I’ve not done resolutions for years and instead, I decided to switch to goals and that’s working much better for me. There’s less pressure that way, and as it’s a goal, I’ve something to work towards.

I honestly can’t remember if I made any goals at the beginning of 2023, other than completing therapy and making it to the end of the year, by making it to the end of each day.

Because I have done the work to look at my limiting beliefs and gained an honest view of who I actually am from facts and not from someone’s opinion of who they think I am or who they believe I am, my confidence has grown. My anxiety has lowered, and I'm much better at stopping negative thoughts now, so I don’t get stuck in a negative self-talk track and end up in a downward spiral.

I used to wonder ‘what if’ until I realised there wasn't anything I could do to change the past. What happened, happened, and there’s nothing I can do to change it. It’s done. Set in stone. It’s not changing.

What I can do is learn from the mistakes I’ve made and try to make wiser choices in the future. I believe there are events mapped out in our lives that will happen, both good and bad, and we can’t do anything to stop them.

After my last relationship ended around ten years ago, I felt a nudge that I needed to stay single and heal further from my abusive past. I clearly wasn’t as healed as I thought before entering that short-lived relationship, as it turned out that he also wasn't good for me.

The first episode is an introduction to me, the podcast and I also share my testimony. I thought that this was the best place, to begin with, a faith-based podcast. I’m going to be sharing all the things that I’ve been through since becoming a Christian as well as all the other struggles I come across along the way.

It seems like I have now been here forever and at the same time, not long at all, which seems weird.

My anxiety was very high for the majority of the first eight months at my new job due to changing jobs as well as the ongoing pandemic. Fortunately, my anxiety has now lowered as I’ve been doing a lot of work on it, at work and at home.

It’s understandable if you weren’t aware that I had a YouTube channel as until recently there were only three videos on there…

I used to worry that I had to post every week here, but sometimes that wasn’t possible for me to do, so I started to give myself a lot more grace and post when I could. Suffering from anxiety means that I’m not always able to post on any of my platforms because when I’m in a dip, my main priority is my mental health, my well-being and getting out of that dip.

In mid-January, I found out that the store I had worked in for the last fourteen years was having to close after the landlord wasn't willing to renegotiate a new lease from May this year. It was defiantly a shock to be told that news on a conference call with the rest of the store team and a few people from head office. As we were on furlough from work and not seeing each other daily, it took a few months for the news to sink in. There were initial hopes of reopening the store from April 12 for a closing down sale before closing down the store and sending the stock and anything else to the head office.