It's the New Year. This is about the time people will sit down, stare at their diaries and wonder what it is they are going to achieve over the following 12 months.
I contemplated doing that but, rather than think forward over the coming year, I thought backward to previous years. How have I felt over the years? Yes, I've had a ton of fun. Yes, I've been busy. Yes, other things have been done. But how have I actually felt?
Well, I shall tell you. I have felt like a bully.
Yep, you read right. I have looked back carefully over the last so-many years and I have realised that I've been self-bullying so much that it's pretty much become the norm. All the times I've looked in the mirror then done that little turn, checked out my ass and sneered. On the very few occasions I have put on make-up and dressed up for a special event, done a pretty darn good job but still scowled at my extra chins. Need I go on?
But, as well as feeling like a bully, I feel the exhaustion of someone who has been bullied every day for the past so-many years. I have taken the abuse of that inner voice for so long that, again, it's become the norm. Going out when you're mentally defeated is kind of arduous. It almost feels like you're not being the friendly, nice person you actually are but rather the casualty of a severe mental dressing down. The walking-wounded following a massive mental beating.
So, this year will be the Year of the Change. Yes, there will still be a monthly Challenge, but I am also setting up a yearly Challenge. And this year will be the year I am mentally kind to myself. This is the year that I will remember how much I love to help people, how kind and generous I am, how much I love to see people smiling and laughing. And this'll be the year I apply all of the above to myself. I will love to help myself; I will be kind and generous to myself; and I will go out of my way to have fun to make myself smile and laugh.
Because this year is the year I realised I deserve it.
So check in soon to see what the next Change will be. But even before that, make the executive decision to look after Number One - Yourself. Because You deserve it.
Until the next post, Big Love xx