This is still me ❤️

I wasn’t going to write today, but I have just finished watching a series and have been telling all my friends about it and I thought it would be selfish not to share it with everyone here too. The program is called Big Boys. It’s written by Jack Rooke, who is the main character, played by the brilliant Dylan Llewellyn, who you may recognise from Derry Girls. Jack has just lost his dad and deferred his first year at uni. When he starts he meets Danny, who he shares “accommodation” with. The Jack and Danny joke went through my head immediately, don’t worry, it’s explained. Jack, who is yet to come out as gay, forms a wonderful friendship with Danny, who has some serious struggles of his own. I loved the focus being on the straight best friend instead of the gay best friend, it’s something we rarely see. Jon Pointing plays Danny beautifully and whilst I loved Jacks story, it was Danny that had be sobbing one minute and then snorting with laughter the next. Every single cast member

You can’t live a positive life with a negative mind. Today, I wasn’t feeling my best. Despite having good boundaries in place, the negative thoughts can still creep in. When this happens I have a list of go-to self-care activities and I thought I would share these with you. Meditation I always thought meditation was sitting crossed-legged on the floor and clearing your mind completely, which, quite frankly, feels impossible for me. I gave up trying to meditate for ages until it was explained to me that is not the case. The actual definition of meditation, according to Merriam-Webster, is: 1: to engage in contemplation or reflection. 2: to engage in mental exercise (such as concentration on one’s breathing or repetition of a mantra) for the purpose of reaching a heightened level of spiritual awareness Each morning, I make myself a cup of tea, set a timer for 10 minutes and sit in silence, letting my brain do what it wants to, which is usually worry, roll off my list of things

It is not your job to make others happy. I had never heard of the term “setting boundaries” until I started therapy, I certainly didn’t know what it meant. Yet I have found it a key part of my healing process. Why hadn’t I heard about this sooner? I will admit, that I can sometimes find setting boundaries difficult. I am a people pleaser, I want to keep everyone happy, unfortunately, this can cost me my happiness. Your peace should be your priority. This isn’t always going to sit well with others, but if someone is ok with you putting their happiness first at the expense of your own, maybe it’s time to question that relationship. We also need to be respectful of the boundaries others put in place. We all want different things and we all have different priorities in life, so whilst we may not understand the thoughts and feelings of others, we should still be respectful of them. Since I started setting boundaries in my life, I have experienced a dramatic improvement in my overall

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom.” — Aristotle I adore stationery. As a child, I used to spend hours in stationery shops longing to buy all the notepads and pens that adorned the shelves. As an adult, I do buy more stationery than I probably should and when I came across self-reflection journals, I became truly addicted. When I was tidying my house recently, I found some old journals and flicked through them. It’s so good to read through and see the thoughts and feelings I was having back then, it’s really interesting to see how much I have grown over the years. I complete my self-reflection journal each morning when I get up and each evening before I go to bed. I try my best to make sure each morning and evening is filled in, even if it’s a bit later than anticipated and I do take it away with me on holidays. After spending a lot of time scouring the internet, I chose the 6-minutediary for my next journal for the following reasons: It’s split into morning and eve

Another week, another mood…or two I feel like my moods are a bit of Russian roulette at the moment. When will the gun go off? Last Friday, after an anxious week of worrying about the fact my contract had been pushed back a week, I decided to walk to my counselling session. I am well versed by now in self-care, but I am not well versed in the art of patience. I know doing some gentle exercise will help my mindset, but during my walk, I didn’t feel ecstatically after 5 minutes, so I spent the first part of the walk feeling pretty miserable, wishing I had just driven instead. During my walk, the first glimmer of light came about 15 minutes in when I saw this little patch of wildflowers growing by the side of the road. I hadn’t noticed it whilst driving and just seeing that, made me feel a little bit happier. Just as I was about 5 minutes from my session, the joy of flowers now forgotten, I got a text from my friend, I had referred her for a role on the same contract as me and she had

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Even after the love has gone. Part of my anxiety means that I cannot be late. This is such a major dilemma in my relationship, as my boyfriend has no concept of time whatsoever, often leaving home at the time he’s supposed to be somewhere, I on the other hand like to be at least 10 minutes early, I allow for traffic etc. If I am late it sends me into a meltdown and it's caused so many arguments between us. My punctuality went in my favour on the day I went to see the solicitor as I couldn’t bloody find it. I walked up and down the high street about 3 times before noticing it nestled between Lloyd’s Bank and the Pound Shop. I pressed the buzzer, no answer. Barry pops up in my head! “What if they have mixed up my appointment?” “What if he’s off sick today?” Arrrrrrgh. Luckily before I could respond to Barry or talk to myself in the high street, two people arrived at the door with coffee. “Hi, I have an appointment with David Beckham at 9 am” bless the girl for not even flinchi

The thing with anxiety is, that it’s always there, it’s never going away. The techniques I learned at my CBT sessions are great and do work, but you do have to work at it. I got a bit lazy. I finished the therapy in March, carried on doing the minimum (meditation etc) then there was a birthday and then we were off on holiday, great right? Not for Barry . I was feeling insecure, so instead of lying by the pool relaxing, I was comparing myself to everyone around the pool, thinking that my boyfriend probably wished I looked better. Why don’t I take care of myself more? All this whilst sipping several Pina Coladas I might add. I hated myself. All these negative thoughts I was having about myself were draining me, looking back now, I can see I was slowly slipping into a hole. I tried to put a brave face on but inside I was feeling quite sad, I put it down to hormones and got on with the holiday. About 6 weeks later, I received a letter from my ex-husband’s solicitor officially starti

Mental health is so confusing There are going to be a lot of acronyms flying around in this post, so please try to bear with me. So I had booked my lunchtime appointment with the CBT therapist (cognitive behavioural therapist) I was nervous and wasn’t sure what to expect. I had only told my boyfriend and the friend who had told me about CBT, I didn’t want anyone to know, I was quite embarrassed, I wasn’t mentally stable! The session was in an old fashioned building, hidden down a little side street in the City of London, I had to climb about 100 stairs, I was out of breath by the time I got to the first floor and all hot and flustered. I sat in the waiting area, half of me eager to rid myself of the craziness, the other half wanting to run out of the door and hide from it all. Then my therapist came out, she was lovely and put me at ease straight away. I explained that I thought I had OCD and why I thought that, I explained my temperament, the constant worrying and she told me th