A new year, a new beginning. Time to reassess life’s patterns and leave what does not work behind. This comes at a time, in our northern hemisphere when the days are short and we are naturally drawn to reflection as the day hangs small and shuttered in a cold world where it is good to just go within.
I don’t know about anyone else but the end of 2022 brought the cost of living crisis to a head in my own life, this was combined with a car crash and being fired from my casual job as a cleaner- because I am too slow. (” They wanted Quick, Quick Girls”!)
So, welcome 2023 despite it being shrouded with challenges. On a micro level I don’t know what direction I can go in in the short or long term to make money. I am the proverbial square peg in a round hole. Society loves left brained jobs and people who tick boxes. I am neither of those and so my journey into solvency requires more than a crystal ball!
However, I refuse to be eroded, made small and be left hopeless and defeated, washed up like a piece of useless flotsam on the tidal shore of life. I could easily enter that space. But, this is neither a good place to feel alive in or useful at all.
So, instead I used Christmas as a time to love and feel love in – to make a home full of light and warmth ( sod the heating bill for 10 days) and marinade myself and my family in the aroma and taste of a peaceful and gastronomically wonderful Christmas. I, in short, used my creative homemaking talents to bring healing, quite consciously, into our life.
We had a glowing, fire lit, nourishing time….
Now, I feel better equipped to take on the challenges of a bleak, Dreich ( Scottish for nasty, cold, drenching weather) and uncertain January.
I have decided to take an ” Attitude is Magic” approach to it all.As an overall attitude I have taken this quote from Buddha as my modus operandi;
” Don’t use your energy to worry. Instead use your energy to Believe, Create, Trust, Grow, Glow, Manifest and Heal.”
And alongside it, the maxim:
” Respond with Kindness’. ( Now this needs to be largely self directed as I generally find it easy to respond to others with kindness but have a larch whip especially reserved for my own shortcomings.)
These two quotes have become my mindful pause for thought loop. They can not help but bring a positive perspective. It takes bravery NOT to worry and so I am determinedly breathing and turning to believe, trust, create, glow, grow and heal instead.
What will this approach actually look in my life as I move forward? Of course I can not really know because life is a river that we ride but we can choose our responses. So, for the purposes of clarity I have made a mind map of positive intention strands for all the areas of my life. In short I am trying to both be prosaic and sensible whilst being wildly opportunistic in a dream like way. I have mapped and made ladders of progression for what I can.My strands are many :
Music teaching, casual work of some kind- perhaps private cleaning (where I won’t be whipped for being too slow ).
Start my various trainings to do mentoring, counselling, life coaching – which long term will give me a professional qualification to earn money from . This is going to be a long haul. I have started this process with embarking on some free Mentoring training through the musicians union. I start the introduction to counselling at the end of January.
I slowly work on my Kulning songwriting project. I was blessed on the solstice to hear that I have received a grant to buy some world instruments for this project and so I can take it to the next step.
I research and feel into some of my more barmy ideas around song writing and creativity and philanthropy. I am not yet ready to share these and so I will dream into them and see if there may be space for these to grow and become a strand of worth.
I have also made a rather off the wall Vision board: it has nothing prosaic on it all and is a totally flight into dreamland. But, I put it out and see if anything magical flows my way.
I have done this on other occasions and been amazed at what- in time has landed at my feet. I found the duduk player for my e.p this way and , in my private life, the funds to have a wedding.
Attitude shapes how we respond to things, how creative we allow ourselves to be in the face of challenges. It can pick us up or lay us low. Necessity is the mother of invention and therefore I train myself to take an attitude of magic where I set my clear goals, I work steadily on what I can and in the meantime respond to life with a glow, a kindness and a thoughtfulness so that there are spaces for magic to enter my life.
This is my work this dreich January. I wish you magic, kindness and generosity in yours……
Abi's World of Music 