Goodbye Hometown & hello 2024!
- Haley O'Connell
- Mar 7, 2024
- 5 min read
Issue #1
Hi, hey, hello, how are ya?
Thanks so much for signing up and connecting with me on this journey! It's only February and already I feel like it's been a wild ride this year 😅
If you follow Numerology at all, you will have heard this year is an 'eight' year and will bring in exciting new shifts in energy. It will deliver abundance, empowerment, and achievement and I am here to ride this journey all the way 🚙
The last few years have been really challenging for a lot of people and I think that conducting a reset in priorities and values will bring about important results for anyone who is willing to commit and do the work.
Speaking of work... I have been officially 'retired' from teaching for two full weeks now! It feels so crazy to me that the school Summer holidays have been and gone, that we're only two weeks off of Autumn, and that I am embarking on a new business endeavour 🙊 I've been working hard behind the scenes for monthsssss now and it's so close to being ready for the official launch. You guys will hear about it here first, so stay tuned!
I didn't get my typical laying-on-the-beach-drinking-cocktails summer hols this year. Instead, I've been pretty well glued to my laptop upskilling and learning more about myself and what I want from this lifetime... It feels surreal to realise that it is all coming true in this moment. There were some massive shifts that needed to happen internally for me to get to this place. And they weren't easy- but what I have learnt in the last 12 months is that old Roosevelt saying,
"Nothing worth having comes easy"
is so, so true. And when I think about the kind of person that I want to become, I draw on traits such as empathy, patience, and strength. These values aren't generally given to you though; they're earned the hard way. The most resilient people that I know have been through some of the toughest human experiences imaginable, and it is the journey of those experiences that shape us into human beings who make a positive difference to the world.
It also needs to be mentioned the experience itself is not the catalyst for change, rather it is our reaction to the experience. This is where it's so important to have people around you who can point out the perspective shifts that you might miss because you're too close to the experience to notice it. Another key factor here, is emotional resilience or EQ. It's basically your ability to experience a range of events and emotional upheavals and still be able to regulate your own internal mindset and nervous system so that they don't overwhelm you and drag you under. Again, these skills aren't generally taught in society or in our schools, so we have to take the initiative here and learn them for ourselves.
And if you don't have anybody to learn this from or you don't know where to start- let me be your guide. I've been engaged in the self-development and embodiment sphere for several years now, and have studied it for hundreds and hundreds of hours. I'm an avid bookworm and life-long learner and it's my passion to understand the human psyche, emotional intelligence, feminine and masculine embodiment, and quantum physics... promise me you'll stick with me even if you've never heard those terms before! I'm about to change your whole world and I promise that your life will be so much richer and more enjoyable because of it.
Life is a constant journey of learning and unlearning and new experiences and I wouldn't reverse my life even if I had the opportunity to. The rear view mirror faces backwards for a reason... it shows you where you've been, where you've come from, and what shaped you. But you can't use it to see into your present or future, and as hard as it may be, you have to let that sweet view go and face forward so you can see where you're going.
Big scary windscreen visions for 2024 🗺️
One super exciting thing that I can announce right now is that I will be travelling full-time in 2024. I am in the process of finding a beautiful campervan- preferably a Merc Sprinter if you know of any going for sale- and will then set off on the trip of a lifetime around Australia. I have no firm plans and for the first time in my life I am revelling in the freedom of letting the wind blow me in whatever direction it chooses 🍃
This is a trip that I've had on my bucket list since I was a 15 year old girl, daydreaming up the back of Hughesy's Design and Tech class. We were tasked with a design project and a good friend of mine (shouts out to HK!) designed the back of a Kombi campervan that we were going to live in together for 12 months as a gap year... I probably don't need to explain why that particular dream never came true 😂
But nevertheless, the idea of travelling Australia has persisted on my heart. For over 15 years, I was stuck in the limiting belief that I needed somebody to travel with- I didn't think I could possibly travel around Australia on my own as a single female, and how the heck could I even afford that?
A number of events and conversations led to a re-evaluation of my priorities. One of my favourite people pointed out (mostly kindly), that perhaps when I did meet somebody they might not be interested in the same dream, and then what? Would I give up this dream and go to my grave never having accomplished it?
That didn't seem acceptable to me and it's not the kind of person that I want to be- always acting from fear and what ifs? I'd already decided that 2023 was the year that I would be hanging up my teaching hat so I knew that in 2024 I'd be footloose and fancy-free. I was already taking a risk- why not go one step further and commit to traveling like I'd always wanted to? I've worked approximately 27 different jobs over the years... why couldn't I just find work on the road??
If there's something that you've been putting off for a while, I urge you to imagine what it would feel like if you never got to accomplish it... would you be content with that feeling of regret when you're 89 years old sitting in the nursing home? 👵🏽
It was a sobering moment for me to realise that I was the only one responsible for making my dreams come true... or not.
But, simultaneously, the most empowering moment in my 31 years of life was the moment that I grabbed that responsibility with both hands and made the deliberate choice to own it.
So here's to realising that our scariest moments can also be the catalyst for our most beautiful moments- if you let them 🌸🥂
I am so humbled and excited that you chose to follow along on this journey with me. Your support means the world and I wish you every happiness and success until we meet here again next week ✨
Haley 🤍
P.S. If you want to check out more on Numerology and the year of '8' then check out this link below. Not affiliated in any way, but it does a great job at explaining what's in store for us in 2024 🎱
P.P.S. My Instagram is also linked below- just click on the icon if you'd like to hear more from me before next week!
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