Why 2015 is a great year

The knife was stuck in 2013 and the wound kept bleeding in 2014

I don’t know anyone who believed 2013 was a good year. Is there some kind of co-incidence that it was “unlucky” 13? And in any event, isn’t 13 a lucky number if you are a pagan?

Well, the fact is, whether we created it for ourselves by all simultaneously imagining the worst of all years, or whether it was in the stars or whether it was just the way the cards fell, 2013 was a year of which I was glad to see the back.

I was at an Athena networking event today, with all the fabulous Athena ladies, and yet another person said 2013 was a bad year. And after the worst of all things that could happen, had happened, 2014 just felt like a blood let.

The metaphorical knife was stuck and then, as it was pulled out, in shock and horror, I watched my life run away in an agonisingly slow stemming until eventually I could not bleed anymore and there was only one thing to do – heal.

And we, the Athena Ladies, all sat around the big table and told each other our hopes and dreams for the year; this New Year 2015, and as we did that simple act of faith, and anticipation, as we all shared our vulnerabilities (yes we said what we wanted to achieve, even though we may fail – that’s vulnerability) we made something amazing happen. We actually became achievers, we became our aspirations.

There is one young woman I greatly admire, my fourteen year old daughter, Jasmin. And I think about her now – my mini psychologist I call her- because she so often tells me “Mummy don’t push happiness over the cognitive horizon” which she picked up from a lecture by Shawn Achor.

And she’s right. Happiness is in the moment. Not in the grand things but in the simple things in life. Today I sat with some wonderful people and shared lunch. And we looked to the future with hope – and we did that together.

What a blessing it is to live a life that lets us reach out and connect with each other; to dream, to let go of our fears and to raise our arms to the sky and shout, for absolutely no other reason than just to shout out “Yes!”

2015 is a great year.

This blog is dedicated to Michala Rutherford and the Buxted and Eastbourne Athena Groups