May I wish you all a belated Happy and Healthy 2017.

On the other hand, we are just coming up to the Chinese New Year, so perhaps I am not too late after all.  In Chinese Animal terms, we are just finishing the Year of the Monkey and I don’t know about you, but as far as I am concerned I am just coming up for breath.  The Year of the Monkey is one where anything can happen, a particularly auspicious time for new inventions, taking risks and being rebellious, a year where agile, inventive minds, sheer guts and bravado will win out, especially with personal and individual endeavours.  Generally a very lively, optimistic and progressive year – how has it been for you?

We are about to enter the Year of the Rooster – very different!  This will be a very powerful year when it comes to moving forward, impressions count and you will want to look your best and be clear on your intentions concerning love, money and business.  Stick to practical and well-proven paths to ensure success, rather than risky ventures.  In a Rooster Year, all of the Chinese animals can reap great rewards by tapping into Rooster traits – loyalty, commitment, hard work, family values are just some of the characteristics that will be rewarded this year.

Looking back on my own year, it has been different in many ways with huge highs and lows.  My husband and I always write a list of objectives that we hope to achieve together in the new year and I find it fascinating to read the one for last year and see how far we have come.  I had a few personal objectives and sadly have achieved very few of them.  I have now pinned them on the wall opposite my desk so I cannot escape them this year – in the hope that it will urge me on.   One of them, dare I say it, is to write a short blog every month!  It is ‘never too late’ is my mantra for this year.

A lovely Christmas gift this year from one of my daughters was a ‘well being’ journal.   Those of you who have become clients in the last few years will have received a very small gift from me at the end of the consultation that is called a Gratitude rock, together with an explanation of what it is and how it might help you to ‘count your blessings’.

In the words of the introduction of my journal ‘the ideas are about building personal resilience rather than focusing on the negative events in our lives.  These ideas are concerned with increasing the possibility of living as contentedly as possible with life as it is; finding as much good as possible in the here and now, rather than deferring the experience of well-being until life can be different.’

If you have lost or forgotten all about your rock,  then perhaps this could be one of your new year’s resolutions – I know I shall be trying to make it one of mine.