Ooh my, it's been a moment. It's been over a year since I last wrote. I started this blog in April 2019, just before I moved to Seville. It doesn’t feel like that long ago but at the same time, so much has happened in those three and a bit years. Personally and globally. I mean, I moved countries, started learning a language, started multiple different jobs, did a load of learning, and I've just left my most recent job. And then collectively we are continuing to survive a pandemic and just about hanging on to what resembles a functioning country no thanks to some absolutely awful people ‘running’ it.
So, in short, life has felt tough at times. I don’t recognise the place I left in 2019. But maybe that’s not just me not recognising the country but there also being an element of me having changed so much that I no longer quite fit in it in the way that I used to. It’s a weird one.
Normally I write a blog post because I have something specific to say but I’m in a phase at the moment of just writing for the sake of it because I believe it’s good for my brain, and I think I need things to believe in at the moment. I think we all do.
I wrote a post the other day on Instagram and the response I got was incredible. There are so many people around you that feel similar to you in their own way. And sometimes, by putting yourself out there, you can feel more validated than lost. Not that I feel I am lost necessarily, I feel I’m on the precipice of something big. I have no clue what it will be (well I have some ideas but I’m trying to keep my mind moving on the opportunities rather than holding myself to one) but it feels like it’s important.
My dear friends, I have soooo many blocks it’s UNREAL. And I have done so much learning about myself, I basically have a counsellor for a sister and a family that TALKS and I feel like since a very young age I’ve been working out my shit. I’ve been having difficult conversations and I love them. I love to work myself out and work with other people to help them work their shit out and then I kind of love it when everything goes wrong and I have to go back a few steps to work out what’s going on. I kind of hate it and love it at the same time. But I think in all of the deep work I have done. I neglected one thing, which I now realise is important. My work. It’s almost as if I worked so hard on who I am as a person and as a partner, a friend as a person. And I kind of just left who I am as a professional to one side like it would just magically sort itself out. But I think for me the turning point was that my work is in a way, part of me. I’m not saying it's my identity (believe me I could go for days talking about that, you don’t have to be earning money to call yourself whatever you feel you are) but when I am IN THE FREAKING ZONE at work, it’s because it feels like me.
And when work doesn’t feel aligned with me. I am not in a good place. Literally, as I’m writing this I’m just working out when I last posted and would you bloody believe it, it was just as I started my most recent job which a month ago I resigned from. OH, I JUST LOVE IT WHEN IT ALL MAKES SENSE!
Things are feeling scary, but also good. I have great days where everything feels aligned and then I have days where I’m sitting on my sofa surrounded by biscuit crumbs and drowning in thoughts of ‘oh my god I have no skills to offer’, ‘no one will pay me to do what I want to do’, ‘what do I want to do’ - and that process continues and I am doing the work to untie all of those beliefs, negative self-talk and I am re-writing it all because deep down at times, I have this glimmer or incredible self-belief and confidence. A confidence where I know I’m great. I know I can offer something no one else can. I know I can help people. And I just need to just hold on to those moments for longer and longer until those moments of self-doubt are less consuming. But I’m getting there.
It’s messy and scary but god damn there are times when it just feels soooo right. If you needed some reassurance. Messy and scary doesn't always mean it's wrong. Sometimes it's a part of you, trying to fight it's way through!