Closing one door – opening another…

I thought I’d treat myself another ”first”, as I don’t have a lot of those these days.

Looking back on the year that’s about to come to an end, making some reflections, is a first for me in December.

I usually do this around mid September, as that’s when I celebrate my years in my personal recovery, which this year marked 29 years.

But I love having ”firsts” and something has been poking me to do this, so I´ll roll with it.

I have learned. A LOT.

I have been enlightened. A LOT.

I have had clarity. A LOT.

I will elaborate a bit more….

During the first half of this year, I have educated myself professionally, adding 2 more certificates that I needed for the direction I wanted to take my work.

So I am now part of a – still – small global number of specialists when it comes to working with Sugar addiction, and AID and an even smaller number of people in the world who are licensed and certified to do Sugar addiction diagnostic assessments.

My vision was to start a recovery program in November, and it turned out that I placed that bar a wee bit too high, as it was quite short notice for potential participants. 

So I have rescheduled the start of this until the end of April 2023, together with a fantabulous team of women. All stars and experts in their areas.

Between November of this year and April next year, we have some major holidays that to most people are very much about ”foods”, sugar bombs of various kinds, over eating, weight and obsessions. Some people call them Christmas and Easter. The holidays.

So I do believe that starting a new way of Life at the end of April will speak to and facilitate for a whole lot more people who now are able to reflect on their consequences of current life style and choices, their medical costs and physical situation, and perhaps weigh (no pun intended, well a lill bit..) that against what it would be worth to actually invest in your physical, and mental health for a year. To start with. With the potential of it being once and for all…

I have also relocated, in the middle of summer, to Gozo. Something I’ve been wanting to do for many years, and once I pulled the trigger, the timing wasn’t optimal, but the changes needed will be adjusted in the upcoming year. To design my life as I want it, not in the hands of circumstances. 

This is how I live my life for the most part, when ever it is possible. And that is the case a LOT. By design, not by default…

I also went back to the Motherland for the first time in 8 years, to start the end of my material and logistical process there, and ending that, is something that also will take place in the new year.

All of this is connected, and these areas will become full circle in the new year, which will be exciting, challenging and joyous, for which I am very grateful.

N o n e of this could have happened without help from friends. I have let go of the idea that I can hack this life by myself many MANY moons ago.

Which brings me to the people section of my 2022 inventory.

This year I have met quite a lot of new people, in my profession, through my studies and in my personal life.

Some are keepers, others have come and gone, and with some I’ve also thought; ”Don’t let the door hit you in the ass”… 🙂

I´ve also had a LOT of clarity when it comes to people who were already in my life, and I have adjusted the places they get to have in my life with some of them. 

Some have been demoted and some have been fired, never to be seen again. All in gratitude for their part in my journey, and nevertheless this is how it is now.

I have become even more invested in who I spend any kind of time with, where and how. 

As Maya Angelou says; ”When people show you who they are – believe them”.

So it really doesn’t matter how long someone has been in my life – I’m not keeping them or the status quo for sentimental reasons…

And I am not believing what people tell me – I look at their behaviours, being even sharper in my observations there now.

One of my Life laws is; ”Don’t tell me – show me” and in the new year I will live a whole LOT more by just that. 

We have also been blessed with another family member. What started out as a fostering plan, is now going to be a full adoption.

Since life is dynamic and circumstances change, I am more than happy to fully bring Buddy in our family of, now 4 🙂

I got my first ever adopted dog 7 years ago, Cassia, and she is now the same age as Buddy.

When I got her, this stirred up a lot of emotions in me, being adopted myself. 

I have done a LOT of work through the years, in regards of being adopted and it keeps fascinating me how new angles are being brought to me, to dig even deeper. This goes to show that we are never really ”done” with stuff, they just a take on a different shape and place in us. Some feel better than others, but they all teach and develop us.

Cause when I got my little Marley boy, who is now 4,5, he was a rehoming situation, yes also adopted but he had lived with a family before me, unlike Cassia who came from an orphanage just like I did.

Buddy has also lived in a family all his 7 years and yet when he came to us he was not in a good place, due to circumstances out of the previous owners hands.

Towards the end of this year, I also lost a friend.

When this happens, it brings up other important people I have lost, and I get to sort of reconnect with them and my emotions for them, also on a new and deeper level. It is painful, and yet it fills me with gratitude and love.

Since I have had them, in some capacity, I can never really lose them. 

I am certain of a couple of things about Life;

It is dynamic.

It goes on.

I am grateful to close the book of 2022 and continue into 2023 with a strong sense of it being a year of Love and Peace. For the world – and for me.