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*raises hand* Hi my name is Michelle and I’m an acceptance junkie.

I rarely say “hang it, I’m just going to do this because I want to.” There is always the voice in my head that runs through the list of why I shouldn’t, or who else is going to be affected if I do that, or what are they going to think of me if I do that. Some of these questions are valid and necessary, but my inner critic does over time talking me out of doing things.

My inner critic is a micromanager. A micromanager that is never ever pleased unless everyone else is, and so I’ve stopped doing….because everyone knows that you can’t please everyone.

Oh, occasionally I’ll put my foot down and do something that I want to do “just because”, but then the guilt sets in (am I doing it right?).

It has become crippling.

If I can’t please people, I don’t ‘do’. I refuse to even try.

I want to be loved. I want to be accepted. I want to be appreciated. I don’t want to be ridiculed. I don’t want to be used and taken advantage of. If I don’t put myself out there, I can’t be hurt, or embarrassed, or angry.

Sure, I might be a regular renaissance woman with a list of abilities and interests that some may envy, but confidence does not come from the mere possession of those attributes, it comes from being able to use them and in turn considering yourself worthy of the benefits they return regardless of whether or not those around you are all happy with what you’ve done.

I need to knock off my inner critic. I’m searching for the best way to do it. I’m tired of her whiny voice. I want to be able to do things without second-guessing myself.

I wonder what life would be like without her in my head telling me I’m not good enough.

Even now my finger is hovering over the send button…Do I? Don’t I?

I am my own worst enemy.

Do you have an inner critic? Did you have her knocked off? Or did you merely chain her up and stick her in the corner? How did you do it? Are there any recovering acceptance junkies out there?

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Instead of a bucket list this year I am going to take a leaf out of Messy Canvas’s book and choose a word to focus on for 12 months and see where the journey takes me. My word for the year is CONFIDENCE.

con·fi·dence/ˈkänfidəns/

I have either lost a lot of it, allowed what was there to be eroded away, or perhaps never had a lot to start with…but I need it back. Lack of confidence is killing me slowly but surely like a million paper cuts.

In it’s place cynicism and suspicion have come to roost, and I hate that.

My life coach noticed the lack of it a year ago, but I let the opportunity to work on it slip through my fingers. Then a colleague who’s opinion I value noticed the dearth of it in my work, and still someone else pointed out a similar issue with my mountain biking too.

The word just kept popping up all over the place. I figured it was a sign. Something needed attention.

I have no idea where this will take me. I expect it will be uncomfortable and maybe painful.

I want to make it to the end of the year without bleeding out.

Pass the band-aids please!

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To be honest, I really don’t want to do this. I don’t have the energy. I’m glad this year is over, but I think maybe I need the closure of giving it one final look to see how it all fit together.

You might remember last year that I developed a model of recognising the priorities in my life by eliminating the hierarchical lists that I had used previously, and using a wheel metaphor. I’ll use these elements as the basis for my year in review.

The Foundations (spokes)

Physical health

I had a rotten year health-wise. A couple of colds one on top of the other, suspected whooping cough, bells palsy, a shoulder problem that took some detective work to treat, and a couple of calf strains along the way. At times in the dead of winter it felt like I was going to be sick for ages. But I survived

Mental health

Constant stress became an issue for me this year, to the point where my body gave in and made me take a break. Never a fun place to be. On the positive side though, I learned to manage my depression and moods with better food choices and lots of exercise.

Spiritual Health

This is tricky, and there’s probably enough material for several blog posts in this one. I’m not quite ready (or able perhaps) to articulate where my heart and head is at in the midst of this little faith crisis I find myself in. For the moment, let’s just say that I had the deepest spiritual experience of my year in the echoing caverns of a medieval Catholic cathedral. Liturgy and mystics are fascinating me at the moment.

Relational Health

I have had to force myself to be sociable this year. The more stressed I have become, the more alone I want to be. I have had to fight to retain some semblance of community and not turn into the hermit I so desperately wanted to become at times.

The Passions

Family

My boys are growing up! This year they both passed me in height! Finding ways to spend quality time with each of them has been fun and challenging as they grow into young men. Motherhood is never the same from year to year…or even week to week…it is an evolving role that I am trying my best to keep up with.

Friends

I have been blessed with a whole bunch of new and very diverse friends on Twitter this year. Some local, some national, some international. They are always there to cheer me on or to provide a collective shoulder to cry on if I need that. Having the opportunity to interact with a wider range of people has been wonderful. I have also been gifted with a great new friend at work…we are partners in mischief, and providers of sanity for each other. Possibly the best thing is that she understands my introverted tendancies and doesn’t freak out  I have not laughed so hard in a very long time…what a breath of fresh air she is!

Creativity

I started adding watercolour to my journalling this year! I journalled both our Tassie trip and our France trip and loved the way recording my holidays in this way cemented the various elements of the trip for me. Looking back over the sketchbooks now brings back all sorts of amazing memories. Travelling to France was the highlight of my creative year. It fed my inner artist like nothing I’ve ever experienced.

Fitness

In spite of the numerous health setbacks this year, I managed to hit my goal of 2000kms under my own steam (bike, run, kayak) for the year. I developed my mountainbiking technical skills and revelled in the opportunity to push my body to the limits and swim in the rush of adrenaline after conquering obstacles. I remain addicted to cycling as quite possibly the best sanity maintenance tool I have access to.

Learning

Life got too busy to make this one a priority in a formal sense this year. I suspended my theology studies in the second half of the year due to travel and illness, and I didn’t have the energy to read a great deal either. To a degree I think my learning was somewhat deconstructed. I feel as though I’ve gone backwards. Or perhaps I have been learning on another plane that is less measurable and observable.

A Year Without Goals

This year I tried a new approach to planning my year, and I felt a little bit adrift at the beginning of the year without my list of must-dos for the year, but at this end of the year I am grateful for the brain space it has allowed me in not feeling like a failure because I couldn’t achieve what I wanted to. I think part of my problem this year was that I lost sight of my passions in favour of the requriements that other people put on my life. I aim to rectify that next year.

Even though I started out the year without any lists of concrete goals like I normally would, I sort of ended up with some pseudo-goals in the form of my bucket list, but I didn’t feel the need to constantly analyse the goals or measure myself up against them. If I did them, I ticked them off. I got through about two-thirds of the bucket list. You can see which ones I ticked off in the picture. I feel terrific about the ones I achieved…that’s to be expected really, but what has really surprised me is that I’m not particularly bent out of shape about the ones that I didn’t get to tick off. They’re not going anywhere…I’ll just see if I can do them next year…or not…

—

Overall I am just glad to have made it to the end of the year in one piece. It has been a challenging one on so many fronts. My head knows that these are the times we learn the most, but my heart and soul are calling out for respite. I am trusting that the holidays will afford me the time and space to find some measure of peace and order.

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