Assalamu alaikum, peace be with you
How are you feeling about the ‘new year’?
I’ve been asking people that question this week and the responses have been interesting.
For some, they treat it like another day. For others it means a deep dive into how their year has gone and what they want from the coming year. For others, it means long lists of resolutions and a promise to change some habits.
In this brilliant interview with Dr Rangan Chatterjee, James Clear who is the author of Atomic Habits breaks it all down really well and talks a lot about keeping things simple, making it easy for ourselves and creating ‘the path of least resistance’ to setting new habits. Well worth checking it out.
For me, I love the celebratory element of a new year so I watched the London fireworks with the family on TV the next day (wow, they were spectacular and I loved the music to go with them on the theme of ‘Love’) but New Year’s Eve this year for me was deliberately quiet and spent at home. I found myself looking back over the year, surprised again at how many places I had been, people I had met and experiences I had been part of. I also reflected on how testing some things had been, what I need to do better, how I had spent too little time on some things and need to do more of that and less of something else.
I have also been reflecting on Together We Thrive, this platform we have created. 2022 was going to be ‘our year’ for moving it forward, for getting some new things moving, for dropping things that we didn’t think would work. But for a whole lot of reasons, nothing much happened at all! I had to personally deal with a number of work, money and family related issues. ‘Life’ happened, basically! So I took my foot off of the Thrive pedal and couldn’t drive things forward in the way I had hoped and planned. And that’s OK. I am grateful to the Steering Group of awesome women who have been patient, who have held my hand, who have trusted, who have challenged me and who have been brutally honest when they needed to be. It is a special group and I am lucky to have them as part of my life’s tribe. May God bless them all.
It has been really exciting to work on the long overdue podcast over the past couple of weeks. Over the last 2-3 years I have over thought it, put it off, questioned myself….. and more! But now feels like the right time and with the help of a tribe of awesome women, it is launching this month: https://togetherwethrive.buzzsprout.com/
Alongside launching the podcast, we have some other ‘Together We Thrive’ plans for 2023 that I feel are realistic but will suitably challenge us to get better, to push ourselves, to keep connected to each other and to continually look at what we are good at, what we can do and, importantly, be honest about what we can’t do.
A special shout out here to Asma in Slough for the reminder this week of this awesome quote from Rumi which feels so relevant to me right now:
So, thank you to you, whoever you are, for being curious enough to be here, for being on this journey of thriving with us. Please pray for us that our intentions can remain sincere, our hearts can stay connected and that we can serve and benefit each other in a way that is pleasing to God.
Do get in touch with any ideas, thoughts, concerns, dreams.
We are all ears.
Lots of love to you and your family xx