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After last year's extreme peri-menopausal turbulence, 2023 feels a lot better. I'm ending the year feeling relatively balanced at least some of the time, pretty happy with myself and where I'm at, and looking forward to the new year. It wasn't a particularly productive year, and there are so many things I didn't do or achieve. But somehow it doesn't matter as much as it used to. If peri-menopause has taught me anything, it's to be kind to myself. This was a really hard lesson to take on because I'd always been really hard on myself, but I did it. Or rather, I'm doing it, because this one isn't a one-off, it's a constant commitment to treating myself with compassion and talking to myself nicely. And since I still don't feel well a lot of the time, I get plenty of opportunities to practice!
Anyway, here are some things that were important in my life this year - I hope you enjoy the glimpse into my world!
- I started the year with a day of pure indulgence - I allowed myself to try a new form of HRT to see if it helped (it did!), I watched Buffy during the day with my family, and I tried to fit in as many lovely things as I could. In Poland, we say that what you do on New Year's Day influences the rest of the year, and now looking back I think this is true, as my year was definitely characterised by choosing for what's right for ME, and valuing my preferences a lot more.
- Got into tarot in a big way - I've been doing my friend Sinead's awesome course and using tarot has become a huge part of my life and my work. I now consider myself a lifetime student, and there's definitely a lifetime of tarot things to learn!
- Bought a loooooooot of new tarot dekcs. And oracle decks. And books about using tarot and oracle decks. Lol. I have a blog post with my old favorites here, but definitely need to update it with some of the new ones I've discovered!
- Read 20 books - it's actually been a really bad reading year for me, I guess I was busy doing other things. Plus I found it really hard to focus so reading was a bit of a slog. I seem to have started a lot of books but didn't finish them... I still want to finish them though, so maybe next year's reading numbers will be inflated! Looking through my list showed that I only finished a couple of non-fiction books all year, and none of the tarot ones I bought. Oops! Anyway, these were my favorite reads of the year:
📕 The Very Secret Society of Irregular Witches by Sangu Mandanna - a super cozy mystery with some very loveable characters and an interesting story. I read a lot in this genre and nothing else comes close to this one!
📕 The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel - I recommended this to everyone I knew for months after I read this. It's the book I wish I'd read in my early twenties. The book I think everyone should read. Seriously, go get yourself a copy.
📕 Lessons in Chemistry by Bonnie Garmus - has everyone read this yet? It's got to be one of the best books of the year. And the Apple series is fantastic too!
📕 See You Yesterday by Rachel Lynn Solomon - young adult fiction with quantum physics, a time warp, and more. I definitely need to read more by this author in 2024! - Created 5 new courses - this seems like a lot for someone who considers this to be a not-very-productive year!
- The Magic of Liminal Spaces for when you feel like you're in that in-between state, and could use some help navigating it
- The Great Big Identity Shift for when you're shifting into a new identity
- Mystic Marketer for when you want to use oracle cards to help you get to know your ideal client
- Realign, Rekindle, Reconnect for when you need to get back on track towards your dreams after a break of some kind
- Converse with the Universe for when you want to get better at recgonizing signs from Spirit and using them to help you create more of what you want
(this brings my course total to 18 and they're all included in Elevator here) - Got our kitchen renovated!!! It's SO gorgeous.
- We also got about half of the rooms in our house painted - it's crazy what a difference a coat of paint makes! We chose, bold and bright colors and they work really well and make me so happy. My office ceiling is now a dark purple, which is quite dark, and I need to get some fairy lights to brighten it up 🙂
- Cancelled going to all 3 live events I'd booked for the year... the first one because I wasn't feeling well enough, the second because I decided I didn't want to go, and the third was cancelled altogether so it wasn't my decision. It's so weird to have started the year looking forward to all these in-person things, and ending the year with none of them having happened!
- Really enjoyed our trip to Brussels over the summer. When we moved away two years ago I didn't think I'd ever want to go back, so I was really pleasantly surprised at how great it was to see the city and loads of friends again. I don't really have a place I'm from because I grew up all over the world, but Brussels is where I spent all of my adult life until now, and going back felt like going home for a visit.
- Started taking blood pressure medication - this is significant only because of the stories I told myself around it, especially that it makes me a failure. You can hear my story in this podcast episode: The Shame of a Manifesting Failure
- I took a poetry class! I thought it would be a poetry READING class, but it was also a poetry WRITING class. Although not what I expected, I thoroughly enjoyed it. It was run by my friend Kitty, and you can find out more here if you want a creativity boost in the new year.
- Shifted a looooooot of old emotional stuff, from an abusive relationship, birth family drama and other damaging things my psyche picked up along the way. This has made a HUGE difference to my wellbeing and how I feel about myself, which in turn has made a HUGE difference in everything else. If you have complex traumatic emotional stuff you need to shift, I highly recommend my friend Cara. I couldn't have shifted mine without her expertise and support.
- Rediscovered playing Guitar Hero on our very old PS2 - this became a great activity for my 13yo son and me. As I'm always looking for things to do together, you can imagine how happy having something like this made me.
- We also built a lot of lego together - I took to buying sets that we'd both enjoy, like the Friends apartments. It's been a really fun joint hobby!
- Grew my business back to pre-move and pre-perimenopause-disruption levels. Yay!
- Made some excellent new friends.
- Reconnected with an old friend from high school in Seoul, who happens to live 10 minutes away from me!
- Hosted several Brussels friends here in Galway - it was really great to share our love of this part of the world with them!
- I joined a gym again, and have been going with a friend 3x a week. I'd never gone with anyone before, and it makes SUCH a difference, the time FLIES when you're chatting!!
- Delivered a looooot of 2024 readings - I feel so honored to have people come back for these year after year, and buy them as gifts for others too.
- Took part in a month-long blogging challenge, which resulted in 31 new blog posts! This makes 2023 my most prolific blogging year yet, and I'm excited to continue writing in 2024.
- Re-committed to my podcast, but then had to step back again for health reasons... will 2024 be my year for podcasting, finally?
- Got to interview the awesome Leonie Dawson for a second time, plus some other great people and there's more already recorded. Make sure you subscribe to The SoulSmart Podcast in whatever app you use!
- Saw The Lion King in Dublin - I've been wanting to go since my son was small and we finally made it. He thought he was too old for it now, but ended up loving it.
- We also saw Buffy Revamped, which is the whole series told in one evening from the perspective of Spike. It was so cool to be in a room full of Buffy fans, and even cooler to share the evening with my husband and son. Buffy fans unite!!!
- Ooh, and we saw a band called Heilung, and got to hang out in the backstage of one of Dublin's main theatres after (they're friends of my husband). Super cool experience too.
- AND I saw two local productions - Rent and Kinky Boots. Both were amateur in theory but fantastic enough to compare to professional. We're so lucky to have access to all this amazing theatre!
- Registered for Irish taxes so I'm now all set up legally!
- Saw my husband's band SeeD at the Faery Festival in Cornwall - they were awesome and I can't wait to see them play again next summer!
- Started online tap dancing classes - super fun!
- Learned the basics of astrology - man is it complicated, even the basics made my head hurt!
- Watched my son become the regional discus champion 🏆
- Decided to include all of my courses in The Elevator program (have a look, it's a really good deal!)
- Started bullet journalling again, and finally perfected a system that works for me.
- Got not one but TWO care bears! I've been wanting them forever - I bought one myself and got the other as a birthday present.
- Decided that it's totally ok that there were more things I didn't do than things I did do... I enjoyed my year as best I could, and that's what matters most to me!
That's a wrap for 2023 - hope yours was good and that you have an even better 2024!
Lots of love,
