It was not apparent to everyone from the outside, but 2023 was very different for me. The first half of the year I was able to do some work, the accomplishments I listed in the blog about what happened in the fifth year of Family-Based Solutions, which you can find HERE. Because when I work, I tend to be highly productive, to many people that may have even looked at a fairly productive period for me. But it really was not.
Much of my time until about mid-summer was taken up by a health issue that, although not very serious, needed treatment. While the health issue itself did not cause any serious disturbance in my life, the side effects of the medication I had to take for several months, left me barely able to function in a variety of ways. This meant I was forced to push work way down the list of priorities. Now and then I was able to do an hour or so and got a lot done in it.
Thankfully 2022 had been a very good year, financially, providing me with some breathing space in 2023 still. And over the course of the summer, I started to emerge from the medication-induced fog and become myself again. Characteristically, this took on the form of coming up with an ambitious new project – you can read about the Compendium Project HERE – immediately. Work on that and on developing a training programme based on the book ‘Understanding the Trauma of Children from Institutions’ (information about that HERE) has taken up most of the last few months.
So, I did get things done and am proud of what I managed to accomplish professionally this year. However, the focus of the year was very much on what I could do for myself. I learned a lot from that too. The growth has had an impact on both my personal and professional life. On top of that, of course, there has been a lot going on in the world outside that has often been hard to keep up with or make sense of. As I said at the start, it has been a year very unlike others for me. I look forward to how its results will help me as I step into 2024 and continue to put what I have at my disposal to use in improving the lives of children in vulnerable situations.
I hope you are getting well-deserved rest over the end-of-the-year holidays. May 2024 bring us all a sense of belonging, togetherness, love and peace in the broadest sense of the word.
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