I’ve been so lucky to receive a lot of encouragement and support for my Year of No Fear project so far.  So nice to hear people wishing me luck, and at times I feel so unworthy when I hear people using words like ‘brave’ and ‘inspiring’.  If anything, I think spending a year in a state of discomfort and anxiety is a bit silly! 🙂

But it wouldn’t be in the spirit of the awareness element of the project if I just wrote about the challenges I had completed, and did not disclose some of the difficulties taking place ‘behind the scenes’.  As amazing as this first 3 months has been, it has also been a whirlwind of activity, in which the ‘Year of No Fear’ idea has really grown arms and legs.

March has been particularly busy with some whistle-stop trips to London and Glasgow in addition to firming up commitments for the rest of the year.  Also my much anticipated disastrous second driving test, such a spectacular fail as it was! Now that it is over and a bit of calm is restored I have a bit of time to reflect, and acknowledge that I have been just a little bit overwhelmed.

I had purposefully taken some time out in April as I knew this would be a possibility.  I know from experience that in busy times I tend to overlook the need to rest and practice self care whenever possible.  This time was no different and I found myself reverting to old habit and patterns to keep my stress levels down temporarily, rather than making the time and effort to do the things I know would contribute to a longer lasting feeling of relief and energise me.  My particular ‘go-to’ unhealthy behaviours are binge eating and napping way more than strictly necessary-luckily I’ve gotten to a point when I’m hitting those two and realising I need to take a step back and make proper self care a priority!

This month I’m trying some things to get me refreshed and re-vitalised for another busy month in May-including my first experience of Reiki healing which I’m really looking forward to!  I share this because I don’t want the blog accompanying the Year of No Fear to be a false representation of my reality, and the comments from people supporting the journey to mask the real, human and imperfect parts of the process.  Rest assured there have been times already in this journey where self doubt and panic have taken over.  There have been times I have been tired and cranky, and snapped at my children-then felt like the sh*&tiest mum in the world and cried.  There have been times where I’ve been so busy juggling work, kids, challenges and other projects that I’ve been so behind at housework I’d be lucky if my house passed an environmental health inspection!

I realise I am so lucky to have enough experience to identify my own patterns and to be able to address them.  I’m privileged to be surrounded by support and I’m already feeling much better and less burnt out so far in April. I’m now loving looking back on this first few months and all the wonderful experiences, meetings and opportunities I’ve been afforded!  In particular I am grateful for having met a really incredible amount of fantastically talented and supportive, conscious women-and a gratitude post all about them is coming very soon.