This year started well. A national newspaper named me as one of the top ten gurus in the country. Wow, a guru. If only I knew what to wear.
I started my journey to gurudom 10 years ago when I woke up in the early hours of New Year’s Day dribbling on the shoulder of a strange man on a train. I had slept through my stop after drinking too much.
I was a journalist, working 16 hour days and my life was a mess. I used coffee to get me going, cigarettes to keep me going and alcohol to help me stop. All the while going to my job as health editor of a national magazine! I was up to my ears in debt, my relationship of 4 years was on the rocks, and I felt trapped on a treadmill of 16 hour 7 day weeks. I was knackered and I wanted to get off the treadmill.
Something had to change. And as it turned out – that thing was me. Ten years ago, I woke up with dribble on my chin and vowed to change my life.
My first stop was to hire a life coach and I discovered it really worked for me. And over a period of 2 years, I really did make some big changes – I stopped drinking to excess, I stopped smoking, lost weight, got out of debt, transformed my relationship with my husband (we’re still married).
In the years following, I trained to become a coach, wrote a best-selling coaching book Making The Big Leap, founded my own coaching business The Big Leap, was invited to write my own column, moved to the country from London and most life changing of all had my beautiful son Charlie after many years of trying.
And now to top it all 10 years on, I woke New Year’s Day 2007 and I was suddenly being named as a top guru.
All my boxes were ticked, surely? I could sink back and be happy now, yes? So why on earth was I scanning the horizon for more, more, more?
It’s more subtle but somehow I feel like I’m still on that treadmill that I advise others to step off. I never feel like I can rest. I am restless, constantly looking for new things to change/leaps to make, for new transformations. When I tried to set my goals for this year, I completely stalled. What did I really, really want, I asked myself? I’ve got what I said I wanted …..so just I just go for the bigger/shinier versions now?
I want to feel that inner peace, that sense of ‘I’m there’, to be able to appreciate all that I have in my life now (so much) without planning the next big thing. So I have decided to dedicate my focus this year on that theme: The Big Peace.
So this is what this blog is about: my journey to find that missing peace in my life : the Big Peace that I know no longer lies at the bottom of a wine bottle or a stiff, expensive carrier bag. It isn’t even about me reaching my goals, being thinner, richer or more successful (although that seems to help sometimes!).
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