Thursday 3 January 2013

Realistic New Year Resolutions



My new years resolution this year was to start smoking and so far it’s going very well.

Admittedly I hated it to start with, namely the head rush, and had to pour cans of coke down my neck to combat the taste, but in order to give up a guilty pleasure I needed another guilty pleasure and a second new years resolution is to give up the booze since my folks - monitoring my lubricated antics over the festive period - have threatened me with rehab.

I’ve heard, read, experienced that people with bipolar love to drink, snort, shop, gamble, ‘hold hands’ because the quick fix attached is similar to our natural buzzers and we often prefer to self medicate than listen to our doctors.

Another thing we ‘forget’ is that drinking on top of our meds stops them working properly. THIS is my reason to quit, even if just for a few months (or minutes) because 2012 has seen two psychiatric admissions, a break up and a bingo habit and I need to see some positive changes in 2013 or I will simply leave Walford (yes, I believe ‘Stenders is real, give me something to cling onto).

Other new years resolutions include..

- See more of people - I actually have more conversations with my pet guinea pigs than people. As a writer I need to be more nosey, find out what's going on in other peoples lives, swear to secrecy and then change names.

- Practice the drums more - I’m getting crap on the drum kit. How am I to be the nagging thirty something drummer with her Take A Break magazine and Ovaltine on the floor tom in a band with teenage comb overs unless I practice?

- De Clutter - My flat is starting to look like something from a Channel Four documentary on hoarding. Because I make installation art I often hang around skips and scrap projects like flies and drag useless materials back to my flat with the promise of bringing it to life.

As humans we are more likely to list the things we must change and forget the things that worked for us in 2012, like.. er.. changing lightbulbs or remote control batteries. Other things I learnt last year to take with me into 2013 is..

- You can’t fix other people - I spent the last five years trying to eliminate someone else’s baggage, instead I just added to my own. The only people you can fix are yourselves, and you need to swallow a bit more than pills and self help books to do this. CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) and CAT (Cognitive Analytical Therapy) are great tools.

- Go against the grain - not only is this a fabulous method for cutting fabric to make cushion cover binding, it also works when you’re so low you can’t face the outside world so you FACE THE OUTSIDE WORLD. Fresh air and change of scenery works on both the mental and physical being.

- Don’t ask you don’t get - Although we’ve been hearing this since the age of five some of us (me included) still think good fortune will come to us if we sit and wait quietly. Last year I wrote for some of my favourite magazines and supplements because I asked to. I also had a three month solo exhibition - since art school - of my textiles art because I asked to. If anyone had of said no I would’ve been exactly where I was anyway.

Whatever you decide to do or not to do in the coming year, have a marvellous new one!

To read this in the Huffington Post.. http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/kerry-hudson/realistic-new-years-resolutions_b_2401729.html?just_reloaded=1

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