One word – #reverb11 – day one

2011 was my year of adventure. I set it out loud and clear before the year had even started. Did I choose it or did it choose me? Don’t really know. But it came deep from within my soul. Yes I whispered back. yes.

So at the start of 2011 I sketched out the plan.

1. Buy a campervan
2.Strip my life’s possessions down to 100 things
3. Hit the road in April
4. Don’t stop until September

I knew I had to do it. It was an act of celebration of how far I’d come, the life I’d created over the past five years. It was a huge heartfelt thank you to the friends that had helped me there. It was a chance to give that independent spirit in me ‘one final fling, just me myself and I’. Knowing that one day, some day soon, I would be looking again for partnership, I wanted to give myself a journey that embraced and celebrated my life with me.

Before I began my journey and throughout it one song, by Mumford and Sons, played over and over in my head: “I need freedom now and I need to somehow live my life as its meant to be”.

I didn’t know where it would take me. I didn’t know what experiences I’d have, what I’d discover, what I’d find, about the world around me and about me and that was what it was all about. Embracing the unknown, exploring, discovering. Adventure.

Hand on heart it was the best gift I could have ever given myself. This 5 minute video gives you a little taster of it all.

For me the most beautiful part of it all was the joy I experienced. I had had plenty of excitement and euphoria in my life before, but joy was something I had lost hold of, lost sight of, just wasn’t experiencing. But suddenly there I was standing alone with the wind weighing it’s love against me, looking out at the ocean on a Devonshire, Yorkshire, Cornish, Scottish coastline and my heart soared and my soul said ‘thank you’.

I felt pure, unadulterated joy.

I whispered back to my younger self ‘you do it, believe…you get there’.

Tears of joy, that’s what a year of adventure has given me.

Life is an adventure. A delicious, mysterious, magical adventure. And while 2011 is coming to an end, those adventures never will, not until the day I die.

So what is the word for 2012?

Again, I’ve known this for sometime. Again it rose up from my soul, from some unseen all knowing source…Love.

2012 is my year of love.

When I first declared it, I didn’t know why, I didn’t know what and I didn’t know how. I just knew. That’s what it was. That’s what I wanted of 2012. That’s what the year wanted of me.

I took a deep breathe and scribbled on a page:

” Year of love
Body – nourishment – food, juice, massage, moisture, SENSUALITY >> activity, yoga, meditation

Heart – let it cry, let it speak, let it release, let it celebrate, let it love – VOICE AND LOVE >> Art, writing, music

Soul – let it be free, know it as an unknown quantity, let it flow, let it fly – CONNECTION AND ADVENTURE >>> Nature, movement”

And that is it. There is the recipe. Throw it in the air and see what year it creates.

I’ve been laying the foundations for it already, enlisting the support I know I’ll need, because like with anything in life, any dream, any fresh challenge, we always need those around us to help us, encourage us, hold us when we need to be held and cheer us on as we soar and fly alone. Because I have a love to grow. From the inside out and to do that I need to dig deep and I already have the help of an amazing woman to help me do that, to help me to deeply cleanse and strengthen my heart, repair my relationship with myself, let the love grow and flourish from right inside here.

Phew, it’s going to be a magical ride, it’s already begun and I’m already excited.