Talk - 2024 - Gratitude In Difficult Times

Hello, dear ones,

Today's talk is about gratitude.

2024 was a difficult year for me and us all collectively.

It can be so difficult to find joy when we look around and see so much pain and suffering in the world.

This talk is about what I am grateful for in 2024 because even though at times I was down on my knees crying, screaming, and clawing at the earth, there are still so many things to be grateful for.

Let us not turn away from the suffering within ourselves and this world, but let us also not close our hearts to the love and joy that can co-exist.

Here's wishing a 2025 full of more peace and love, for me, for you, and for us all.

From my heart to yours.

Always.

Disclaimer - This talk includes some explicit words, please listen at your own discretion, as they are used very infrequently and within context.

Transcript

Hello,

Dear ones.

Today,

I wanted to share with you things that I am grateful for in 2024.

2024 was a,

At times,

Very tough year for me on a personal level and,

As I'm sure you are aware,

There is a lot of awful,

Disturbing and sometimes really frightening things going on in the world and 2024 was collectively also a very difficult time for a lot of people.

And I'm not sure about you but sometimes I can find myself really becoming weighed down by the weight of the pain in the world and the awful,

Awful things that are sometimes happening on this planet to other humans and also to this planet.

So at the end of 2024,

I wanted to take a moment to switch,

To switch from a place of pain and sorrow and despair at times to one of gratitude and of looking back on the year to find all the things that I was thankful for throughout 2024.

And I wrote pages and pages and pages and pages and so I wanted to share this and just to put it out into the universe in the hope that if you too had a very difficult 2024 that maybe you can also look back and find all those glimmers of really wonderful moments with other humans and with your connection with this beautiful planet that we live on and maybe also your connection to Source,

To Spirit,

The universe,

Whatever name that you may want to give that.

So I'm going to share for me personally some of the things from my list and yeah hopefully it will do something to raise your spirits a little and hopefully enable you to see as it enabled me to see that there's also so much good in this world and without ignoring the truth of what is happening on this planet it's not about dissociating and ignoring and pretending that everything is all love and light all the time.

No,

But there are beautiful things happening and there are beautiful moments happening and there are things to be grateful for and so I would like to share mine.

I am grateful that at the beginning of 2024 I was able to open the new year with some beautiful souls at a meditation retreat that I was volunteering at.

I'm also grateful that I was able to connect with two very brave women,

Two eccentric souls and that I was given the opportunity to pet sit for their 11 dogs,

5 cats and 7 chickens and the cuddles and the fun and the affection that I had with all those animals for that month that I spent there.

I was also able to record lots of bedtime stories for you beautiful people here on Inside Timer.

I am very grateful that I was able to hug my mum and my sister after having not seen them for three years and spending hours and hours reconnecting with them.

I am grateful that I was able to spend two whole weeks with my Nana resting,

Reading,

Talking,

Sleeping and also whilst I was with my Nan spending quality time with my auntie and my uncle who cooked me delicious dinners on a Sunday and baked some homemade cakes.

Because of the life that I have chosen to live I was able to spend two whole weeks with my Nana just being with her and she's in her 90s which I wouldn't have been able to do had I still been in the corporate job that I was in five years ago.

I am grateful that I was able to see and spend some time with my little sister and my adorable niece and nephew.

This was only the second occasion that I have been able to see my nephew since he was born.

I am so grateful that I was wholeheartedly received into the home of a dear friend and her two beautiful compassionate flatmates during a very difficult time for me,

A time of confusion and uncertainty and they accepted me wholeheartedly just as I was.

I am so grateful in 2024 that I was able to spend a whole day mooching around London with my oldest and dearest friend,

Actually more of a sister at this point,

Which we hadn't been able to do in years due to us living very different lives.

It felt like our university days again but with no smoking weed,

No Lord of the Rings,

Much more wisdom and saggier arse cheeks.

I'm grateful that I was able to spend time with a bunch of badass bitches in Lisbon with an exceptional presentation on Taylor Swift,

Lots of laughter,

Sunshine and good food.

I am grateful that in 2024 I was able to reconnect with a friend I had met whilst volunteering and spend a whole week with her in Portugal.

Connecting on a more intimate level and meeting her beautiful friend for the first time.

Sun,

Sea,

Shared life experiences,

Hopes and dreams,

Getting matching t-shirts and lots of laughter.

I am grateful in 2024 that I was able to go back to one of my favourite cities that I hadn't visited in a very,

Very long time and that whilst I was there I was able to afford to visit some of the tourist attractions that I hadn't been able to visit previously.

And whilst I was there randomly experiencing the Formula One and being able to film some of the fan show for my sister and my nephew who both love Formula One.

I am grateful that I was able to have a short impromptu visit to Cardiff where I used to live and although I was not able to see all of my friends because it was very last minute and very short,

I was able to see and spend time reconnecting with three of my dear,

Dear friends who I'd said a bittersweet goodbye to in 2019 when I left.

Friends who in the past had helped hold me during some of my most difficult life experiences.

I am grateful in 2024 for a whirlwind solo trip through Italy back in full backpacker mode in which I consumed who knows how much pizza,

Pasta and tiramisu which is my favourite dessert in the whole world and again being able to visit some tourist attractions that I hadn't been able to afford to visit the last time I was there.

An added bonus being in Italy I was able to catch up for lunch with an inspiring sister that I'd met also whilst volunteering and we enjoyed watching the birds eating our pasta and laughing and hugging.

I am grateful in 2024 that I was able to attend a darkness retreat and that during that darkness retreat realised that little Sally is no longer afraid of the dark or of the things that go bump in the night of which there are many things but they're not to be feared.

Realising in this darkness retreat that we are dreaming this dream as not to be in the void of nothingness that life is to be lived and enjoyed not spent hiding in a cave or at least not for this little spark of consciousness.

I am grateful in 2024 for being able to spend a glorious two weeks at an intimacy camp in Sweden which I cannot even begin to put into words the kind of experience that I had whilst there.

So many beautiful connections,

Too many to mention and too many precious moments,

So many learnings and so many soul-to-soul moments.

We were gifted so much freedom to be fully seen in all of our glory as humans and in all of our messiness as humans.

Just too too many to mention and sadly just not enough of this in a world that's deprived of true intimacy,

True authenticity,

True vulnerability.

And I am so so grateful that there are heart-led spaces like this in the world.

I'm so grateful to the facilitators and the team and all of the brave brave humans that came to attend this intimacy camp all on the magical land of Skeppsuden in Sweden.

I am then extremely grateful that I was able to remain on that land after the end of intimacy camp as I was accepted to be an assistant on a training that was happening there for another opportunity to dive very very deep with a group of brave brave souls throwing themselves into the unknown as we danced in the sacred but at times very confronting realms of shamanism,

Sexuality and spirituality.

I am grateful that in 2024 I was able to spend time with a dear dear soul sister in Berlin holding hands,

Cuddling,

Sharing our hearts,

Laughing and a day spent at Tempelhof airport that shall remain between us,

A fairy tale prince,

Sacred blood,

Pizza,

Trees,

Some only in Berlin trippy-like band and a supermarket car park.

I am grateful in 2024 that I was able to spend a whole week with another soul sister in the Netherlands who welcomed me with open arms into her home.

Whilst I was there all of us was welcomed in that space,

All of us was witnessed,

We spoke our truth from our hearts,

We were vulnerable and brave and messy,

A safe space for us both to be vulnerable and radically honest and eat more pizza.

One of the things I'm most grateful for in 2024 was being taken care of in India by two strangers who really held me when I was in a very very intense dark night of the soul where my nervous system just completely shut down and I was barely able to function.

It was terrifying and I really wasn't sure if I was going to make it at times.

I don't know what I would have done without those two beautiful humans in that moment.

Thank you,

Thank you,

Thank you.

And realizing during those intense intense weeks where I was really really in the darkness,

Realizing during that time just how fucking loved I am by so many people on this planet which allowed me to unmask even more and quintessentially gratitude also to myself for not giving as many fucks as to what people thought of me during that dark dark night of the soul,

Being radically honest about how I was feeling with whoever I met and whoever I spoke to and unmasking not just with known safe people but with anyone,

Anyone who crossed my path during this time.

It was all laid bare for anyone and everyone to see.

No shame,

No hiding,

No fucks given and I am extremely grateful to myself for being able to be so authentic.

I'm so grateful that during that time I had so many dear,

Dear friends,

Sisters who reached out to hold me and help me and although I couldn't communicate with most of them as I was in so very deep,

They all let me know how much they were there for me if and when I needed them and could reach out,

Including one,

One dear friend who basically just watched me cry for an hour on a video call and another who was going to fly all the way out to India from the UK to get me and take me back home.

I am so,

So,

So blessed and so grateful to have such beautiful humans in my life.

I am so grateful for the beautiful,

Beautiful soul sisters that I met in India during and whilst coming out of this very,

Very,

Very,

Very difficult period who helped me come out of the darkness and back into the light and who rode the last few months of 2024 with me and are still riding with me now in 2025.

They rode with me whilst I was fully unmasked in all of my messiness of human,

Radically honest,

Vulnerable from the highest highs to the lowest lows with these virtual strangers going deep,

Going so,

So deep into pain and trauma both individual and collective and again deep gratitude to myself to allowing myself to be fully seen.

This in turn allowed those beautiful souls to be fully seen.

The more I am open and vulnerable and radically honest,

The more I allow others to be the same.

My vulnerability gives others permission to be vulnerable.

My radical honesty and my unmasking and my letting it all be out there,

All of the messiness gives others a safe space to do the same.

So I am grateful to me and I am grateful to them.

Every time I allow myself to be brave and raw and real,

Allows others to be too.

And now in a matter of mere months,

They are dear,

Dear friends and we laugh,

We cry,

We dance,

We sing,

We rage,

We play.

Thank you dear sisters and thank you to me.

And this,

This is not even a plot on everything that I am grateful for,

But my connections with other versions of me in other human forms are so very meaningful to me and so very important.

And they're what keep me putting one foot in front of the other.

When sometimes this world is so overwhelming that I don't know if I can anymore.

And sometimes I'm crawling on my knees.

And other versions of me in other human forms help me get through every single time.

I am so,

So grateful for beautiful,

Beautiful moments with beautiful,

Beautiful souls.

So a quick flick through some of the other things that I'm grateful for in 2024.

Too many to mention everything,

But these are some things that this particular human is grateful for.

Love in all of its forms,

Shapes and sizes.

Myself,

For all of it,

As this character Sally that I'm playing,

And as the truth of who we really are,

That I am.

Source,

Spirit,

That.

The number of breathtaking sunsets that I have had the privilege to witness in 2024.

Swimming naked in the sea,

Including in India,

But shh,

Don't tell anyone that.

I am grateful for my body,

Which allows me to experience this dream that we're dreaming.

I'm grateful that on my way to India,

I had three seats to myself on the plane,

So I was able to get some sleep.

I am grateful for the smell of sweet,

Sweet flowers and sweet,

Sweet fruit.

I am grateful for the sound of the birds singing and talking.

I am grateful for cuddles from cats and dogs.

I am grateful for the feeling of the sand and the grass beneath my feet.

I am grateful for cloud formations and the beautiful shapes they make.

I am grateful for music,

And music,

And music,

And music,

And music.

I am grateful for many ecstatic dances,

And dances everywhere,

Dances around bonfires,

Dances on beaches,

Dances with friends.

To be able to move my body,

To be able to dance,

To express myself,

And just be is such a privilege.

I am grateful for fireworks.

I am grateful for laughter.

I am grateful for bonfires.

I am grateful for twilight and the beautiful,

Beautiful colors.

I am grateful for rest and relaxation.

I am grateful for coffee,

Both the smell and the taste.

I am grateful for potatoes cooked in bonfires.

I am grateful for pumice stones.

I am grateful for primal play.

I am grateful for the countless communication I had in 2024 with dear,

Dear loved ones.

Who I did not physically see last year.

I am grateful for sister sharing circles.

I am grateful for the deliciousness of the breeze upon my skin.

I am grateful for singing circles.

I am grateful for vegetables.

I am grateful that I am able,

And was able,

In 2024 to swing on swings.

I am grateful for tiramisu.

Did I mention that already?

I am grateful for countless,

Beautiful interactions with countless,

Beautiful human beings.

I am grateful for tenderness.

I am grateful for kindness.

I am grateful for patience.

And I am grateful for compassion.

I am grateful for safe,

Nurturing touch.

I am grateful for eye gazing,

And all the people I was able to eye gaze with in 2024.

As a traveler,

I am grateful for fresh bedding and freshly washed clothes.

I am grateful for the amount of hugs I received in 2024 with safe people.

I am grateful of swimming in the ocean.

How many times I was blessed to be able to swim in the ocean in 2024,

Regardless of whether I was able to swim naked and feel the water all over my body.

I am grateful for the moon.

Oh,

The moon.

She's so beautiful.

I am grateful that I was able to see sunrise on New Year's Day,

2025.

I am grateful for rocking and humming to self-soothe myself.

I am grateful for the big banyan tree here in India.

And I am grateful for all trees.

I am grateful for fairy lights.

I am grateful for Gandalf in the form of my friend Saskia.

I am grateful that I am able to do what I do on Insight Timer.

And I am so grateful for my listeners,

Who find so much pleasure in my stories.

And also those listeners that listen to my poetry,

My own writings,

My offerings,

From my heart.

I am grateful for humans,

All humans,

The good,

The bad,

And the ugly.

I am grateful for stories.

I loved stories.

I am grateful that in 2024,

I met so many people that had the same awakening experience that I had had.

An experience that truly knocked me on my ass.

And they were all like a fucking lifeline every time I met them,

Who all understood where I had been and what I'd experienced.

And they'd been there,

And they'd experienced it too.

Who held my hand and my heart and made me feel less alone in my intense,

Intense experience.

As a wise man said that I met along the way,

You don't have to explain Paris to someone who has been to Paris.

And I'm grateful to close friends,

Who I trusted to share my experience with.

And although they didn't understand,

They saw me,

They listened to me.

They did not label me insane or the things I experienced as insane.

They just loved me,

Heard me,

And held space for me.

I adore you all and thank you.

I am grateful in 2024 for cold showers in hot countries,

And hot showers in cold countries.

I am grateful for beautiful humans using social media to uplift other humans and who bring to the light so bravely and so publicly their own truths to help others feel less alone in theirs.

Thank you.

I am grateful for writers of all description.

All of us writers who are brave enough to put our hearts and souls into something.

Whether it be a piece of writing,

A piece of poetry,

A fiction book,

A non-fiction book.

I am so grateful to musicians and artists and everyone that create such beautiful pieces of works on this planet for others to enjoy,

To help ease the pain of being human.

I am grateful for cameras which allow me to capture moments that I would otherwise forget.

I am grateful for massages with so much trauma stored in this body,

Massages are a lifeline.

I am so grateful for thunderstorms,

The smell of rain,

The sight of snow,

The electricity of lightning.

I am grateful for the sound my friend makes on her voice notes to me when she's out walking in frosty,

Snowy Finland.

I am grateful for Google Maps,

Which has got me out of many,

Many sticky situations.

I am grateful for the heart-opening medicine of cacao and how many cacao ceremonies I was blessed to attend in 2024.

I am grateful for the smell of Paolo Santo and neck champa.

I am grateful for cleansing tears.

And face aching laughter.

I am grateful for cows in India providing free entertainment.

I am grateful for my emotions,

All of them and how many of them I felt in 2024.

As difficult as it is to feel some of them,

I'm so grateful that I'm able to.

I'm so grateful for my family and my ancestors,

They are my biggest teachers in unconditional love.

Gratitude,

Forgiveness,

Compassion.

I am grateful for sleep.

I am grateful for love notes that I received from friends.

I am grateful for the painful,

Tortuous,

But slow,

Slow but sure,

Awakening of humanity.

It's painful,

But surely,

Slowly,

Slowly,

We're waking up.

Just like the lotus flower having to come through the mud to grow.

And the caterpillar,

And the transformation to a butterfly.

I hope this is what we're doing as humanity and that all of this pain and darkness is a sure sign of us awakening.

I'm glad that we made it in 2024.

I'm so grateful that we made it.

Without us,

The humans,

All the planet becoming extinct.

And I'm not saying either would be inherently a bad thing,

Because who knows what the grand plan is,

In the grand scheme of things.

But I'm glad,

I'm glad that we made it all the same.

I'm glad that some of us are still here,

And that this planet is still here.

Thank you for listening.

I hope you too are able to find moments that you are grateful for,

Back in 2024.

And I wish you all a blessed,

Beautiful 2025 and beyond.

Thank you for being here,

My darlings.

Thank you for sharing this space with me.

Take care,

Dear ones,

Take care.