Tag Archives: January intentions

I am Grateful for…

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 January is probably the longest month of the year.  Dark, cold, self-punishing and penniless, we tend to spend it dreaming and wishing time could speed up.  For early signs of spring, a warmer sun and lighter days.  And, as much as we know we shouldn’t rush our time away, we dream of better days.

However, I was determined to do things differently this year.  To focus on what I could change and achieve in this winter hinterland.  So, stubbornly, I’ve dug my heels in and used my creativity to expand my horizons and explore what makes me tick.  

For months now, I’ve been keeping a gratitude journal.  A monthly log of all those glimmers which give me life.  A collection of thought, feelings and moments.  A list of my hopes and dreams.  But, I get busy and sometimes I forget…

But, January has been different.  

Determined to keep strong in the darkness, I set myself targets.  Targets to help me remember and push the status quo of January blues.

I was recently introduced to the Hebrew word ‘davka’, whilst listening to one of my favourite podcasts ‘Stirring it up’ with Andi and Miquita Oliver.  I love listening to them as it’s about two of my favourite things – food, and people.  They have a plethora of interesting guests with a wealth of worldly knowledge.  Their guests often make me stop and think, so when Rob Rinder talked about davka, it made me think about applying it to my own life.  

But what is it?

Davka is about being contrary.  Which, at first would seem an awkward way to make a positive impact on your own life.  However, it’s more than that.  Essentially, it’s about writing your own journey.  Not following the one that’s been preordained.  Pushing boundaries, ripping up the rule book and doing your own thing.  To have davka is brave and exciting.  To have employed davka – you’ve done something against the odds.

I loved the way he talked about holocaust survivors.  The way they survived against the cruel odds that had been dictated to them.  The way that they were so grateful and present as they rebuilt their lives.  Contrary, brave, stubborn, living a life worth living. 

And that got me thinking about adversity and how we can all apply it to our lives.  How it is essentially about kicking back and overcoming prejudice and negativity.  

I am all over davka!

So, where have I used davka so far this year?  Well, to be honest I’ve struggled with the short days, cold and dark.  However, I’ve tried to reframe my thinking and push back against the blues.  Pushed back and ignored the hype around the negative energy January breeds.  I’ve rewritten my days by focusing on all the things I’m grateful for (and let me tell you some days I had to do some really creative thinking).  I’ve purged myself with manifestation goals, to the point of becoming incredibly specific about certain situations (when I go to Australia I’m going to rent a beach house in Manley Bay for six weeks…), and at the end of every positive monologue, I thank the universe for giving me strength, peace and love.

Namaste.

And guess what?  Something wonderful began to happen.  By being contrary and refusing to bow down to the grey January fog, I’ve kicked back and rewritten my days.  I’ve found that being grateful has allowed me to rewrite my path and this makes me feel good about my future.  

And, with February peeking at us from around the corner, and my first glimpse of snowdrops this weekend, I’m gearing up for what comes next.  I’ll continue to be grateful; continue to focus on my goals; I’ll continue to thank the world I live in.  I’m going to apply davka to my big journey and achieve the impossible…

Well, I can at least try.  As my reader, should you.  

Namaste 🙏 

january Sankalpa

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It’s 2024!  A new slate.  A fresh start…many of you will be thinking:  New year, new me!

Good.

But I’m sorry, it’s not for me. Unless somebody wants to give me a three book deal, a few thousand and a trip to one of those colonic shite farms in Thailand, I can’t see The New Me happening anytime soon.  But that’s not what we mean is it?  What we really mean is that we are to list all our guilty pleasures and vow to stop them for the foreseeable.  The pressure!  

It’s not that I’m anti-change, it’s just I’m not all about making millions of promises to jump through hoops I don’t fit.  In fact, I’m not really a hoop jumper; more of a hoop swirler, thrower and general circus freak.

It’s not like I haven’t made a list.  I always do.  I used to call them resolutions.  The 2024 me calls them intentions.  Nestled next to my monthly gratitude journal, they focus on all the things that make me feel better about myself.  Positive paths I like to lead, rather than saying ‘I’m going to abstain from ANYTHING EVER AGAIN’ and that ‘I’m going to GIVE UP THE WHOLE LOT OF ANYTHING’

Not happening.

Life is too short not to have a glass of wine with dinner (it’s one glass).  I enjoy exercising but I’m never going to say ‘I’m going to work out one hour every day seven days a week’ – I mean, let’s be realistic, I’m a busy woman.  Instead, I promise myself to alter my routines for more variety.  And as for making myself miserable by owning eating a restricted diet.  Well, like I said: life is too short.

However, it’s difficult not to contemplate changing when we are currently surrounded by a media’s desire to feed us a stream of ways to refrain our thinking.  Take ‘You Are What You Earn.  The Twin Experiment’. Netflix’s latest ‘factual’ show which leads us through a thinly disguised narrative of why meat and dairy is evil and toxic, whereas, veganism is the epitome of guilt free healthy living.  A show, which was both fascinating and horrifying in equal measures. Like a film from the Saw franchise, you felt yourself uncomfortable  watching, yet compelled to watch the gruesome footage of animals living in their own shite and evidence of badly treated chickens.  

It was awful.  So awful I had to step away and think about the actual message they were trying to give:  Go vegan, lose weight, live longer and save the world!

Fabulous.  Only…

It’s never that simple is it?  Try as we might, our social consciences lead us to eat better and to consider our carbon footprint.  We think about prevention rather than cure and spend money and time trying to adopt a more holistic approach to living a better life.  But life, is that, it is to be led.  Sometimes, try as I might, I can’t live guilt free: a bit of chocolate because I need something sweet (it’s a square); a cheese sandwich because that’s all I have in (starve myself, you say?); an overflowing bin because what I’ve had to buy has ridiculous packaging (I’m thinking Christmas here!); a glass of wine on a weekend (and?); roast beef on a Sunday (organic and fresh from the farm); to name a few…

It’s all about the guilt.  It’s all why I sit here feeling terrible because I ate more cheese than was good for me yesterday and can physically feel my thighs stretching from its after effects.  

 But…eating cheese was not in my rider anyway.  

My list of intentions?  They were purposeful and positive.  Aspirational, setting my Sankalpa for how I want to think and feel.  Less of the loss of the guilty pleasures, the sackcloth and ashes routine, and more of the grounded me who takes pleasure from living a life that makes me feel happy and fulfilled (yes, I know I sound quite sickening anx Paltrow like).  I want to enjoy my life.  To wring the hell out of it: inhale every scent, see the wonderful, and absorb the beauty of what is around me.  I am desperate to experience as much as Ii can, for as long as I can.  

I didn’t always feel this way.  

I’ve decided that as my vision gets smaller, my world is getting bigger.  I spent too long feeling unworthy and sacrificial and I knew that needed to change.  I realised that it’s all about the way I frame my thinking.  I can’t change my sight-loss and I can’t change its repercussions, but I can decide how I face it.  

It’s not about what we give up, it’s about how we think about it.  

So, although I ate that cheese (my doctor will be cross), I’m not going to focus on that.  Instead, I’m going to focus on the 15000 steps I walked yesterday; the healthy dinner I cooked; the time I enjoyed with the ones o love (RosieDog featured heavily here) and most of all I’m going to keep being grateful for tbd imperfect life I lead.