I was feeling inevitably untethered in the first days of the New Year. I had produced an amazing heartfelt soulfulfilling holiday experience. And now it was time to pack it up and move on. I grieved for a little while and then I began to search for a way out. And what I found was a way to creatively look toward the new year: Mindmapping my upcoming year’s goals.
In my previous post A Little Post Christmas Blues , I said I’d show my work. Here’s the YouTube video that inspired me to do this. Her name is Taylor, she lives in Texas, and goes by Tattoedteacherplans on Instagram. She’s planner crazy apparently which I’m not but she’s doing what she loves!
I chose to skip whatever preliminary work she talks about. I was just stealing her format. But it was fun to listen to her discuss how she was thinking about her year and to watch the sped up film of her making the map.
My categories were Self/Health, Creative Play, Financial, Life Work/Career, and Spiritual. I listed those and took a couple days to fill in the ways in which I wanted to expand and grow in these areas. And the criteria was that I needed to feel good and hopeful and happy about everything I put on this map. Nothing that I felt I “should” do was going on there. And here’s the finished product.
I was going to call this post “Nothing Changes on New Years Day (Unless You Want It To)” because honestly, that’s the truth. I get to decide what this year will feel like. I’m intuiting my life because doing what I think I should just messes me up. I am asking for help in the places I need it and will keep this map where I can see and stay on track with these intentions. I’ll keep you apprised as I tend them and grow with them. The goal is always to keep the doubts at bay and build the self-trust always.
Thank you for keeping an eye on me lovely people. Doing the best I can and am thinking that it’s pretty darn great!
And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.
I took a lot of lovely pictures during the Holidays but wasn’t compelled to share them. There’s a calm withdrawal from much of what I automatically have done. I want to find a deeper place to draw from. I am yearning for a profounder place of purpose. Authentically sharing what I know I need to and not because I think people will like me for it.
All of the changes I’ve made have come from my intuition. I watch people, I listen to what they say that makes sense to me, I incorporate the feeling and the thoughts, and I turn in the direction that makes more sense. Resetting my life’s compass is a combined effort of you and me, the reader in me and the writer in you and vice versa.
I also think that there can be way too much thinking going on in my brain. Waiting is fine but the best lessons come when we take a step in any direction and gauge what happens next. I have long meant to upgrade the blog site and many steps have been made and then halted. One big step I took in 2019 was to pick this up again. As terrifying as this is for me, and it truly is, I am also in need of being done stepping into a new skin, a new vehicle to inspire me and my readership.
So hold on to your hats, it’s gonna be a bumpy ride into the next phase of what Shalavee means to me and you.
And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.
If you were told you’d been volunteered as an event planner and decorator for a royal ball, you’d laugh your butt off right? But regular people across the globe will do their best to plan and execute a special event all on their own this month mostly without professional help. And I’m darn proud of all of them for their upcoming efforts.
We pull it off, you and me, every year. That once a year special event for which we have to send out a hundred invitations, cater quantities of food, and decorate huge floral centerpieces for. We spend lots of time and/or money to gift everyone we know with the right present as if they’re all having a birthday at the same time.
Yes I mean Christmas.
It’s truly a miracle we all don’t lose our minds feeling overwhelmed and incompetent. But then the end comes and you sigh with relief that it’s over and think perhaps there’s a better way to execute it next year. Until the next year comes and you have the same game plan as always.
At my house, I make it all look so easy to accomplish. Deep down I do love it. But I also would love if anyone could do the majority of it so I could just make the wrapped presents pretty and decorate the house for multiple uninterrupted hours. The cleaning and card sending and even the cooking I could farm right out. Alas, last year, I accomplished the musts but fell short of the wannas. Holiday expectational debts I would soon forget.
But last year, the kids were treated to a Christmas just as they should with sweets for breakfast and Santa gifts and stockings brimming with stuff. They played with their stuff, bickered about sharing each other’s stuff, and played at a couple playgrounds. Oh and watched multiple movies. And then attended one more holiday get together to be showered with more gifts from family.
Hoping you make sure to get your needs met during the siege of the holiday event season. That your gratitude for being surrounded with the ones you love surpasses the anxiety of cookie baking and clean toilets. I eventually always find relief and rest after the chaos finally, basking in the afterglow of a job well-done and look forward to having the brain room to get back to regular creativity.
Let the planning begin.
And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.
The holidays are here. I told my husband last night that I feel like a blender without enough liquid. It groans as it tries to blend the contents and becomes bogged down and then it begins to make a high pitch whirring noise as the blades are spin below the contents.
It is the nature of the time of year. This sudden burst of busyness feels a little like September after a hot lazy Summer. You can see it coming but you still feel caught unprepared. Except with the holidays, there’s production value to consider and scheduling snafus lurking.
I’m the sort of person who can not install my Christmas tree until the month at least hits double digits. And this year, I’d dearly like a different decorating theme. Good luck with that Shalagh.
But if Thanksgiving was any indication of how my Christmas will go, it’ll be smooth and lovely. I just need to make double dog sure that I spend intentional time this month taking care of ME. Because even though you are an event planner this month, you are the only one who can sit you down in a coffee shop with a friend for a nice long leisurely catch up. Hurry up and make that date!
And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.
After much thought about how to make more time in my schedule to be creative, I decided that I’d approach life more proactively again. I’d schedule meals, blog posts, and laundry so I could write more. And what happened was that I experienced more ease. You have less to do and you get more done. It was a lesson I’ve learned before and knowing this made me uncomfortable.
Fear is so idiotic. Like those highway patrol people with their speed guns, it leaps out into oncoming traffic and has you pull over to the side of the road because you may not have your safety belt on. Then it convinces you that it’s safer out of the car walking. Then you find yourself back at home suddenly convinced that you didn’t need whatever you were setting out in the car to go get. And soon, you are a shut-in.
I am used to chaos. In fact, I’m a former chaos junkie. I used to think that it was cool to strive and thrive on adrenaline and fear. But then I had kids and that isn’t a great tactic when you are trying to raise them in a calm safe reliable environment. But somehow the winging it thing creeps back into my life after I swore allegiance to intentional pro-activity. And I find myself tired and haggered and not sure what I’m making for dinner at dinnertime.
Every day is an opportunity to start over. So again I started over with meal planning (once you have meals chosen, you can swap them out as you feel inspired). My laundry is only to be done twice a week. A full weeks of blog posts waiting to go out is a good minimum. And every loving thing I need to consider goes into the Google Calendar. Because I don’t need to expect myself to remember everything everyday. I just want to get on to the business of writing. Bigger badder writing is burbling underneath waiting to be seen and heard. And that is a priority worth planning for.
And If you enjoyed what you read, subscribe, via the subscription box in the sidebar, to my thrice weekly posts via your emailbox. And visit me on Instagram to see my daily pictures, friend me or like my page on Facebook. Or come find me on Twitter or Pinterest too. I am always practicing Intentional Intouchness so chat at me please. I live for conversations.
My name is Shalagh Hogan, pronounced Shay-La. I'm the mother of a teen, a six year-old, and I turned 52 this year. This blog was born in 2011 and my hope and joy as a writer, an artist, and an uber-creative, is that by sharing my journey of self-discovery, others will gain inspiration and permission for their own journeys.
