We are halfway through the year.  Six months have passed that quite frankly I cannot wait to forget.  It truly has been one of the hardest and most stressful times of my life – equal to battling anorexia and right up there with the very rocky patch my husband and I had a few years back.

It is summer (we even have a long-awaited-for heatwave!) and I always feel better in summer.  Vitamin D definitely plays a part in it, but also because for me summer sunshine represents joyful, playful, carefree days.  Something that I really haven’t been experiencing much over the first half of 2015.

As a result of everything that happened, I shut down.  Emotionally, mentally and energetically.  I literally survived each day, got through it because I had to and because I had no other choice.  Survive or die – that’s what it felt like.  I protected myself from the things I didn’t want to see or feel or know about. I deleted a lot of people off of Facebook, intentionally making my circle smaller.  I did less fun stuff because it didn’t feel right to be happy, stayed in more because I felt anxious in groups of people and only felt safe when I was at home, and neglected my work whilst at the same time craved activity and busy-ness and distraction so I didn’t have to focus on my thoughts or feelings.

I finally feel like I’m beginning to emerge.  I say ‘beginning’ because I still have days where I feel low, and sad, and I know that that’s ok and that they will probably continue for a long time.  Today is one of them, so I’m hoping that by writing this post I can start to shake off the quiet heaviness that I woke up with this morning.  But on the whole I’m able to see the joyful moments in our everyday ordinary (see any one of my #projecthappy posts for evidence of this) and I’m starting to be able to plan for the future a bit instead of feeling stuck – both in the past and now.

A week and a half ago, on Fathers Day, I wrote a post about the lessons I’d learnt from my Dad.  One of them was that it’s ok to change direction and I’ve been thinking a lot about this over recent weeks.

I kind of fell into doing Cognitive Hypnotherapy.  It wasn’t a life plan or goal or ambition to do this as a career – it’s not something I’ve wanted to do ever since I was a child.  And yet coincidences and synchronicities and universal life forces and chance and connections have made it easy for me to choose this path. And I love what I do.  I am inspired every single day by my clients.  And yet…

…I’m not sure that I want to do this forever.  It’s scary writing this.  I feel vulnerable.  But I’m learning that it’s ok to feel vulnerable too, so I’m sticking with it.

There are so many things I want to do other than therapy.  I love the coaching side of my work, so I definitely want to do more of that – helping people be the best versions of themselves and create the lives they want to have, rather than just working on helping them get rid of the stuff they don’t want in their lives any more.

Then there’s my photography.  I shoot every single day, and I feel most comfortable in myself, and most in flow (even when the shots I’m working towards don’t work out how I want them to!) when I’m behind my camera.  More and more opportunities are arising for me to shoot beyond the level of enthusiastic-amateur and while it’s tempting to let my head say “no” to them because I’m already too busy with other stuff, my heart says yes because I love doing it so much and I know that every opportunity I take advantage of I’m learning more and getting better at it.

The other thing I want to spend more time doing is writing – I love this blog and the more I immerse myself in the blogging community on Facebook and Instagram, the more I love what I experience.  I want to be a bigger part of that.

And those are just a couple of things that I have in my head that I want to explore as ways of creating the life I want. A happier Mummy equals happier children, so the more I do what I love, the more that will influence how I am at home with my girls.  At the moment I’m not being the Mummy I want to be and they are definitely feeling it.  Something needs to change and it starts with me.

I’ve come to realise that this work I’m doing right now (and all work, actually) is temporary.  But temporary doesn’t necessarily mean short term – it just means I’ll be continuing to do it for as long as I need to.  It could well be that I keep doing therapy alongside the other avenues that I’m beginning to explore even once they are more evolved.  I just don’t know yet.

I’ve never been very comfortable with not-knowing.  I like defined answers and certainty.  But I can’t always have them.  I don’t know whether I’ll still be doing therapy in 5 years time or even 1 years time.  Anything could happen, at any time, that could change the course of the path I’m currently choosing to walk along.  So what reasons could I possibly give myself for not exploring everything that takes my interest along the way?!

There are so many places I want to visit.  So many things I want to try.

I’m done with feeling safe.  I’m done with feeling stuck.

I could have said “no, the timing isn’t right” (my learning: trust the timing, whether it’s ‘right’ or not)

I could have said “no, we can’t afford it” (my learning: you can always find the money if you need it)

I could have said “no, I can’t get a babysitter” (my learning: there is always a way to make arrangements work)

Instead I’m saying yes to doing more of the things I want to do, yes to doing more of the things WE want to do as a family, yes giving my husband the space to do the things he wants to do, yes to letting my children explore the things they want to try.

Every year we create a ‘summer bucket list’ – a list of all the fun stuff we want to do over the summer holidays (we are counting down the days until we have seven weeks off together – just 2 and a half weeks to go!).  We do go to a lot of the same places each year – they have become traditions and family favourites.  And I also try and include two or three new places to explore or new adventures to experience each year.

I’m also working on restructuring my schedule in light of adding an extra morning at Harley Street every week.  I’m making sure I have days off.  Time spent unplugged.  And I’m consciously being more deliberate in my choices – making the choice to not clean the bathroom or to leave the washing up til later because my kids want to read to me, or show me a new song-and-dance routine they’ve made up, or have invited me to watch them do six different kinds of skipping, or bounce a tennis ball on a racket seventeen times in a row or blow bubbles with them in the garden or have just one last cuddle before bedtime…

The me that I have been over the last six months isn’t me.  I couldn’t see it at the time because I was too busy retreating into myself to keep myself safe.  Now, exposed in the sunshine, I can see the me that I want to be a little bit more clearly.  It’s going to take time and hard work to get there, and I’m pretty sure that it’s not going to be comfortable much of the time, but that’s ok.  It’ll be worth it.

Subtle shifts are happening as a result of the choices I’m making, and I’m looking forward to seeing where I end up.

Maybe you’ve been experiencing subtle shifts in your life recently – as a result of circumstances, or decisions you’ve made, or a learning you’ve taken from something you’ve experienced.  Subtle can still be powerful.  I’d love for you to share with me your subtle shifts and how they are having an impact on your life, so do leave a comment below if you’d like to do so.   And please feel free to share this blog with anyone you think might find it useful or interesting.

Thank you for reading 🙂