Are you looking to change your life?
This all starts with you. Instead of searching ‘out there’ learning how to connect more deeply within and be guided by your own intuitive knowing. You know what is best for you. What feels good. But sometimes we all lose that connection with ourselves along the way.
As a Mentor and guide this is where I step in, if you’d like to know more take a look here, if you need some structure and guidance right now, Bloom From Within is available now online for you to get started straight away and if you need more 1-1 support and encouragement we can work together.
If you’d like to know more about how I live and work with intention, read on.
Whilst on holiday in France my husband and I decided it was time for us to move. We’d lived in a lovely Berkshire market town for eleven years but had outgrown our small Victorian house and his three hour daily commute into London was taking its toll.
Over a cup of tea we wrote down our wishes on a piece of kitchen roll paper, which was all we had to hand at the time.
Fortunately we shared many of the same non-negotiable requirements; our new home had to be a detached property as we’d had enough of being disturbed by noisy neighbours and we wanted somewhere dedicated to park as we’d had enough of reversing our car backwards up our tiny road to squeeze into any space we could find nearby.
The new house had to come with decent outside space and of course be a lot closer to London. I found an image on Pinterest of the type of 1930’s style property we liked and pinned it just so we could keep it in the forefront of our minds.
Our wish lists didn’t just include our dream property, we knew our lifestyle had to change too because work dominated everything. By the time Mr M returned home our evening consisted of a quick dinner, brief chat and plonking ourselves down on the sofa for an hour to watch TV. And that was on a good day if he was home early enough. Which meant the weekends were equally busy trying to catch up with life admin.
It wasn’t ground-hog day but ground-hog week and so not fun.
This was not the life either of us intended or wanted.
The day you plant the seed is not the day you eat the fruit
Once we had a better idea of our non-negotiables the search for our new home began. Armed with our kitchen roll wish list we explored towns and villages on the outskirts of London. It quickly transpired that moving was not going to be easy and it took us another two long years with plenty of stressful set-backs along the way. You can read more about those in my book.
“Decide
So do it, decide. Is this the life you want to live?
Is this the person you want to love? Is this the best you can be?
Can you be stronger. Kinder. More compassionate.
Decide. Breathe in. Breathe out.
And decide ”
There were some things we were willing to compromise on and others that we were not. And at times it was disheartening, we wondered maybe our wish list was too ambitious?
Maybe we should compromise on our wish list?
Maybe we should just stay put?
But sometimes you have to dig deeper, commit and trust you will get to where you want to be.
The biggest way to transform your life is to decide what you actually want
It sounds obvious doesn’t it that in order to change or transform anything in your life you have to decide what it is you want, what direction you wish to head in or where you’d love to end up. But often we don’t, we coast along, drifting and waiting for something to miraculously change. Days, weeks and months can pass us by and only then do we realise it’s now or never. We stop hanging around waiting, make some courageous decisions and the most important bit of all, take intentional action.
We found exactly what we wanted. And more
Eventually we found our new home and four years on I can say that moving changed our lives for the better. Living on the outskirts of west London means we are slap-bang within the urban sprawl. But within five minutes I can be parked up on the M25, in forty-five minutes I can be in Canary Wharf or in ten minutes I can be having a lovely walk around Virigina Water lake.
Remarkably the house we live in is identical to one I pinned on Pinterest several years ago. The resemblance is uncanny – only our garage is on the left side instead of the right. Yes vision boards are magical if you stick with them. (However it was the fourth house we tried to buy and the other three looked nothing like it - note to self always stick with the vision!)
But the transformation didn’t stop there.
Despite not being on our wish list now we live among a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). Our neighbours are horses, cattle, wildlife including an abundance of birds and we’ve adopted two swans and three ducks Daphne, Doris and Donald who visit several times a day. And the heron fishes at the bottom of the garden.
Living here opened up a brand new world for us, one that is immersed in nature and the seasons.
All of this definitely wasn’t on our kitchen roll.
Now we pause and watch the sun go down, notice the wildlife right outside our back door, have a far greater appreciation of mother nature and have learned how to protect the local environment.
Every morning the first thing I do is feed our cats, ducks and birds (in that order!) as opposed to checking my emails or scrolling mindlessly through Instagram.
It was never our intention to stay here for years on end and so now we are considering where we’d like to head next. Along with the original non-negotiables there are some new additions; no cars or transit vans blocking our driveway, a big enough garden for all our roses and plants, our home has to be within walking distance to the sea with plenty of places to explore the natural world and a slower pace of life. The New Forest and Northumberland definitely appeal and have made our new short-list so far. But who knows - we are open to what piques our curiosity.
Decide, take baby steps then change will come. And it will be good. Really good.
Intentional living and working on your own terms means you have to ask yourself some important questions. Decide what kind of life you actually want. And say no thank you to everything that isn’t that. Sometimes when we move towards our heartfelt desires life has a funny way of bringing us something even better than we could ever of intended.
No one else is living your life and the beautiful thing is you get to choose and decide how you will live yours.
Remember you’re always one decision away from a totally different life.