It has been a tradition of mine for almost 30 years to sit with my journal at the end of the year and look back to see what I had done, or what had happened, during that year that I could celebrate.

This end-of-year journaling session was not about going over the “bad” shit … there had been 364 days’ worth of journaling preceding this session, where I had looked and looked AND LOOKED at all the bad shit! No, this has always been the time where I find the nuggets of gold in the year, the moments of joy, the achievements. Some years all I had to celebrate was that I got through it alive! Some years the best I could do was say that I had shown up for myself in my journal every damn day … and believe me, if you are able to do that, then it is worth celebrating!

As I’ve gotten older though, my life has just gotten better and better. The last fourteen years have definitely seen the trajectory of joy and happiness in my life skyrocket! Every year, for the last fourteen years, I have honestly been able to say, well, that was my best year yet!!

Reconnected with the love of my life … best year ever! Married the love of my life … best year ever! Found Hayley Curtis and the Gene Keys … best year ever!! Made the best friend I’ve ever had … best year ever!!

You get the picture!!

But honestly? 2025 … Best. Fucking. Year. EVER!!!!

So …

What Have I Done This Year That I Can Celebrate?

Oh, so many things!

Let’s start with the obvious …

Friendship and Connection

☯️ I am celebrating my friendship with Meghan. I would never have believed that in my sixties I would meet and bond with another woman in the way I have forged this friendship with Meghan. We are so alike in so many ways, yet so different. We share some powerful Gene Keys but also have some keys that are very different from the other’s. We share some really awesome loves … love of language, love of creativity, love of alliteration! We share a deep and abiding passion for the inner work, even though we can have very different ways of expressing and experiencing it.

I just love that I have made the best friend of my whole life now, in my crone years.

And our friendship has been such a gift this year. It’s as if a whole other layer of how I contemplate has been brought into my life. And it’s completely different from just sitting heart to hand to page. Completely different, but absolutely brilliant, and it’s something that I never thought I would be able to do. I never thought I would be able to do this with another person witnessing me. It’s so very different to be doing this, to be talking to Meghan every day, to have my contemplations bubbling up inside me as I speak, and knowing that someone else is hearing them.

You see it’s very different to actually write them in my journal and then shape them into an article or a post, even though I am then sharing them with other people. But I have the filter of editing them and only sharing the parts I choose to share.

Whereas when I’m talking to Meghan, it’s as if she is getting the unfiltered, straight-from-my-heart contemplation. And knowing that I am safe to do that has been huge for me this year. And I think this is why Devoted has been so powerful for me. It’s not just been the wonder of Devoted itself; it’s not just been Hayley’s guidance or the workbooks or the retreats she gives us.

It’s become this extra layer that we have brought in, where we’re guiding ourselves and each other through actually doing the work. And that is what has made this year so powerful for me. Which is amazing, which is just fucking amazing. I love it.

You can find out more about Jesse (who is amazing, by the way) here!

☯️ My connection to Hayley, who has been the most phenomenal guide for nearly 3 years now, and who has become the dearest friend, a soul sister, my anam cara*. I cannot imagine a life without Hayley in it! I mean, that’s why she’s our Numero Uno Crone in our Crone Collective!!

☯️ All the women I have connected with because of Devoted and Gene Keys Unleashed. So many amazing women have been attracted into Hayley’s circle and they are my friends. I mean, I have friends all over the bloody world! Me? Who was such a loner for the whole of my life. And now I have this web of friendship that stretches across the world. How bloody awesome is that?

Creativity and Service in the World

☯️ I’m celebrating our glorious Podcast, Conversations With A Couple Of Crones! We got up to episode 15 in December 2025, and that blows my mind! Me? Who was so afraid to speak in front of other people, and now I’m recording a whole damn hour of talking every other week!!

It’s a miracle.

☯️ And then of course, there is this wonderful Website, our Cauldron of Crones, which is honestly my favourite website ever! It’s such a lot of fun, to be building this with Meghan. And it is just so amazing to have this home on the internet, where I can put my writing, and where I can share this passion that I have for the inner work and for the Gene Keys.

The website has grown exponentially from that seed of an idea of Meghan’s that we should “do a blog together”, and it has become this rich resource of amazing material on actually doing this work, whether it’s through the Gene Keys, through journaling, through art journaling, through talking, through contemplation.

I mean, have you looked at our Archives?! They are full of articles we wrote and posted before we opened the doors back in October. When we opened the doors, we had already spent two months filling the website with our awe and wonder about this inner work, about the Gene Keys, about our connection!

☯️ And what I am celebrating about both the Podcast and the website, apart from how bloody brilliant I think they are, is just how much EASE there is around both of them.

I’m not scared to bring my voice out in public, which, before now, did scare the living daylights out of me. Talking to people always made me feel naked and vulnerable, terrified that they would think I was stupid, or boring, or nothing, a nobody. I was so scared of being judged and found wanting, that I stayed quiet and small, silent and hidden. I don’t feel like that any more!

As Within So Without

So, those are the “external world” things I’m celebrating, and they are huge! They are such monumental shifts for me that I hardly recognise myself.

But they have only been possible because of the internal transformations that have been happening.

Devotion

The biggest thing I am celebrating is my devotion to the inner work this year.

I’ve been on this year-long journey … Devoted … exploring my Gene Keys Golden Path in the company of an incredible group of women from around the world. Devoted has been the most incredible, life-changing, life-affirming, heart-opening, transformational experience. And I have devoted myself to it.

Every retreat and call; every Voxer question; every workbook. I’ve done it all. (I am a Gold Star Girl, after all!!). And that is the best reason I have for celebration this year. My devotion to the inner work has been incredible, even if I do say so myself.

I have bent and morphed time to make it possible for me to fit in all of this extra inner work around my ordinary life. Yes, I dropped a few things this year around my book business (like stopping the in-person markets, and cutting down on the amount of social media posting). But really? I have continued to do all of the things I have to do (like going to work, and cooking and cleaning and grocery shopping); I have continued to make books (in fact, I’ve been learning so many new bookbinding arts and techniques … oh! That’s another thing that I am celebrating!!); AND I have fitted in all of this extra inner work and devotion.

You see what I mean?? Bending and morphing and actually creating more time!

Shifts and Transformations

And the shifts and transformations, the healing, the understanding, the forgiveness … all have been so earth-shattering that to have experienced just one of the breakthroughs or insights would have been cause for celebration.

But the fact that there have been so many fundamental changes, oh my god, there is so much to celebrate.

My Transformations and Breakthroughs …

☯️ I am enough just the way I am.

Wow! That is HUGE. I spent so many decades feeling like I just wasn’t good enough … in any aspect of my life or myself. But now, that has changed. I know that I am good enough. I am enough, just the way I am. I don’t need to try to be someone or something that I am not. I can just be my natural self. And that is enough for me to be! Oh, the relief in understanding that.

☯️ I have come to accept myself, my life, my path, my heritage.

Acceptance has become a core of truth for me now. Acceptance of who I am. Acceptance of the road I’ve walked to get me here. Acceptance of the path I’m walking now. Acceptance of my dharma and my heritage. This is more than huge for me. This is everything to me. To have come into full acceptance of who I am and what I am and how I came to be the person that I am, well, that is the most remarkable breakthrough imaginable. It’s like coming up for air after holding my breath under water for years. It’s like finally being able to breathe, when I’ve felt as if I’ve had to hold that breath in for my whole life.

☯️ I am safe, always, because I carry my safety inside me.

Oh, you cannot imagine what a paradigm shift this has been for me. I never used to feel safe. Never. The only time in my life that I’ve felt safe was since my lovely husband came into my life. And even though that is amazing, and I am deeply grateful for it, it’s safety that has come from outside myself. But now, oh, to feel that safety beating in my own heart, that is something entirely different and entirely new. I carry my safety inside me all the fucking time. That is a new understanding that has truly dawned on me this year.

☯️ I am bringing my passion for this work out into the world.

I am using my voice … in the written word, and in my actual speaking voice! This time last year, I was afraid to even speak up in front of the women I trust so much within Gene Keys Unleashed; but now, now I make Podcasts! Now I talk on Voxer every single day. Now I speak in fortnightly Zoom calls and Wisdom Unleashed calls inside of GKU.

☯️ I have healed my mother wound

I have healed the mother wound that has been like a black seam through my entire life. I struggled about how to share this. It’s huge, this healing in me. My mother wound is pain that I have carried my entire life, and the healing of it took time, and work, it took a lot of contemplation and the deepest dive into my Venus Sequence. I cannot, in just one paragraph here, sum it up, or even scratch the surface of how monumental this shift was for me. That’s going to take a lot of words, a lot of raw vulnerability, and I’m not ready to share all of that yet. But what I can tell you is this … healing this wound within myself opened me up to so much love and compassion, so much forgiveness for my mum and for myself, that this could be the greatest transformation I have ever experienced.

☯️ I have found so much forgiveness and compassion.

This has been part of that healing of the mother wound, but it has also been part of so many other truths and healings I have uncovered and experienced on this journey this year.

☯️ I love myself.

Could this be the transformation that has been the greatest and the deepest of all?!! I think it probably is. I think that by learning to love myself, I cracked open my heart to such a degree that it is impossible now for me to close it again. What I know though, is that this opening of the heart, this travelling with a consistently open heart, is something that takes work. You don’t just open your heart and that’s it, job done!

You open your heart … and then you open it some more … and then you open it some more … and on and on and on.

You see, when you truly start to walk this path of inner work, of inner knowing, of opening your heart, you have to choose the attitude with which you will do the work … are you thinking, this will be a quick fix, I’ll solve my problems, then get on with my “normal” life … or will you think, this IS my normal life now, walking the path of self-discovery, walking the path of deep self-honesty, walking the path of deep self-responsibility.

I chose the latter attitude.

This is my path now.

☯️ I’ve gained a deeper understanding of the Gene Keys Pathways.

As I moved deep into the Venus Stream and embarked on the deep dive into the years from age 21 back to birth, I looked back and saw that with this Devoted work, I have come into a much deeper understanding of the wisdom that the Pathways in my Gene Keys chart actually help me to be a better person. They actually help me to access more of my Genius and start living with a sense of higher purpose. And that understanding blew me away.

The Pathway of Challenge

We all have challenge, that’s what life is about. But I don’t need to be caught at the Shadow level of bouncing back and forth between Struggle and Provocation; the Pathway of Challenge gets to be an exploration of my Dynamism and Resourcefulness.

The Pathway of Breakthrough

This Pathway has taught me that not only do I get to have breakthroughs every day, but I also have the power to take those breakthroughs into my body and live them, embody them, own them, move from them.

The Pathway of Core Stability

Oh, this Pathway of Core Stability has changed everything! Again, it’s about dropping down into my body and living it! I don’t just think my core is strong, I feel it. I breathe that fucker! I feel like a mountain, or an oak tree, or a monolith. I cannot be knocked down. I am so deep in the earth that I am part of her.

The Pathway of Dharma

And then came the Pathway of Dharma, which literally exploded awareness inside me. THIS IS THE LIFE I AM MEANT TO BE LIVING. This is the life I was born for.

Life brings me only what I need. And I’m here for that because in a beautiful twist of fate, life also brings me what I want … love, safety, trust, understanding, connection.

Life is perfect.

This work is perfect.

I am perfect just the way I am.

And I know there are more, but I think that gives you an idea of just how transformational this year has been!!

I Am a Different Woman from the One I Was When I Started this Year

Oh my goodness, I am a different woman in myriad ways (although, naturally, there is a lot of cross-over with my list of things that I am celebrating)!!

☯️ I trust life.

☯️ I love myself.

☯️ I use my voice.

☯️ I am no longer afraid of the judgement of others.

☯️ I carry my safety inside me.

☯️ I speak the truth of my heart, no matter who is there to hear it.

☯️ I accept my dharma, my path, and myself.

☯️ I am calmer, more patient, slower.

☯️ I am freer.

☯️ I have built authentic self-esteem.

My self-esteem is like a fire burning in my belly and a sun burning in my heart. And the glow from all that fire inside me does shine out of me.

I see its sparks in my eyes.

I feel its heat in my voice.

I hear its crackle in my laughter.

☯️ I love myself.

And this is the greatest difference of them all and it is fuelled by all of the work I have done this year, and the year and a half of Gene Keys work before that, and the twenty-five years of solitary inner work before that!

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Just before I finished writing this article, I opened the letters I wrote to my Future Self, one on January 1^st, at the very start of this year’s Devoted journey, one on 6^th July, half-way through. I won’t tell you everything I wrote in those letters (I may do a separate post on the power of doing this Letters to a Future Self exercise!), but here is what I wrote in my journal after I read them, and this is cause for celebration …

I DID devote myself to this work.

I AM a warrior of light.

I AM the fire.

I did what I was meant to do … I took my message out there.

I did NOT give up on myself.

I DO love myself more.

I DID find more … love, understanding, forgiveness, trust, compassion, joy.

I FOUND MY VOICE.

I DID open wider, dive deeper, soar higher, laugh more.

I AM becoming MORE ME every day.

I AM ready for the next path, the next part of the journey, the next step, the next adventure!

*    anam cara is an ancient Celtic term meaning “soul friend” or “soul mate,” combining the Irish words anam (soul) and cara (friend). It describes a deep, spiritual bond where two people understand each other completely, beyond superficiality, allowing for vulnerability and spiritual growth, and can apply to platonic or romantic relationships. The concept was popularized by author John O’Donohue in his book Anam Ċara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom.