It's February tomorrow dear reader, a whole new month, Holly will be 8 months old and I'll be, well lets just say it's my birthday but if anyone asks I am 35 and sticking ;)  I heard that people are allowed to wish Philip Schofield happy birthday but no one is ever allowed to refer to how old he is, well he's perpetually young so if that's all it takes I'll just tell people I'm 35 forever.

So it's the end of January and I am taking stock of the last month, it's been quite a month for me personally, this month has been about helping myself and others to get control of their lives so that they (and I) can become fuller, better, richer, more fulfilled people.  I want to thank you for all of the messages, comments, discussions on my Facebook (that's my personal Facebook, please do feel free to add me, but not if you're an axe wielding psychopath).  It's great to be able to help others to help themselves and sometimes it's just as much as getting someone else to vocalise the questions you can't seem to ask yourself, I of course do this myself with others who are far more knowledgeable like the amazing Leonie Dawson for instance!  I'm sure you'll hear much more about her as we go through the year.

The very most important thing I did of course was to start the month forgiving myself and anyone who'd ever hurt me, it's given me the power to build the entire foundations of my new life and it's a wonderful amazing thing and life is only going to continue to get better and better.  This single point has brought forth the most questions I've had asked and I just want to reiterate that it's not about knocking on everyones door who has ever wronged you, it's just about you making your peace with yourself, the universe and God and I think from experience that actually it was a lot harder for me to find inner forgiveness and be at peace with myself more than anyone else but my goodness, my shoulders relaxed straightaway and one physical thing I've noticed is that I've had far less neck pain during January, I think holding onto things just builds up inside you and it can actually cause physical pain, of course you have to be able to let go and this was something I covered yesterday, it's taken me time to reconnect with my own emotions and let myself be truly happy, sad, excited, interested instead of pretty numb to it all.  As many of you know I am bi-polar and I take medication which does control at least some of my emotions but I found that digging inside myself I can still reach them all, I just had to look a teeny bit harder.

Look, I'm really proof that if I can do it, screwed up, made a mess of it a billion times and bought the T-shirt then for you, well not only is it possible but it's an absolute definite!

The first key to everything is a simple smile in the mirror at yourself, fake it till you make it if you have to, it's been proven psychologically that if someone smiles at you it makes you happier and if you smile at yourself it makes you happy.

So what are you waiting for?  Smile at yourself, be happy and lets all leap into February and have the best month together we've all had for years!

I shall be starting mine off with dog walking, lunching, caking and champagning, sounds like a good first of February to me!

Who do you want to be and how are you going to achieve that?

This week has been a wonder and a revelation dear reader, it's great to hear so many of you joining in with grabbing your life by the horns and roaring like a panther.  I've been roaring myself in the quieter moments.

You see it's great to help other people find themselves and I think it almost pushes me onwards to become the person I've always wanted to be.

Have you ever asked that very important question of yourself?  Who do you want to be and what are the actions you can take to be that person?

For me, I want to be self confident, honest, happy, lovable, someone who will be embraced and will be able to give as much love as I receive, I still want to be successful although my definitions of success may have changed ever so slightly and of course I want to continue to work towards being an experientialist.

So I know where I want to be, I know what I want to be and now I have to ask myself the questions of how I'll achieve that?  Well I suppose that goes back to my last blog about getting control of your life right now!

My biggest thing was to forgive myself and others so I did that in January, I've talked about this before and lets just take a minute to ponder it, a blanket of forgiveness for yourself and for anyone who has ever wronged you, look I'm not suggesting you go and knock on peoples doors and tell them, nor am I suggesting that you ever have to speak to people who've wronged you ever again but you just need to say it to yourself and to the universe and let it all go, the minute I did it I felt the biggest amount of relief, I actually felt it in my neck and in my shoulders, it was a big Ahhhh moment and I think it's the very first step to any life plan really.

You also need to know that it's ok to feel whatever emotion you are feeling, we spend so much time keeping emotions in and they are damaging, I learnt to keep emotions locked away quite some time ago and it's taken me so long to be able to release them again and I can't tell you just how good it feels to be able to just cry openly again, it still doesn't happen all that often but yesterday for example I had moments of happiness and sadness and I let myself feel those emotions as they occurred and I think I sleep much better at night because my brain isn't constantly in turmoil.

One final thing which is great to embrace is that it's ok to be the person you are, be honest and be forthright, if people can't handle that then it's definitely not your fault, you will end up in a situation where you have exactly the people you need in your life to help carry you forward and you in turn will help them in the same ways, you see we're all on a voyage of discovery, we're all trying to be the best people we can be and as long as we realise you only have to be good enough and not constantly strive for perfection then that is a very good thing.

So this weekend when you have a spare 5 minutes (It's my birthday on Sunday so I'm planning lots of spare minutes....which contain copious amounts of cake or Champagne) just ask yourself that very important question, who do you want to be? and if you aren't already there, and lets face it, we're all mostly on the journey towards it, people who have achieved it are definitely in the minority, so what are you going to do to make those changes and achieve your own personal state of nirvana?