It is that time of the year again: it is time to look back before the New Year hits. How was your year 2018? What made you happy? What are you grateful at? What have you learned?
I definitely had a full ride this year! We started the year by moving to Barcelona region. In the end of January we took a car from Paris and drive it to Barcelona. It was a big transition in our life. For me, at first, it wasn’t easy at all. Anyway we made one dream came true: we experienced the life in South of Europe. We met some lovely people that we still stay contact, but at the same time we did experience the reality under the lemon tree. Afterwards I have to say, that this six months period in Alella has shaped me more than any other experience (if motherhood doesn’t account). It gave me so much perspective in life, and in the end I have liberated myself from dreaming of life elsewhere.
Also, big movements in life have changed me not to get attach material things. When we were moving all our stuff from Alella to Bretagne it really opened my eyes: I don’t want to fill our new place with stuff. The cleaning process went through me inside out: We have sold a lot of things and with that money only we have decorated our new place. We wanted our life to be simpler. I wanted to decorate our home more zero waste principles in mind than matching decoration colors. In Finland we have this big thing to decorate our home with design sofas and lamps and matching everything with white, white and white. For inside, my cleaning process has been my every morning meditation ritual. I have left behind many things, cleaned my mind, and I do feel so much better. I have found my path that I am now walking, but at the same time I have accepted that if something doesn’t happen now, it is meant to be like that. I don’t want to force things to happen.
In my professional life the biggest invest was to participate in a yoga and meditation teacher trainings – so far I think they have been the best investments for years! Also, I am thankful all the writing and styling projects that I have had chance to do this year, and all the new people that have entered in my life.
New year 2019 – you can come now! It is time to cut old magazines and make a dream map for the next year. As you might know, this is my New Year’s Eve tradition: to make a dream map. I have been doing this since 2014, and find it very clarifying tradition. I totally recommend start to do this. When you visualize your dreams and write them down, it is most likely that you are actually reaching them, than if you just leave it in your head. Also, it is nice to look at old dream maps and see which dream came true or how the dreams change. For me doing a dream map is really a therapeutic experience in a same way than cleaning a wardrobe – you go through all the old stuff, get rid of them and make room for new ones.
Before you start to do your first dream map, I recommend to do a little meditation where you visualize your dreams and think also, how is the life when you reach your goal. Keep that image in your mind when you start cutting inspiring pictures from magazines. Think also, what meaningful life means to you? What is your ideal everyday life like? What you want to reach in your professional life?