been huge for me. Now I am beginning to view my energy as a precious currency and only give it to things that won’t drain me so much. It’s only been a few months that I have been consciously doing this but the impact has been massive for me mentally. If I had to describe this process in one word it would be ‘surrender’. I’ve just been focusing on that smaller circle and surrendering the rest to the flow of life.
This year was challenging but somehow I managed to ground myself, birth a sunshine human and become a mother throughout all of this. Which makes me feel like I can tackle the world. It has been difficult but I am so proud of my self development. I know myself better and I feel in my power. I am a different person to the one that came in to 2019; more confident, more unapologetic, more accepting and so much stronger. I look forward to continuing to grow, to living the shit out of life and soaking up the magical motherhood that, quite suddenly it feels clear, is what these heavy life challenges were preparing me for.
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