Hello 2022

 

Nothing like resurrecting the blog with the exact same photo it died on.

Hey there. It's been a while.

In my decision to rediscover my "wild woman," I decided that I needed to start back here. The place I last truly saw her. On this blog.

So here I am. 

Bear with me though. It's been a while since I've done this whole blog thing, I promise the whit and flair will come back in time. 

So I guess hello 2022, this is my blog, we're excited to meet you.

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If you've been around long enough, I'm sure you recognize the photo. At the beginning of the year, it usually emerges out of the archives, and is followed by it's fraternal twin photo that contains my own personal goals for the year. Don't worry, that photo is here too.

Poof! Just like that, here it is. ==>

So, as a recap, what the heck are these two? Well, they're Pagan Goal Sheets. Obviously, they use a pentagram as a template, and then each point of the star has its corresponding section for goals. For the sake of space and cleanliness, I only put three goals per section, but you can put as many as you want! I definitely have more goals than these, but three per section fits the best for visual purposes.

At the top we have Spirit, and next to it, our spiritual goals. Here we can put all the goals we have for our spiritual self, for our practice and craft, and anything that may help us along our spiritual journey.

Moving clockwise (because we want the year to be a positive one), we have Air, and it's corresponding section. This is for our career and work related goals. Do we want to get a promotion? Find a job? Finish a big project, or just catch up on tasks? All those goals go here.

Next is Fire, for our relationship goals. Do we want to increase intimacy with our partner(s)? Go on dates? Get engaged/married? What about relationships with our friends? Do we want to make a new friend, go on friendly outings? What about our relationship with ourselves? How can we improve our relationship with ourselves?

Then there is Water. This is for our health and fitness goals. Are we working on eating healthier? Cutting out sweets? Are we trying to quit smoking? Be more active? Do we have a weight loss goal? Is our goal simply to remember to take our medicine and have mental health days?

Lastly, there's Earth. Here we have our goals for our home. Are we remodeling something this year? Moving? Are we working on our bills or debts? Are we separating our living from someone else, due to "leaving the nest" or divorce/separation? Are we upgrading our vehicle? Decluttering? All that goes here.

Now look at all your sections. What do all your goals have in common? For me, it's a general improvement of my quality of life. This is my Central Goal. This is the goal that all these other goals lead me towards. What's your central goal?

"Can I use this to build my own goals?" 

Duh. That's what its here for. In fact, if you click here, you can get a blank copy to fill out with your own goals. I got you!

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(Now I'm going to talk about my own personal goals. So if you're not ready for NBP to ramble on and be an open book, you can duck out now.)

Spiritual Goals:

Let's start with my goal "resurrect blog." What does that entail? Well, in general, I'd like to be more active on this blog, like it once was. If you didn't know, NBP does have a Facebook page, as well as Pinterest page. There's links to these in right side bar, under my face. There's also the NBP_Booksage Instagram page there too, which I referenced in this post. Some other updates that silently happened right before the activity on this blog died:

• Quote of the day - also found under my face, this quote probably won't change daily, but I'd like to update it frequently.
• So You Wanna Be A Witch - a tab up top that is still under construction, but is functional. Here you'll find buttons for different resources to help you on your own spiritual journey. These buttons are currently listed, and you'll see that 3 of them still say "coming soon." Sorry, "soon" wasn't actually....soon. But anyway, the list will eventually go away, once all the buttons are active. For now you get list and buttons.
• My face - hey look, my face is on the blog now! I hope it gives a more personal vibe now that you can put a face to the blog. For a long time, due to personal reasons, I didn't feel comfortable even alluding to my gender, let alone actually showing my identity. If you have been here a while, I used the pseudonym "Sam" because it was gender neutral. Eventually, I started using my spiritual name "Treya." Now you get my face!
• Some other random layout changes - this included updating the blog logo at the top, listing pages that the blog has been featured on at the bottom, and other changes I'm sure I've done forgot.

So, other than more activity/posts on the blog, some other goals I have that I'd like to achieve with this blog are:

• Finalizing the buttons for So You Wanna Be A Witch
• Create more free material for blog followers to use and apply to their own spiritual journey - I don't know if you knew this, but all the graphics and material on this blog are made by me
• More social media activity 
• Personal pantheon information - who do I worship as an eclectic pagan, how do I worship, how am I building relationships with my deities
• Landing page - like a welcome matt to my little home here
• New journal prompts
• More personal updates - I've gone long enough in the spiritual closet. I'm ready to bust out.

In my quest to achieve these goals I have for this blog, I know it will also help with my goal of more "self study." I've been pretty lax on my own studies and practices. I really need to get back into the habits, and I'm hoping this blog will help with finding my inspiration and love for my own craft.

As far as my third goal, "build friendships within the practice / coven work," well that's going to take some outside work too. I'm sure this blog can help build some online friendships, as I do seem to have a small handful of followers and (mostly) positive comments about how helpful they've found this blog. But I also want to get into the local pagan scene. I'm interested in maybe joining a coven, or starting my own? Don't get me wrong, solitary practice has been good to me, but I'm ready to at least have fellow pagans to talk to and relate to.

Career & Work Goals

Out of the three goals I included in this section, two of them are the exact same year to year. "Take more photos" and "start freelancing graphic design." I've been making steps on these goals every year, but neither of them are where I'd like them to be, and thus, they continue. One of my professional jobs is a wedding photographer. I am a second shooter, so I shoot under someone, but eventually I'd like to actually be the primary photographer. Where I really need to focus my photography is in my personal life. For personal reasons, I stopped taking photos of my kid. I couldn't share them with anyone, and so I just fell out of the habit of doing them. I have photos of my kid on my phone, but I don't have good photos for the past 7 years or so. Parent fail.

I also have a few years of photo edits to do, just to have material I can put in my portfolio. Any photographer who says their photos don't need ANY editing, is a liar. I'd like to catch up on my wedding photo edits.

Another goal I have is homeschooling. Ultimately, this is more of a long term goal that I recognize probably wont be achieved at all. My child is 4th grade, and I really wouldn't want to homeschool in high school. So there's only a few more years left. This goal would require a huge career change for me to be able to achieve, and as it stands right now, I cannot afford to not work, or work part time. Sorry kiddo, for now you have to go to school.

Relationship Goals

Something crazy happened in the middle of Covid 2020. I met this guy, and we've been seeing each other (on and off, but mostly on) since June 2020. It's been up and down. There have definitely been bumps in the road and obstacles we've had to overcome, but I'm entering 2022 with this relationship. 

Something even crazier happened at the end of 2021. That guy and I met a girl. And together, we decided to bring her into us as well. We are a poly triad now, and with that comes new paths that I haven't had much experience with. My guy is Norse Pagan, my girl is not but she's aware of our spirituality and is super supportive. (Moving forward, in respect of their privacy, I will be referring to him as DD, and her as Fox.) I'm both excited and nervous for this new path of the three of us. Our little triad. So goal "build on current relationships" is a go.

I dislike the term "throuple" because I feel it has become more of a trend, and isn't respected for what it is by the people jumping on the trend. That, and it makes me feel like I'm talking with my mouth full when I say it. So we are a trio. A triad. A powerful triangle. Triple Moon.

When it comes to my relationship with myself, I have some serious work to do. Ugh. I don't wanna. That's a lot of work, and I just don't wanna. But I know I have to, and I know its going to be hard. So I'm going to do it, but I'm going to be a grump about it. I have some pretty intense personal issues (PTSD, anxiety, stress induced seizures, migraines, chronic pain, body dysmorphia, depression, etc.) that complicate this whole thing. But I know I have to work on it. For myself. I really have to fall in love with myself, and rediscover my "wild woman."

Wild Woman:

wīldˈwo͝omən/

noun: a woman who lives authentically, acting with a sense of creativity, passion, and courage, with the aim of expressing herself and ideas freely in order to live her truth

As for the final goal in this section, I'm sure all of you read "build user manual for myself" and went WTF? Am I right? A friend use to always joke that we had known each other for so long, he could write a user manual about me, and give it to any of my potential future partners. Well, when our little triad hit a specific hurdle recently, I thought, "what if I actually made the manual?" In it, I could list everything about myself: all my personal/health issues, things that can trigger me or cause flashbacks, my likes and dislikes, things I'm into (yeah, I'm kinky, get over it), and anything else that might be helpful for a partner to know about me. 

Think about it, how many times have you met someone new and they ask "well, what do you like to do?" and you're just left going "uhhhhhh........?" Like, clearly I know nothing about myself! The manual could help guide conversation when I'm asked those types of questions. 

I posed the idea to my partners, and they were super stoked and supportive. So I'd like to at least make templates for the three of us to fill out about ourselves, and we can each have our own manual. This would also allow me to use my graphic design skills!

Health & Fitness Goals

Usually, I have weight loss goal. Lose X amount of weight. I'm over it. I'm so fed up with inserting a number that I never end up achieving, and then getting super discouraged about it. For a while, I was making good progress on that goal, but then Covid happened, and it just didn't pan out. It required some pretty strict calorie counting, and I just despise calorie counting because it can so easily develop into an eating disorder, and I'm no longer about that life.

This time, it's not about the numbers. I hate math anyway, so less numbers, the better. This year its about being consciously healthy. I cut out soda pop a few years ago, but I still need to drink more water. Nothing will convince me to let go of coffee, so I just have to compensate that with extra water. Instead of cutting out sweets, I'm going to just try to be more aware of what I'm consuming, and try to make healthier food decisions. Instead of an extra side of carbs, have a salad. Instead of a large fry, just a small. 

I also want to increase my physical activity. It's hard right now with the weather being so cold. But I want to get back into walking. I'd love to work up to jogging, but since I had Covid a year ago, I'm not sure my lungs will allow that. We shall see. I think my dog would also benefit from the walks. He's becoming quite the "tootsie roll" too.

Home & Hearth Goals

I still haven't bought a house. It's my top goal in this section, and has been for a couple years. Just when I thought I was financially in a place to really go for it, the housing market sky rocketed into oblivion, and suddenly, I'm not sure I'm in a good place financially to be able to afford it. 

DD and I have talked about going in on a place together, and I'd love to do that. I do still have some concerns that need address, and I'm not sure we will be able to do it in the timeline he wants, but I'm trying to make it work. I briefly mentioned Fox going in on it too, but that needs to be a more in depth conversation than we've been able to have yet. 

Down the road, DD and I have talked about a pack house, where we could have our poly pack (more on this in a later post, I swear). I love this idea, and I look forward to being able to achieving this goal! Unfortunately, its a long term goal, not one for 2022 (most likely).

In order to achieve this goal of buying a house, I really need to buckle down and work on my money management and self sufficiency. I don't want to depend on outside forces (other than my partners if we do get a place together), to keep me afloat. If I'm leaving the nest, I'm leaving the nest. I really need to work on my budget sheets, and reduce frivolous spending as much as I can. It's a working progress.

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All of this is to improve my overall quality of life, and my kid's quality of life. When I start checking off these goals, I know I will find myself happier and healthier.  

2022, be kind to me. I have high hopes for you.