Sometimes you have a week where upon reflection there was so much in it. Life lessons, a range of emotions, realisations and decisions. When you decide to live a certain way, you become very aware of how many opportunities life gives you every single day, to support your decision and enable your success. You become more conscious of those around you and circumstances and events that will either contribute to your goal or take you one step further away. At the start of this year, I set several intentions. My biggest focus was to work on me. I wanted to dig deep and figure out what I really wanted and why and to create a picture of what the best version of me and my life could look like. I understood this would be based on my current set of beliefs and values and these would also need to be examined. There was an ulterior motive for all this and it had to do with another intention I had set. Start figuring out my purpose! I began strategically and deliberately on a path of learning, immersing myself in books, podcasts and videos. I looked to others who shared my values and are also looking for purpose. For me, one of the most important characteristics of a person is their integrity and this includes my own. I need to look in the mirror and be okay with my thoughts, words and actions of the day. They need to align and if they don’t, I need to adjust them. This sounds like hard work but it is about creating a habit. I also know that change in my life ultimately starts by change within me.

I am an emotional and passionate character and I mostly love this part of myself. I have an innate ability to cry and laugh at the same time 😊 Showing your emotions is about being real. Recognising them and acknowledging how we feel allows us to learn from what they are telling us. It gives us the chance to get to the core of our beliefs and ideas about life and ourselves. Sure, there are times where I decide, ‘Okay, I’m just not dealing with you in this moment…’ and come back to it later … maybe. But for the most part I ask myself this question, ‘What does this have to do with my higher purpose?’ When we approach life with a positive and proactive attitude, ‘okay this is what it is, how can I move forward, be better, improve myself, or create a positive outcome with what I am presented with today?’, it turns the focus from the problem to the solution. A vital part of being human means there also needs to be time to feel, be sad and be disappointed. Reflection is imperative but so is minimising our time in the negative emotions pool and proactively moving through them to a place that feels better. This better place presents us with another vital emotion – Clarity. When we immerse and surround ourselves in negative talk, listening, reading or watching, we are inclined to discuss and share the negative news and this produces a negative ripple effect. This ripple can easily be seen in our own lives and flows into the lives of those around us.

Half empty. We always have the choice to be the person that lights up the room when we arrive, or lights it up when we leave. We each choose how we live the hours of our lives and judging others is both futile and unproductive. People will do what they do. We make time for what we feel is important and make decisions based on what we want. Sometimes we choose not to decide preferring to continue the path of default and least resistance, doing what we’ve always done. And yet we still wonder why at the end of the day we feel horrible, nothing changes and we once again get what we’ve always gotten. Life is short. Sometimes a lot shorter than we realise.

Much Love Dalya xx 💙