Dear Passionate Creatives,
It’s the first time in years that I’m feeling a sense of calm about the New Year approaching. In the past I would be apprehensive. Eager to make sure I’ll be attending the right party, anxious about what the year has represented to me, nervous about what the following year will bring and how I’ll be approaching things differently. Particularly with regard to my decisions about life and the direction I’m taking. I struggled with the emotional upheaval and the lurching feeling I would get in my stomach while thinking how this would be the year I would change my ways, stop repeating old habits etc etc and then quickly resort to falling right back into them…
Shannon Fricke, hanging out with the locals – Lemnos, photo via Carla Coulson…
This year has been unlike any other. It has been a year of stepping into actioning change and changing the narrative of my life. No-one likes a story that’s on repeat. It’s tiring, boring and for the most part, it fails to allow the possibility of anything new entering your life. I made a conscious decision that the old story was not going to come along for the ride this year. It’s a stubborn pattern though and has challenged me on multiple occasions just to see how committed I am to making the change.
to the bouzouki players that helped make our night in Lemnos, photo via Carla Coulson…
This last week has been a time of quiet contemplation. Absorbing the enormity of what’s happened these last 12 months and all that I have to be grateful for right now in my life. Change, the willingness to want to change has been one of the greatest gifts I could have given myself. The minute we step into change, that’s it. The current of the new experiences presented to us take us on a path bigger and better than anything we could have possibly imagined for ourselves. We might be under the impression that we are thinking BIG, but the Universe takes us elsewhere, it takes our Big and it makes it Grand.
the winding streets of Nisyros, an explosion of colour…
In deep gratitude for all that my path has led me to experience this year. It has been one enormous adventure that I am so thankful to have received. If this is what the discomfort of change brings, then I want more of it…
happiness, photo via Nyree Cox…
Wherever your New Year takes you, I hope it fills you with promise, inspiration and anticipation for all that’s unfolding and waiting to come. Opportunities are there for us to receive at every moment. I hope you are open enough to observe them and usher them close to you. They are there to nudge you forward. Sometimes they are presented through testing and difficult experiences, other times with kindness and a heap of laughter. Regardless of how they come, welcome them. They are there to light your path.
sun drenched in the Mediterranean, Nisyros…
Happy travels, Paula x
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