When a flower doesn’t bloom you don’t try to fix the flower. I’ve done so much self help reading and research, podcasts and a literal medical diagnosis. And they have all led me to the same conclusion. I don’t need ‘fixed’ because I’m not broken. I just need to look at the environment I’m in and try to ensure I have everything I need to thrive.

I recently inherited a collection of pot plants from a dear friend who has moved overseas. I have spent time working out where they will look and feel best in my home, working out how best and when to water them (those little plastic globe drip waterers are genius) and getting little fertiliser sticks that will nourish them. I am delighted by the appearance of new leaves and that the beautiful orchid is still in bloom.

The plants I already have aren’t as vibrant, they look like survivors from a war torn country in comparison. Ill fitting pots, leaves browned at the edges, no promise of blooms budding on stalks. They are survivors, unused to this new found energy of mine to discover what they really need.

The parallel to my January is obvious. I don’t need to try to become a different kind of plant or bloom all year long to be treasured. I have survived so many things over the past year and it has been hard and glorious and exhausting and awakening. So no, I won’t be setting myself targets that require me to be anything other than exactly who I am this month. You have to know what you are starting with right?

So this January I’m taking stock of who I am and giving myself what I need. How else would I know what to change otherwise? I love the parallels this draws with Imbolc. When I re-read Katherine May’s Wintering it made so much sense to me. This turning inward at the dying of the light.

Spending time in these dark cold weeks after the girth and sparkle of Christmas has been packed away looking at what his underneath now seems more important.

What is important? I used to think I needed to do/find/become “this” and therein would lie happiness. But I am happy-well, just as happy as I usually am. What I want to be is me, authentically me. And creating a new regime to try to alter that feels a bit like spanx and sequins on a Christmas night out – lovely for a little while but only just for show.

Writing has become more important than ever- there’s a quote I’ve seen attributed to a number of writers about “only through writing do I know what I think”. This couldn’t be more true for me. This the added ADHD bonus of never having an empty brain so there’s always something to think and write about.

So, January for me is going to have features like the pruning principles, what needs to be cut back in order to promote new growth what needs to be given space to grow into and more space for constricted roots to take in nourishment? What has begun to grow habitually towards the light and needs repositioned in order to straighten and flourish?

I don’t know what flowers will come up or when but I do know from my beleaguered houseplants that getting out of survival mode is the key.