Reflections on 2024

As 2024 draws to a close, I find myself entertaining what has become my favourite time of year, where the magic and joy of childhood Christmas’s now experiences a renaissance through the wondering eyes of my young children, and, as is my annual ritual, to use this closing of the circle of the year as a time to reflect on what has been, before preparing to invite the next new turning of the wheel

Certainly, it has been a challenging year:

A family member is finally in recovery from throat cancer, which, earlier in the year forced him to brave a difficult surgery, and the resulting embrace of a very different way of life, following a full laryngectomy. Learning to communicate and support him, when he cannot yet speak, is difficult, and every member of my family has risen to the challenge and shown their true love and support in beautiful ways that make me feel so proud.

I have battled with wanting, with all of my heart, to give him so much more, and with my commitments as a mother and business owner; the challenge of my reality, I have found my situation difficult to accept. I realise just how much I took the time I had in years gone by for granted; so precious time is.

I wonder, when we want to give more than we can, how are we to make our peace with our reality?

My old friend acceptance returns to my mind because in reality we can only give what we can give, even when we want to give so much more. For me this touches a deep sadness; I just feel so sad for what he has been through and is going through and perhaps my wanting to give more is to help appease this sadness, but the truth is, I cannot heal him, what I can do is support his healing, through patient listening, attending to some of his needs and helping to ease some fears, and finally and thankfully making him nutritious meals, now that three months post-surgery and living through a feeding tube has led to the all-clear to begin eating food again, and looking forward to enjoying his Christmas dinner!

We have to connect with the deepest truth about how we feel, so that we can attend to this, and then, in the clear light of our reality, embrace what is and give the love we can give.

When I then think of the other challenges of 2024, with not enough time, not enough sleep, and for a time, earlier in the year, not enough resources, in the greater scheme of things, sure it is hard to struggle with these life challenges, sometimes hard to the point of overwhelm and breaking point, but none were a threat to life, and all can be solved.

I made my choice to be a single mother. I made my choice to breast-feed my boys for as long as I have. I made my choice not to sleep train them but allow a natural process to unfold. I made my choice to have them at home, with a lovely nanny and my mother helping when I work, to give them a strong sense of connection, care, security and love, instead of sending them away to nursery. I made my choice to propel my career towards my next big and exciting goal post; to spend more time writing, amidst these challenges. I made choice about how I use my precious time. I made my choices to support my family member through his treatment in the way I could. . I made my choices, and because I made every single one of them in the name of love, I accept the consequences.

I could have made other choices, perhaps ‘safer’ choices, but as a creative spirit, I must create and soar, and as an advocate for honouring the values of the heart, I choose to walk this path, whatever it brings.

I am okay with my choices and I embrace ‘difficulty’ and ‘challenge’ over the easier paths I used to seek, in the name of ‘safety’ and ‘security’, and I do this because I believe in myself and my dreams; this is the power of choosing love.

The truth is, I’ve been daring in the past and often landed in deep water I might add, but I always learn to swim in wilder waters, and I grow, I become…a coaching psychologist, a business owner, a mother, and a stronger and more confident woman better able to be with myself and the challenges and pains those around me experience and endure; I become stronger in heart and mind. The daring acts of 2024 have led me to become a published author, a dream ignited twenty years ago and now finally awakening in the dawn of my new crafted reality, birthing my greater passionate purpose.

We have to be greatly daring to grow greatly.

2024 has forced me to embrace what it means to be a mother, in terms of what I must keep letting go of, and the boundaries I must place and uphold to be a good mother, knowing that some people are really not going to like them, but my role is not to be liked first, it is to love my children the way they need me to love them. Being clear in my mind about this, helps keep me strong when the situation requires my truth to be spoken or actioned.

2024 has also taken me to the edge of breaking many times, due to severe sleep deprivation, and this is not sustainable. There is a time to push and there is a time to rest, and there is a time when it really seems as thought you have no choice. Thankfully, the nature of the wheel is to turn; time passes, and situations change. On reflection, I could have given some more time to rest had I placed faith over fear; this is my deeper truth.

When I own my choices, I must accept their consequences. Yes, my emotional balance has been challenged, my focus and attention skills weakened, my presence distracted, and my memory frazzled, but these are consequences of striving to be with my children as much as I can, supporting my family member as much as I can, and keeping my business afloat in this difficult time, as well as the day to day reality of raising young children. Gratefully, all of the consequences are temporary: I shall reclaim my sleep, which will re-balance mind, body and emotion regulation; the consequences shall be resolved, while the awakened dream lives on.

I am now taking three weeks off to be with my boys, sleep, rest, and move at a slow and ‘go with the flow’ place, so that I emerge in the dawn of 2025 in the state of being that I want to uphold going forward, with a new weekly schedule that is designed around this intention and calmer core. I feel in tune with my truth and dedicated to honouring it.

Writing this has been an illuminating experience, because now I realise the sacrifices had to occur, the consequences were inevitable based on where I was at, and while I do not like how I have been at certain times, due to sheer exhaustion, I can forgive myself, because I choose love, and now I can re-design my time and my life, so that sleep and balance move higher in priority, because now they have to and I shall train my brain to get better at placing faith over fear because certainly I know how to.

I feel gratitude for the time I have with my boys, for my loved-ones on-going recovery, and for my own bravery, now that I can dance in the new currents of my dreams, and bring my next writing project to life, which will certainly require a greater amount of daring!. I realise that my daring will become another strength that I can offer my boys. I feel stronger for being brave, and this is before I have any idea of the outcome;

We are brave before we are successful and we grow in strength regardless of the outcome.

Peace is one of my priority core values, and peace must now be restored in my home and my soul, to ensure the sustainability of my dream, and in honour of the mother I choose to grow into. I realise I set myself unrealistic expectations based on the person I was before I was a mother, when being a mother changes everything. But you cannot plan for it, you have no idea what it means until you are drowning in laundry, hair dishevelled, to do list only extending, often with jam fingers embossed, the glistening interior design hidden below books, toys and random pieces of torn paper, the ironing a tale of history alongside what was a social life, and time, time is not as I knew it, and this is with a cleaner and two beautiful amazing people helping me with my boys! And so, on reflection, and from a mind in love, I embrace the chaos, the new, the change and the challenge, and I forgive myself, again and again and again for all the times I failed to live up to how I wanted to be. I set unrealistic expectations for myself; I set myself up to fail and I forgive, and now I am in a position to reset the compass in the direction of success where this truly matters most now.

To be the mother I choose to be, I must do less, prioritise better, let go of unimportant things, better boundary some areas and get stronger at holding faith over fear, sleep more and replace tick box dopamine boosts with the feeling of pride in becoming a calmer me, for all this will empower me to better give.. What I realise is that I need to design 2025 from a baseline of peace and calm, and whatever I need to do to attain this, because everything else that natters in my personal life and my career, now that I have come this far, I know what I must do and I know I can do it, and when fear or doubt challenge this truth, I will employ faith over fear, holding this as the motto for my new year.