About

“How can we measure what a happy and successful life looks like?” There are so many different versions of this, but essentially I feel it is largely by what we accept or what we reject in our lives. What we attract and what we resist are what shapes us. This then becomes what we want and what we don’t want in our lives, sometimes without us even realising we had a hand in that decision somewhere along the line.  So how is it then, that the simplicity of this statement is so often lost?  Ask yourself, ‘What do you want from life?’ followed by ‘OK, so what don’t you want?’ This should be the basis for the way in which we make all our choices – by a process of simple elimination. Life becomes a vault of precious experiences, people, moments in time, situations, events, opportunities, circumstances (good or bad) all kept safely stored and secured behind a combination lock.  There can only ever be one true owner of the contents that lies inside and of the combination that reveals it, and that is YOU.

I have laboured for nigh on 40 years, to work out and find the personal ‘combination’ to my own safe – listening, turning and hearing the cogs clicking into place.  Gradually everything lines up and the door is released to reveal all the treasures of experiences that lie beyond it.

Throughout this time of searching for the right combination I’ve had so many personal experiences that have shaped my journey including two immediate family member suicides, two of my own divorces, two beautiful children, the ups and often stressed-out downs of being a single parent for almost 20 years,  health challenges such as depression, Seasonal Affected Disorder, and emotional stress which seemed to be genetic from past history.  I now see that they were all just cycles repeating themselves until the ‘spell’ was broken. I’ve had a fantastically varied and wonderfully rich 35 year working career so far and training opportunities since the age of 17 in retail, civil service, administration, accounts and presentation, computing and primary teaching for the past 16 years.

When I was 48 and still teaching, my first grandchild was born, and so began a catalyst for change in my life with an invisible force that I never realised existed.  If you are not particularly ‘happy’ with how things turned out for you, or the circumstances in which your life has ended up just floating and bobbing about on the tide of life that has felt like it’s just swept you away, then these pages will be of interest to you in lots of different ways. If you have ever felt there must be more to life than swapping your precious time for a measly hourly rate in a job you don’t even particularly like, then a significant life event can be a much needed prompt for change. We are often just drifting along doing things so habitually, we don’t even realise we needed the change!  We are our own compass when it comes to change if we can muster the courage to be totally honest with ourselves, no one else should ever be that responsible for us.

Written in the blogging journal pages will be  many different ways of starting that journey for yourself.  Has the way we see the world changed? Often we may feel like we want to do things differently, we’re simply not sure how, or where to go to get inspired. The blog will become a collection of ideas, stories, experiences, videos, quotes, signposting and photos.  I hope it will include a variety of different methods and techniques to hopefully assist you with ‘unlocking’  your own combination to a happier you, should that be your intention – otherwise I hope you will just find it interesting and useful anyway!