Leaning In

What happens when you stand on the edge of an abyss?

Shake with uncontrollable fear? 
Gulp and gasp for air? 
Turn around and get the hell out of there?

... Or ... do you lean in? 

Feel the updraft rush violently past your face? List into the silence of the emptiness that stretches out before you? ... Wonder "what if?" And then. Just let yourself go.

I've never stood on the edge of a real abyss. But for more times than I care to count I have stood on this metaphorical abyss. Sometimes alone, but mostly with my husband and my child. It's scary, really scary. Taking that leap of faith, especially in yourself. But it’s also exhilarating. And every single time it has paid off, sometimes in ways I could never imagine. My greatest legacy is that when I leaned in with a small hand in mine I never realised that I was imprinting this behaviour in my daughter. Who, is now herself leaning in the biggest way.

By now you are asking what does all this have to do, this leaning in, with Chickens.

I'm 49. I've been in my current job for 9 years (the longest I've ever been in a job in my whole life). I've hit a massive bump in my life. On this surface everything is just peachy keen. We live in a great place. I have a secure and very well paid job. The sun comes up every day and sets in the afternoon. What more could you want? ... Well, life. A life that is not an empty shell. Shiny and smooth on the outside but completely hollow inside. Fragile and easily broken, with no substance to hold it up. It is well past time to lean in again. It’s time to begin twelve months that will potentially change my life and lives of my family, forever.

And so begins the Year of the Chicken.