SO-LONG-2015Here we are. The review of the year post.

And ohmigosh am I glad 2015 is over. For me, it was a weird one filled with both intense highs and devestating, soul-breaking lows. I’m soooo glad it’s over. It’s hard to fully appreciate all the great stuff when you keenly remember the horrible moments.

On the wonderful side, in 2015 I learnt how to scuba dive. I went swimming in a coral reef for the first time (and now I pretty much just want to live on a coral reef full time, I miss it so much!). This year I got super courageous and I taught my first hosted bellydance workshop (a dream of mine for the last 7 years!), I performed with a LOT of sharks, and I launched my first Mermaid Experience e-course. I went to Paris, to Dublin, to Thailand. And, the pièce de résistance, all my many of passions and businesses finally came together in a way that actually made money. As in, no-overdraft, finally-able-to-upgrade-my-computer-and-eat-whatever-sandwiches-I-want money.

However, in 2015 I walked away from another huge dream that wasn’t at all what I expected it to be, and that hurt SO much. I spent a lot of the year wanting to hide from spirituality and not talking to God. I punished myself with so much work and guilt and shame that I sent myself into a mini nervous breakdown over the summer, lashed out at everyone like a cornered animal and spent almost a month unable to do anything but shakily burst into tears.

So it’s been a real rollercoaster year.

If that rollercoaster was a really shitty unsafe feeling one, with occasional lovely views of the sea.

As with all shitty experiences, I learnt a lot . You gotta get something useful out of shitty times. I learnt a lot about myself. I learnt that I do have a bit of an explosive Aries temper (sorry Erin, Kathy, Felix!) and I think that years of trying to deny and rationale away all the anger that I felt meant I never really saw it before. I saw that I have concrete and stubborn patterns of punishing myself for not being good enough (I am the Overlord of the Imposter Syndrome) and that punishing yourself by not letting yourself have any time off is really. really. stupid. and ends in woe. Newsflash – being miserable does not make your life work!

I profoundly saw and understood that who I think I am today is completely moulded by what my family told me about myself when I was a kid – that I am lazy, that I will end up as an artist without any real money, that I am not good at maths, that my achivements are not anything special. It’s so weird how you can have really loving, kind parents who think the world of you yet they STILL mess you up in some way. Mums and Dads aren’t perfect.

I also saw that underneath all the worries and crappy patterns is a bold-ass Gryffindor soul who is brave enough to stick it to The Man and make an actual living doing whatever artistic weird shit she wants. I’m pretty proud of me actually.

I have been overmedicating with self punishment for a long time, and I am just really burnt out from it. I’ve spent such a long time punishing myself for not being a good enough businesswoman, a good enough dancer, a good enough spiritual person, for not being committed enough or passionate enough or WHATEVER. I’m realising that there isn’t really anything I can do or achieve that the Punishment Monster would be satisfied with. “So you spent a week swimming in an aquarium in Dubai with a twelve minute breathold in a diamond-encrusted mermaid tail for a meeliion beelion pounds and everyone says they loved you and want you back? I’m pretty sure you did a shitty job and they just aren’t telling you. For shame! Work MORE!”

Can’t reason with Punishment Monster, he makes no sense.

So for 2016, I’m making FUN my ultimate priority. I’m trying to find the fun ways to do all the stuff, and not do the stuff that isn’t fun. Create boundaries. Have time off. Have hobbies (GASP!!!) and learn how to play Stairway to Heaven on the Ukulele. Be brave and do the scary things, even if it means doing them really badly. Stop being such a hermit and get out of the house and talk to people. Be More Mermaid, ignore Punishment Monster.

I’m so excited about 2016 because I KNOW it’s going to be amazing. I feel like I’ve finally given myself permission to actually do the things I want to do, finally, without second-guessing myself all the time. I feel like I am getting more courageous and shameless, and that can only be a good thing.