"Happy" New Year...

It seems the fates have conspired to grant me a somewhat quiet New Years Eve, but maybe after the last year stopping to take a breath might not be such a bad thing!

This time last year, I was gearing up to publish some new titles in the Spring, Hedge Witchery Books had continued to tick along nicely and I just hood-winked Ricky into doing some work with me to help me keep up with the admin side of things. As far as my psychic readings went I was doing pretty well, though having a few moral dilemmas over some of the commercial aspects of it. I had also arranged to teach a few courses and workshops, some of you will know this is something I always said I wouldn't do. Not because I didn't want to, but because I doubted my public speaking issues would allow it.

Outside of my working life things had been chaotic but had calmed down. We had just been moved into a new flat as a bit of an emergency following a run it with the worlds sh*ttyist landlord., it wasn't perfect... but it felt like home for the time being.

So The kids were great and enjoying home schooling, we had a new home, everything all in all was going pretty well.

So on this day 12 months ago, I was looking forward and planning on a course of action for decorating my flat, getting stuck into planning more events, and generally being pretty happy with life, and I was happy. The few years prior had been fairly cr*p, not all the time, but it did often feel like brief periods of rest bite between disasters. However, thanks to a mix of terminal optimism, coffee, good friends and some carefully selected medication, I had achieved "happy".

Sometimes... f*ck it - Most of the time "Happy" is an achievement. You have to decide that's what you want to be, and go looking for it. Sometimes it means walking away from a steady job and risking rack-and-ruin working for yourself. Sometimes it means having faith in something despite all logic and reason. Sometimes it means emotionally walking off a cliff, falling to your death, then picking yourself up and saying "right lets try that again shall we!"

But here's the wonderful part... the part I discovered this year. Once you get that first spark of "Happy" it starts to spread, infecting your life with little flames of contentment without you really realising it.

Over the past 12 months my life has been awesome... there have been a few glitches and challenges... but they all seem to land us in a better place than we were before. I started the year by hosting some workshops, my nerves didn't interrupt them too much and I went on to book a lot more. Gordon moved back to the UK in the Spring and we decided to meet-up as friends, trying to be all nonchalant and cool and all that bullsh*t... which lasted for all of... oh, about, 3 hours! And, so the little trail of flames grew.

So as I type this post, staring down the barrel of 2013. I am sat in our beautiful house, in a remote village in the Northumberland/Scottish borders, planning a kick-ass handfasting to a ridiculously lovable bushcraft instructor, I have an almost-publish-able second book and tarot deck, two very contented children and a 2013 diary full of "work" that will surround us with fantastic people in wonderful places, and, I would like to very sincerely wish you all a "Happy" New Year.

Life Sucks... I think...

Ok it's been a while since I posted anything other than articles, that said not a huge amount has happened. Everything's still going really well. I work for myself, I live by myself - (well apart from the kids), I don't have any major outside factors affecting my life, I rent so I have no major financial ties, and I can run my business from pretty much anywhere. I appreciate I'm in a very privileged position, one a lot of people with 9-5's, and the normal ties would envy. But... there's just this one little sods-law element to it all. It's only now that I can do anything I want... I suddenly realise:

I have NO IDEA what I want!

But here's the thing. Now I get to thinking about it, I'm not sure I ever have. In fact I think there's very few people that actually know what they want. We all fall into the same trap, we all know what we don't want, so we focus on getting away from those things. I've never thought of myself as a negative person, but it occurs to me this is exactly what I've been doing:

I didn't want to stay in a crappy marriage, I got divorced.

I didn't want to live in the city, I moved to the country(ish).

I didn't want a 9-5, I started working for myself.

And so it went on... but I've ran out of stuff I don't like. This should be great, I should be having some sort of party... but I'm not.

This got me thinking, wondering if everyone else is doing the same thing. I mean when was the last time you looked in the mirror and actually asked yourself what you want out of live. How many people just go through time reacting to circumstances based on what they don't want, and assume that what's left must be what they do want.

A here's the really scary part, what if there's stuff that over the years, for the sake of self preservation you've never even contemplated wanting. Stuff that you haven't allowed yourself to see as a possibility. Stuff you've even actively distanced yourself from, as an act of preserving a sense of acceptance of the life you find yourself in. Stuff that actually when you come to having that conversation with yourself in the mirror it turns out you really do want.

Do you:

a) think "you know what I've cut all the crap out of my life already, a lot of people don't get that, and when they do it's often later in life. I should give myself a slap, be damn thankful for it and stop looking for problems where there are none."

b) Have that difficult conversation with yourself and contemplate having to face up to the fact you may have been subconsciously lying to yourself. Go looking for what will make you happy but face the distinct possibility of finding a whole load more crap you'll have to cut out all over again.

Answers on a postcard guys... (or just comment...)