What frustrates me from time to time is how many people I've met who put in zero effort into something and expect to see results from doing absolutely nothing.
How does that even make sense? How can you complain about not getting something that you didn't go and get, didn't work for didn't even try or put in less than half effort into? It's one thing to be upset cause you worked hard and didn't get something you wanted. But you pick yourself up, dust yourself off, learn from mistakes and you try again. Whatever that might be for you. It's the people who say "I can't do this" when they tried once and gave up and continue to complain that they can't do it that baffle me. It could be a confidence thing. Which is tricky because you might be struggling with something. But don't let it jepordise your future opportunities. Don't wait to be more confident. Because what does that actually look like? Noone is 100% confident 100% of the time. You can't let your life be dictated by waiting for something to pick you up and give you confidence. It's something that clicks within you. It takes a breaking point where you decided when enough is enough and you're gonna grab something, (or someone haha) by the balls and just go for it.
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I've heard a lot of mental health campaigners on Facebook say that people need to be more open about mental health. That we need to talk more about it and encourage everyone to be real and authentic about how they feel.
Here's my take, cause I know you care so much haha! Yes, tell people, but only those worthy of knowing. Only for those who actually care or show an incling of love towards you. That might seem like you've ruled out a lot of people. But I'm talking the people who are constant features in your life in a good way. Whether that's a parent/step parent, sibling, significant other, friend, long lost friend. Reach out and tell someone. My argument however would be not to tell people who don't have your best interest at heart. Don't tell work colleagues, or acquaintances or friends that aren't really people you would trust. If they don't care they don't deserve to know about your mental health. Because said people are liable to use this against you, and cause further damage to your mental health. People also talk and are at risk of gossiping about you and your mental health. Keep anything to do with health, be it physical or mental health on a "strictly need to know basis". Because people who don't care about you won't have the balls to tell you people are talking about you behind your back, but they'll give you clues to let you know that they know about your mental health and are happy to talk about it behind your back. We all like the idea of saving money.
Here's some tips I've found to help save a bit extra each week. 1.) Take Away food Obviously try and reduce the amount of take aways you eat in a week (*cough* guilty) However!! One really good tip for saving money on takeaways is to make your own rice at home. Whether you get the food delivered or your going to collect it from the shop. Put some rice on in advance, order your meal (minus) rice and you'll save yourself a bit of money. How? Takeaways normally charge around £2 for a portion of rice. How much does it cost for a bag of rice in your local supermarket? £1.50 or there about. You get my point. 2) Declutter and Sell I declutter every week, the house seems to be constantly coming down with stuff. So far in the last 5 months, I've gotten rid of 6 bags of clothes between the two of us. You could take these to a jumble sale and make some money, sell it on ebay, or if you're take it to one of those "Cash 4 Clothes" shops. 3) Grocery shopping Buy your fruits and veg from lidl/aldi/morrisons and buy anything you can't get from these shops from bigger chains. Most people can spend over £25 in a big chain shop easily, so why not save yourself running from one shop to the next. So run to aldi and get your fruit and veg and beans etc. and order an online shop of stuff you can't get from those shops. Saving money and time :) 4) Sign up for Clothing shop emails They will let you know when various sales are on. You can click directly on the link and it will take you to the sale page, meaning if you're looking for gifts, or just something for yourself, you'll get it for cheaper. Also, said emails will most likely and frequently send you discount codes 5) Insurance and Car outgoings Shop around, go on comparison websites such as "compare the market" and "money supermarket". I'd even suggest chosing a "10 month" insurance plan in order to spread your funds out during the year. For example: my insurance is up in May, my Tax is up in may and my car's first MOT and next service is due in May... It's also my Birthday in May. So May's an expensive month. So I've brought my MOT forward to this week coming. I can't change the tax but two years ago I chose a 10 month insurance plan so my car insurance would be due for renewal in July (plus it works out slightly cheaper) It helps to spread out bills like this so you aren't attacked from all angles and gives you just a bit more wiggle room if you end up having some kind of emergency that you need to pay for. Hope these are helpful :) I've talked a little bit in previous blog posts about fat shaming and skinny shaming but I wanted to go deeper into it. I love body positivity and I love the fundamental message to love who you are for you. It's such a simple thing but so difficult to apply. So I love to see things on social media about how we should embrace ourselves, flaws included, and I mean that. It can be so difficult to love yourself for so many reasons. Most of which being that we don't look our best 100% of the time. Be it because of hormonal changes due to time of the month causing breakouts, pale skin, dark circles, bloating and just feeling a bit "meh" about yourself in general. Or pregnancy, swollen ankles, stretch marks, gaining weight. Sciatica, varicose veins etc. Or sometimes it's due to feeling off our game, over working, not allowing enough time to properly take care of yourself due to juggling so much. It could be to do with poor mental health, depression, anxiety, eating disorders, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia etc. Sometimes it is so refreshing to be reminded that we are worthy, more than adequate and deserving of love, and respect. That said, I feel like there are extremes to everything in life. In this body positivity movement there are essentially the "Skinny Shamers" and the "Fat Shamers". I find both sides extremely depressing and draining. What both sides have in common is that neither are healthy in the long term. Sure most people will lose and gain weight in a lifetime. But to continue to stay in one state or the other will have an impact on your health and well being in the future. A lot of people will say that "Just because someone is larger doesn't mean that they aren't healthy. Doesn't necessarily mean that they will have diabetes, hypertension etc. Don't judge a book by it's cover." Which is fair, to a point. People who are overweight aren't necessarily going to automatically have heart disease. But being overweight is a contributing factor for developing it. That's the thing. These conditions don't just appear over night. They accumulate. Your body compensates. It isn't healthy in the long run. There are plenty of studies that provide evidence that being overweight increases your risk of developing co-morbidities such as heart disease, hypertension, diabetes, and cancer. It isn't fat shaming when your doctor says that your blood pressure is higher than the average person and that to try and combat this it would be best to attempt to lose some weight, then with your consent refer you to a dietician. That is helpful. What would be considered fat shaming would be if you attended your GP and they said in a less than tactful way "You need to lose weight, you'll get a heart attack at this rate". I've seen people use this approach and it's less than productive in helping people achieve a healthier lifestyle. On the other side of the coin, being underweight or being obsessed with being skinny or losing weight, over exercising and envisioning yourself to look like Naomi Campbell or Kate Moss can be also just as detrimental to your own health and well being. If you're a female, and you reduce your calorie intake enough you can suffer from what's called Amenorrhea; which is when you're body tries to compensate for the fact that it isn't getting any nutrients so it stops your reproductive organs from working in order to help your body to survive. It literally goes into survival mode. Muscle wastage can occur as a result of having burned so much fat. Obsession can occur no matter what stage you're at, to the point that you can think of nothing else, having a detrimental effect on your mental well being. There are studies that suggest that you mightn't have any body dissatisfaction but there is a link between reduced mental health and being underweight. These aren't things that can happen over night but things that accumulate over time. There are health reasons on both sides of the argument that can contribute to weight gain or weight loss. Certain medications can contribute to weight gain such as steroids. Hormone conditions such as PCOS or Thyroid conditions can contribute to weight gain. Stress for some people can be a contributing factor in relation to stress and comfort eating. Digestive conditions such as coelic disease can contribute to weight loss. Stress can result in people losing their appetite and thus induce weight loss and so on and so forth. So yes there are contributing factors that might cause weight gain/loss. I'm totally understanding towards this fact. It also depends on a persons body shape and anatomy as to why they might look like they carry more weight or less weight than the next person. Neither extreme side of this body positivity movement is healthy in the long run. It should be about balance. (Photo credit below: https://hellogiggles.com/lifestyle/size-doesnt-matter-chart-proves/) The image above perfectly depicts that body shape can have an impact of how you carry weight. Just because you're skinny at 4" 9 doesn't mean you'll look exactly like Kate Moss at 5" 5.
"OK, but body positivity is about accepting you for you, right? So live and let live" Well, sure, accepting yourself for you is perfectly healthy from a mental health stand point. However like I mentioned before, neither case of being too skinny or too large is healthy in the long run and is known to run into further health complications in the future. There's nothing to say that someone large or skinny can be strong, flexible, confident and sexy. But there will be a higher risk of developing health issues in the future. References worth looking at: Being overweight can lead to health problems: http://www.journal-of-cardiology.com/article/S0914-5087(13)00355-9/pdf https://th.schattauer.de/en/contents/archive/manuscript/23611.html http://www.onlinejacc.org/content/63/14/1345 Being underweight can lead to health problems: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5728753/ http://www.wales.nhs.uk/sitesplus/documents/866/The%20Effects%20of%20Being%20Underweight1.pdf https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3160375/ I feel like weight gain and loss is such a controversial topic. Over the years I've noticed the pendulum like effect of fat shaming, then skinny shaming etc.
I had something happen to me about a month ago that made me rethink a lot of stuff. I am a pretty average framed, size 12 woman. With a little bit of pudge in certain places like anyone else. I want to be fitter and stronger. I've always loved being fit and strong looking and feeling. So when I put weight on last year it knocked me for six, because I wasn't used to having a bit of extra weight in places that I wasn't used to. So I lost most of it. Then after the wedding put some of it on again. And am now a pound lighter than I was when I got married. I've noticed that weight loss or weight gain depending on your life and experiences will always be a personal journey. But there will ALWAYS be people there to try and knock you down a peg. Regardless of what it is that you're trying to achieving in relation to your weight. I had mentioned in work one time that I had taken caffeine tablets to help my weight loss (I still feel the need to justify my actions even here) (I was sensible with them and didn't abuse them in the slightest) Someone in the same room told me that I didn't need to lose weight. To which I corrected what I said; that I had got to a pretty heavy weight last year and did need to lose weight in order to be healthy. (I wasn't healthy at that stage with my eating habits hence why I put weight on) I had made a small joke about something that really impacted me about how when I was in Debenhams last year I didn't fit into a size 14 pair of jeans, but in actual fact this really upset me. Someone made a remark about how they'd love to be able to fit into a size 14 and then made a passive aggressive point about whether with this new information about size 14 being "fat" that maybe they should consider losing weight. This want what I was getting at when I was having this conversation. I wasn't implying that a size 14 is "fat". I understand that some people will naturally have bigger or smaller frames than others meaning some will carry more weight than others. For my height, size 14 wasn't ideal for optimum health. I just brushed it off because I don't have to justify myself to them. This is a personal journey for me. But it did annoy me. How dare they try and twist my words to insinuate that I am losing weight unenessarily, borderline eating disorder and making something personal to me, about them. Back track a few years and I remember a close family member disclosing to me that she was depressed, she sought help but along the way she regressed into rekindling an eating disorder she had from a young age. I remember her saying in the hallway of my house that she felt fat and would pull at different parts of her body. She indeed wasn't fat in the slightest. I remember saying to her "if you think you're fat then what am I??" I have been on both ends of this spectrum. I have been the person making someone's struggle/journey about me. And have been on the receiving end of the same thing. I feel bad for doing this. However I was 18, maybe 19 at the time and was relatively niave about people's thought processes. I know better now and am more sensitive and open to how other people don't always see things as I do and will have different life events and circumstances that have provided them with a different view point on life. Weight loss is a personal journey. It isn't anyone elses business if you want to lose/gain weight for your own health (excluding eating disorders desire to lose weight from this) People will always be there to critisise and poke holes in your reasoning. You don't need to justify yourself to anyone but yourself. People will critisise for many reasons. I've found the most common one is because they see you're trying to better yourself in some way. (not exclusive to losing weight.) And see that as a personal attack on them because they haven't done anything similar to what you're doing in order to better themselves. See it as a personal battle that they are facing, and move on with your life making your own decisions. It took me the longest time to learn to love my body. I never felt good enough. Hated my thick thighs. Wished my boobs were bigger, hips were bigger etc.
We all have things we sometimes feel a bit insecure about and that's ok. I learned to accept that someday I'd love my body and other days, not so much. But I'd get on with my day regardless. I learned not to compare myself with others and to do something about anything I wasn't happy with, if it was within my power to change. I've really been struggling with my weight the last couple of years. More so the last year. I pulled on a stone when I worked in my last job due to comfort eating. I realised this because I went into debenhams one day last March and couldn't fit into a size 14 pair of jeans. I felt awful. I made a point to lose weight because I didn't feel healthy and wasn't happy with my body. That was my choice. There will be some people who say "love yourself for you. Not as a body type" and I agree. To a point. I do love myself for me. But I also love myself enough to know when the way I was eating isn't healthy. So I made a conscious decision to change that. I hit the gym, went to pole, did my yoga. And lost nearly 2 stone in time for my wedding in November. Then I put on a little weight again. Not to the point I had let myself get to before. But I decided I wanted to get fitter, slimmer and healthier. And there isn't anything wrong with that either. Today I saw someone I know, wedding photos and I felt like such an inadequate bride in comparison. I felt like a short arse with big hips, tum and boobage going on. Meanwhile this bride was a slender gorgeous sexy mother trucker. I know logically in my head that everyone has different body types and frames. I also know that in my wedding photos I was the lightest I had been in about 3 or 4 years! (Not underweight by the way) I loved everything about my wedding(s) I loved how we did things that worked for us and made us happy. I won't ever regret that. But in relation to me. I feel like I was clumsy looking and just not what I could have been. Even something as innocent as a Facebook comment someone left on a wedding photo recently saying that my smile was so cheeky looking despite looking so beautiful. They meant no harm or malice with their comment but it making me think that I look immature, clumsy and like stupid when I was a bride. At the same time that's just who I am. I am a bit clumsy sometimes. I'm not all "airs and graces" and if I had of tried to be, it wouldn't have been me. And I probably would have spent the day emotional and sentimental about various things. So at the moment, these thoughts are kind of at war in my head battling it out. I also have the flu so I can help but think that perhaps it is the sickness that is making me think and feel like this? I definitely want to jump back on the fitness band wagon once I'm over this flu fully. Since starting this job I've only been going to pole once a week and doing a feeble attempt at yoga maybe 2 times a week. I know I can do better. I want to do better. I'm not setting my hopes and dreams of being happy on a goal I have set for myself in how I want to look physique wise. But I'm also looking forward to having a six pack! I'm really bad at thinking of titles for blogs so you'll have to excuse haha!
Anyway, I've realised something this week. Most things in my life I am really happy with. I'm enjoying being married, I'm enjoying my relationship with my friends in NI. I'm making new friends here in England. I'm going to pole classes still and loving it. I've kinda gotten out of the way of regularly meditating and yoga practice but am getting back into it slowly. Sometimes it just takes one thing in your life to "knock you for six" if you will. And sometimes, despite everything else in your life that is going so well, it's that one thing in your life that makes you feel like the whole world is falling apart around you. It makes you focus on the not so nice things in your life. I'm having that kind of situation at the moment. The thing is, I've always heard people say that life will always have it's up's and downs. That there will be good times and then there will be bad times and then back up to good times again etc. I've come to realise (and maybe I'm late to this particular party with this epiphany) that there are good times amid the bad, and bad times amid the good. There will be good times going on whilst you're in the slums and bad times when you are having the time of your life. Maybe written down that doesn't make any sense. What I mean is that there will always be good times and bad times but they are not necessarily separate events. They will exist and coincide with one another. Someone in your family may have just passed away. You might find that when you're spending time with family at the wake (depending on culturally and geographically you are you may or may not have "wakes" as such but people generally spend time with family when someone has passed away) that you haven't seen in a while that you've reconnected with them and created a new bond with some people and create some new good memories. You may have passed your degree and graduated and you and you're family are over the moon about it but you may find that you are struggling with debt in some way and this may or may not bother you. These are some examples anyway. I sometimes feel with things like this that I am struck with inspiration that "of course! It all makes sense! There is no such things as ups and downs there is only good times and bad times living alongside one another". Then I am hit with the feeling of "I bet this is common sense and that everyone got the memo except for me!" haha! Everyone has different life experiences; Contributing factors would be how you were brought up and raised, your personality type, the type of job that you have, the type of school that you went to, what area you grew up in as a child. Everyone will learn similar life lessons but in different ways. So although I may be feeling like lately most of my life lessons I have written about on this blog sound cliché it will have a personal meaning to me. There maybe someone out there that hasn't come across this life lesson yet. There maybe someone reading this that thinks "I learned this years ago!" So amid this life lesson, I am also learning that I should be a bit more gentle on myself. :) Something that struck me this week was about being apologetically me.
What I'm about to say is going to sound so cliché. And I have been told this from a young age. But I guess this cliché really resonated with me this week, the penny finally dropped and I wanted to share it here. Just be yourself and don't appologise to anyone for being you. You don't owe any one an explanation for yourself and how you are. Even if people think you are supposed to be a certain way or live up to a certain expectation of people or they want to put your personality into a certain box. You don't have to be the reputation that others think you are living up to. You are you. No more, no less. You don't have to react the exact same way to different situations. You react the way you tell you to react. Whether that's at work, home life, social events or whatever. You do you, hun I am really happy in my married life and so is Kyle.
We've got some really awesome habits going at the moment. I do yoga about 4 times a week. Pole twice a week and gym three times a week with Kyle. We meditate every day and we love each others company, but we also give each other space when we need it. It's only been 2 and a half months so it's still quite new. It hasn't always been easy and there have been a couple of difficult times but we are handling things the best way we know how. Together. But there have also been some awesome things happen that I didn't expect to happen at all. That's something I have realised. Is that I'm generally happy with life. There are some difficult things that we have to face every so often. But generally life is good. I'm really enjoying not having to do long distance any more. Every so often Kyle will make a joke about "What time is your flight home?" and I will instantly feel that dreaded feeling of sadness where I know that I'll be going back to NI and not know when I'll see him again. Then I'll remember that we don't do long distance any more and I'm here to stay. Which makes me feel good. It's such a relief to not have to travel any more to see each other. But sometimes I live on edge slightly thinking "is it gonna happen again?" because Kyle and I went through separate periods of "long distance relationshipping" Realistically though, we live together now so that isn't going to happen. If he moves for work I am going with him. We have our hopes for the future and are excited about what's to come but really enjoying this stage we are at right now. :) So what have we been up to. Well, there was Christmas, we came back to NI to visit family, which was exhausting because we had so many people to visit and relatively limited use of the car. We went back to England for New Years, where we ordered a Chinese, and had a bottle of wine. We just cuddled on the sofa and had a great time just chilling and seeing in the new year on the sofa laughing at Justin Beiber music videos and cracking up at teddy bear auction TV shows. We have made a couple of friends so went to a party for their birthday and I've got my start date for my new job (only a few more days of no income!!! Can't wait to get paid) We've been going to the gym, I've been going to pole and really enjoying it. (Update to follow) We're trying to get fit and have set goals to do this. There's just so much to look forward to. Sometimes I catch myself feeling down because of different reasons, the income thing being a really big one for me as I'm so used to just paying my own way in life. But then I remember the bigger picture of how much I have to enjoy, how much there is to look forward to and although there are going to be difficult times. Generally things are amazing right now :) I don't claim to know the whose who of politics, I don't claim to understand all the policies and legislation that they make or understand all the political mumbo jumbo jargain that they rattle off with in any government. I don't even claim to have solutions to all the worlds problems. What I do know is that people love to be divided by "us" and "them". Sounds unrelated, but hear me out. People love to be divided by politics, be it "Labour" and "Conservatives", "Republicans" and "Democrats" etc. I have noticed a lot of my friends on facebook who are NHS employees sharing posts about how this winter has been critical and gets worse every winter. Not enough staff or resources. I have shared some myself, purely to make my non NHS friends aware of the dire situation that we are facing and to avoid going to A&E for things that can be sorted by a GP, pharmacist or local minor injuries unit. (A.K.A to chose well) A lot of these videos that I'm seeing shared about social media at the moment are backed by Labour government in the UK or by certain political parties. My thoughts are that there is no such thing as a political party that will adhere to all your individual moral values and ethics. Each party has their own agenda and will do whatever it takes in order to get voted in to Parliament. Although I've shared such videos it's purely from a "look at the mess we are in, this needs to be fixed" stance. I don't care who fixes it politically, I just care that it's fixed. I saw this quote one time on Pinterest that I'll share below People love to debate about different political parties stances on various issues and how this party is better because they are doing this, that and the other. And someone else will come back with "Well I think this party is better because they do xyz"
They're all part of the same system. (Not going to go all conspiracy theory here, just being realistic) All politicians are paid to make the other side look bad, all politicians are paid to try and get the people to vote for them to be in power. Most of the time politicians are liars (not all of them, cause I'm sure there is a small number of genuine people who want to make a difference in the world) and will say what they need to, in order to get in power. I don't have a solution at hand for anyone. I just have a different perspective. That all political parties belong to the same thing. The world needs a certain amount of conservatism in the same way it needs a certain amount of liberalism. It's about balance in the world. So it's definitely something to remember the next time someone kicks off about what he said she said political nonsense is going on at the time and starts a row in the staff room. |
AuthorI am a 25 year old nurse, who is trying to find herself. This blog will contain epiphanies I have, my yoga progress and other such things. Enjoy. :) Archives
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