365 days around the sun

So, it’s my birthday (I know - happy birthday to me) and it got me thinking that it’s been a year since my last birthday (duh, I know) that’s 365 days, 12 months, 52 weeks, 8760 hours and 525600 minutes since I was frolicking in the waters of Tulum, Mexico celebrating my 28th birthday. A WHOLE YEAR SINCE THEN! Are you actually kidding me? Where has time gone how has it just flown by so quickly.

And then naturally it got me thinking about time, and how precious it is and how I vow on this 29th birthday of mine to never take another split second for granted.

Grateful for it all. 

It got the old peanut ticking and reflecting back on the last 365 days and a bladdy lot has happened in my life and the world, for starters the earth travelled an entire complete loop around the sun, a global pandemic broke out, and you were forced to stay indoors for a very, very long time. Didn’t put that on your birthday list did ya? Would I have predicted all that has happened in the past year? Absolutely not. Not even for a second. Am I grateful and happy and content? ABSABLADDYLUTELY!

So let’s get back to the whole time thing, you may be sitting and thinking about how much or how little you’ve achieved this year or how much has changed and stayed the same. I’m sitting here thinking about a whole bunch of random stats that made my heart feel all kinds of things.

• More than 300 million cows are slaughtered each year for human consumption
• I have saved over 100 animals this year through a plant-based diet
• 15 billion trees were cut down
• 5 billion trees were planted
• 140 million babies were born
• About 50 million people died
• 100cm of rain was distributed amongst the earth (VERY unevenly I may add)
• 4 trillion cubic meters of fresh water has been used
• 177.8 million metric tons of sugar was consumed
• 260 000 kids are adopted each year
• 25% of the dogs that entered animal shelters were adopted 
• 20% of the great barrier reef died

Wow. There are so few words. 365 days since my last birthday and all this has happened? All this has happened and most of the world doesn’t even know about it. How did we get to this point? So often I get caught on planet me, that I don’t focus on what’s going on in planet earth. 

 

And it doesn’t stop. Not even for a second. It keeps on going and so does the happenings of the world. All these things mentioned above are happening and so so much more.

I by no means want to depress you on my day of birth, absolutely not I believe age is supposed to be celebrated to the absolute max as it is the greatest privilege given to us by time, I just wanted to bring awareness that next time you’re sipping on your mimosa at brunch with your matcha pancakes celebrating your orbit around the sun – just keep in mind all the other things that have happened in that time. And how you can make a difference.

With that in mind, noticing that a gazillion things good and bad have happened right under our shnoz that we probably didn’t even know about. A lot changes within ourselves too, good bad and ugly.

Self-reflection is a magnificently beautiful thing and a birthday is the perfect time to do it.

Why is self-reflection so important you may ask? Well my sweet darling little cherub, how else are you to measure your growth without reflecting on how far you have come? It can be your biggest blessing to reflect on the self, for mainly 2 reasons:

1. You are able to see how far you have come, this in turn motivated you to go even further and feel happy and content with your accomplishments you have made.
2.  You are able to see that you have not moved very far, or in fact have gone a bit backwards (which is a-okay by the way, we’re only human) and this self-reflection moment allows you to see that (because if you didn’t reflect you wouldn’t have seen) and then make changes accordingly to get you on your merry trot to onwards and upwards.

There is of course multimillion more reasons, but these are the two most important. Often, we forget to give ourselves credit where credit is due, and secondly, we often don’t see that we are in fact not moving forwards to where we want to be and rather, we are stagnant and perhaps even unhappy. Solution?

Cool Kim, now what? How the skipity piggles am I supposed to self-reflect?

Well angel chocolate chip cookie, lucky for you it’s my birthday which is myself reflection time and I can tell you exactly what steps I take to have a right old squiz on who I am and what I’m doing on this lovely planet earth.

Don’t freak out when I say this, but this self-reflection consists of questions and thus they will need answering. AAAAAH. Yes, if you could write the answers down trust me my darling everything will be a lot clearer. But, if I have an anti-journal pumpkin patch reading this, then you may answer it with the little voice inside your head. However, I can’t stress enough with how important it is to write these down. It’s all part of the process. Don’t be lazy, this is your health we’re talking about surely that’s important to you? Just pick up a pen, find a scrap piece of paper or the back of your sushi menu it honestly doesn’t matter and write your answers down. 

Writing them down is NB for so many reasons:

• It clears your mind
• It clarifies your goals
• It sends those vibrations out into the universe in order to attract what you’re writing
• It relieves tension and stress
• It keeps your mind organized
• MANIFESTATION

Those are a few off the top of my head, but there is a gazillion more where that came from. Just needed to reiterate the benefits for all my doubting toms who aren’t a fan of journaling.

Okay, let’s get to these quezzies:

1.     10 THINGS I’M GRATEFUL FOR RIGHT THIS SECOND

2.     WHAT WAS I DOING THIS TIME LAST YEAR? WHAT WERE MY GOALS?

3.     TWO THNGS THAT MAKE ME LAUGH TILL I PEE

4.     MY LIFE IN 7 YEARS

5.     WHAT DO I NEED TO GET OFF MY CHEST TODAY?

6.     HOW CAN I SIMPLIFY MY LIFE IN LITTLE WAYS?

7.     WHAT ADVICE WOULD I TELL MYSELF NOW?

8.     HOW CAN I MAKE MORE TIME FOR THINGS THAT MAKE MY HEART HAPPY?

9.     WHAT ACTUALLY MAKES ME HAPPY

10.  8 INTERESTING FACTS ABOUT ME

11.  MY TOP 5 FEARS

12.  6 THINGS ID LIKE TO DO MORE OF

13.  THINGS I LIKE ABOUT THIS PRECISE TIME IN MY LIFE

14.  WHAT DO I DO TO RELAX?

15.  WHAT DO I FEEL SUPER STRONGLY ABOUT?

16.  WHAT IS MY TOP 5 PRIORITIIES?

17.  5 THINGS I CAN DO LESS OFTEN

18.  MY PITS AND PEAKS OF THE WEEK

19.  WHAT DO I NEED IN MY LIFE TO FEEL CONTENT?

20.  3 THINGS I AM GOOD AT

21.  WHAT ARE MY BIGGEST GOALS?

22.  WHAT DO I LOVE ABOUT MYSELF (ATLEAST 10 THINGS HERE FRIENDS)?

23.  HOW CAN I GROW MORE?

24.  IF MONEY DIDN’T EXIST, WHAT WOULD I BE DOING

25.  WHAT AM I THINKING RIGHT THIS SECOND?

26.  ADVICE I WOULD GIVE MYSELF 5 YEARS AGO

I know, it’s a lot. But it’s actually not. I have no doubt, in fact I can bet you cash money that you will see a very clear pattern forming. That you will very clearly be able to see what you want with life and how you can achieve it & f you’re even on the right track to get there. 

It’s a beautiful thing, self-reflection. A different and unique experience for all because we are all completely different and going through our own peaks and trophs and dips and dabs. Be kind and show compassion towards yourself and others, notice the changes that need to occur and by joe get off you lazy bum and go and make those changes!

Celebrate what can be celebrated and change what needs to be changed. You are the captain of your own superyacht, find out where you want to go and sail there my love. And look around you, look exactly where you are and notice the fish in the clear blue seas, acknowledge the beautiful sunsets and listen to your heart – and you will get to exactly where you need to be.

Anyhoo, that’s my birthday thoughts in a teeny little nutshell. Keep your head up and your heart strong sweet cheeks, make this life everything you have ever hoped for it to be. You only have one.

Sending you oodles and boodles of birthday love,

PS. Birthday wishes and love and presents always welcome.

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