My mother is a wise octogenarian, who having had 6 children, 11 grandchildren , and I loose count of great grandchildren knows a thing or two about strategies to keep happy. She has a simple philosophy in life that she has passed down to me, its about not having an excess of anything in life but a little bit of everything.. she and dad used to let their hair down in the local on a Saturday night and on a Sunday she would go next door to the Chapel for a bit of spiritual wellbeing. She believes in balance, a little bit of what you fancy does you good, have the cake but go for a walk afterwards…so this two list approach really appealed to me and made it easier to do because I felt I was balancing everything out. I think for me it very much depends how I was feeling on the day as to whether positive or negative would reign supreme. If I would have compiled these lists last Thursday the negatives would have far out weighed the positives, but today was a good day so it was fairly even. For example I’m generally very responsible however I do take risks which I like about other people and if I look at myself objectively I like that about me too. I think I’m pretty good at sussing people out and I definitely have a bullshit detector but hand in hand with that I can also be judgemental. Over this year of Wake up I’ve realised that I’m OK, I’d be friends with me. That negative self criticising voice has lessened although it still occasionally pipes up like last Thursday. I had fun with this today and I took Chris’s advice and took a deep breath and smiled. So I’m not perfect, I recognise my flaws but I’m caring less about them and learning to respect and perhaps be amused by all my foibles - its who I am it's what make us human. Ok so I wonder who this tired looking woman is staring back at me when I look in the mirror and I sometimes squidge that spare tyre but you know what we are lucky to have a healthy body and we should be thankful for it looking after us for so many years when we don't always look after it. Love and light to all you imperfect unique people out there, a new mantra can be born 'put an end to putting yourself down today' x