
In the Christmas wind down, I wound up. As work slowed, everything else accelerated. Decorating, gifting, hosting, making the magic as ever. Mary Yuletide Poppins I became! Loving it! Giving gives me joy. But this year, the universe sprinkled a couple of curveballs onto the festivities. Twice, yes twice, I woke to a flooded kitchen. Twice. Two separate burst pipes, two separate areas of the kitchen, two separate days, two different destructive burst pipes. And for extra seasonal sizzle, dear Unipops planned both incidents the day before I was hosting my annual feasts for 20 or so people. One on the very day guests were flying in from over seas and pilgrimaging down from Britain’s North to stay with me. On the actual day we had no running water, no heating, destroyed furniture and rafts of workmen carving up carpets and floorboards upstairs trying to locate the leaks. Curve balls indeed
Now, the first flood saw me melt down. The last working day of my year with lots of work streams to wrap up, the only adult in the house, 4 kids to look after, very little sleep, no insurance company support (Christmas closure – thanks!), oodles of guests arriving, the functioning home momentarily paralysed and still those drips kept on dripping. I was out of my depth emotionally, mentally and literally physically wading through the ever-swelling pools of water on the kitchen floor. Buckets, towels, puddled tiles, warping wooden units, lights off, stopcock locked, help, help, help. I was deranged with the instability of it all.
Bearing in mind I run a burnout business and have spent years studying amygdala hijacks, panic attacks and how to quell raging anxiety by soothing the adrenal glands, my expertise gushed down the drain with the seeping stream as I was overwhelmed with the ‘WTF’ magnitude of it all, Maslow’s hierarchical needs pyramid poignantly shouting at me – “Shelter is not safe!”. Mercifully, angels of loyal workmen who’ve been part of my life maintaining my Surrey home over the years swopped in to gallantly save the day and at one point I had 5 vans in the driveway with helpful construction gods puzzling the leak away. By 4pm we were stable. Rodent damage was the cause. Plastic pipe replaced, carpets re-laid, heating toasty, back to household flow. As you were, Sir.
The second flood was an entirely different story. Nothing melting down bar logs on the fire (hmm, does burning wood constitute melting of sorts? Note to self: Ask Perplexity). I was almost fascinated by the drama of it. Pyjamaed, walking sleepily into the kitchen one morning to brew my cuppa, a day of gift wrapping ahead, laptop closed for the year, Christmas tree twinkling, I spotted an unwell kitchen sofa. There it was, sodden, a darker green than usual, backdropped by a gentle waterfall trickling messily and incessantly from ceiling to floor, rivulets meandering down the whitewash, lit by ceiling spotlights enjoying their new role as taps, drip, drip, drip. This time, after my incredulous head shake and eye roll to the heavens, I knew what to do, who to call, how to stabilize the situation. This time, I popped Michael Buble’s Christmas album on, stored some water vats, twisted that spell-casting stopcock once more, and set about prising open floorboards, identifying the (again) rodent chewed pipe connector and replacing it quickly after a ScrewFix salvation shop. The whole incident felt way less destabilizing and just another one of those surprising eventualities to pivot a day’s focus elsewhere. And this time I had 24 hours before the new guests arrived so the luxury of a little more time. And breathe
The reason I share this tale of sopping furniture and weeping ceilings is as a metaphor for how adversity always ironically blesses us in life. Resilience always grows from hardship. Unexpected, unwanted, unplanned-for circumstances can indeed be gifts. Without the struggle and strife we don’t progress and grow. We need the bad times to be able to relish the good. There is no light without the dark and all that. We learn through challenging moments. We evolve. And that evolution has the potential to always be positive, if and when we seize it so.
So, as we look ahead to 2025, intentions bubbling and enlivening, I encourage you to allow space for that which isn’t on your vision board. Be prepared for life itself re-routing you. It inevitably will at points. Relationships may evolve in new directions, someone may insult you, someone may disagree vehemently with your perspective, someone may disappoint you, someone may reject you, someone may want to get too close, someone may become needy. Situations may progress differently than anticipated, redundancy, demotion, business redirection, bankruptcy. Invitations may pop up in tingly, “Ooh I hadn’t thought of that” and equally “Oh shucks, do I have to?” ways. You might find yourself navigating circumstances you’d previously never fathomed. You may fail, you may succeed. In all eventualities, you will grow. How you flow with the grow is up to you.
I’m leaning into 2025 with a softness and surrender to what will come. Of course, I’m invigorated, intentional, intensely focused and working as hard as ever, but I’m truly trusting the flow. I’m leaning in with good and giving purpose, excited and anticipatory. I’m curious to see what the year has in store that’s not by design
As you look out upon your fresh and glistening new year horizon (not the Xmas chocs in the fridge, nor the as yet unworn jogging shoes, nor the clutter you need to bust, but the shiny potentiality beyond all the immediate to do’s), I invite you to embalm yourself in the grounding certitude of your own positive Sense of Self. Meditate and hone in on your skills, strengths and expert capabilities, your achievements to date, the grand and the meaningfully miniscule. Zone in on your unique excellence and remind yourself that you stand here (slippered, heeled or sneakered, it doesn’t matter) ready for the year empowered by your leader within, your impact so far and to come, and your abundant ability to soar. Because when the going gets tough, your approach to that tricky, jolty moment has the potential to be transformational. Be reassured that who you are is already everything you need to float on through it and when you come out the other side take the time to acknowledge the gift in the derailment. Make the effort to consciously acknowledge how well you coped. You are enough and you’re now even better
As I finish writing this, like a smirky wink from her Celestial Highness herself, just now after preparing my morning fruit salad, as I went to sprinkle my seed mix on to the serving, the jar slipped and I now have a seed mountain for breakfast, a seed field instead of a kitchen table and a seed carpet layered atop those recently watered kitchen tiles. And so it is.
Wishing you the softest of new year starts and a year of gentle, flowy surrender ahead.
Bianca x
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I work with businesses to combat the organizational impact of burnout by teaching employee the self-agency to positively impact productivity, engagement and commercial results.
I work with ambitious individuals to avert burnout through energy management, body, mind and soul coaching ensuring dreams are realized and work is joyful never a struggle.
My business mission is a working world filled with graceful productivity, kind leadership and unlocked human potential. Read more about the magic I hope to sprinkle here and if you’d like us to work together message me here.
May you forever flourish x