This is still me ❤️

True Crime articles will now be posted on Thursdays I can't tell you how good it is to be back reading articles on Medium. I honestly noticed a massive dip in my motivation without them. I've read so many inspiring articles recently, that I currently have 50 saved on my list, but today I am going to share the 5 that pulled me out of my funk this week. I'll start with You Are Not Alone by Kristin Austin. For some time now, I've been trying to think of a way to capture how I am feeling. I've tried mood tracker apps but I find them to be quite limited, so when I read Kristin's article, I was intrigued by the image at the top of the article. Graphics show what she was thinking and what she was feeling, as well as her mindset while writing. Where do I get myself this? That is when I discovered 750 words . I'll let you read the article for the full details. "Suddenly, although I was travelling my scary treacherous life path, I was no longer alone. Big

If you read yesterday's article , you’ll know that I’m back from holiday and rather than being full of self-assurance, I'm battling with self-doubt. Yesterday morning, I begrudgingly got out of bed, looked through my to-do list and very quickly decided it was going to be another slow day, reminding myself that it was perfectly ok, although I wasn’t entirely convinced. I decide to read some articles on medium, which I find to be much better for my mind than scrolling through Tik Tok (which I did for the first time this week for longer than I care to admit!) I’m so thankful I did. I came across Alex Mather’s article If you work for yourself and have self-doubt read this “emotions of doubt, are based not on reality, but on our thoughts.” Yes! Everything swimming through my head was all about a failure that hadn’t yet happened, after all, how can you fail at getting work as a writer when you haven’t even submitted any work or made any applications?? Calley Overtons artic

In yesterday's post July Reflections - What I Loved, What I Learned & How I Can Improve I shared some areas I wanted to improve on during August. I found these articles on Medium, which I will use to help me. Diana Meresc reminds me of the key habits we should all be implementing in 12 Simple Habits That Will Change Your Life “How often do you wish you had done something different in your life? Most of us get caught up in the daily hustle and bustle of our lives. That means we miss opportunities to improve ourselves every day.” Emma Carey gave me some clarity as to why I struggle to be body positive, in 7 Reasons Why Body Positivity Isn't Always A Good Thing “If you want to love who you are, you must process any trauma, difficult past events, and the emotions that come with it.” Briana Belcher gave me some great ideas on making my mornings easier in 6 Things I Do Every Night To Set Myself Up For Success In The Morning “After reading, I always check the reminders

I always believed that I was the type of person, that if something wasn't going how I wanted it, I gave up. If the weight didn't come off after eating well for a few days, I would get bored, eat cake and say screw the diet. If I slept in when I was supposed to get up and exercise, I would decide to stay in bed and then barely move all day, thinking what is the point. Even sometimes in the past with writing, I would miss it for a day and then think "Oh I've blown it now" Whilst consistency is extremely important, it doesn't mean that we have to live our lives by ridiculously strict rules, in order to achieve our goals. For example, going back to dieting. If I put myself on a strict 1200-calorie-a-day diet for a month, I would lose weight, but I would be miserable and this is where I have gone wrong in the past. It's the same with exercising, I put myself under so much pressure with it, that any enjoyment I do get out of it is ruined because it is now

It had a surprising outcome We're halfway through the week! These days, I'm not sure if it's something to celebrate, as time seems to be moving far too fast. At the weekend, I hit a bit of a wall. I felt like I had very little positivity left in my tank and it really irked me. I spent far too much time thinking of ways to replenish the sunny disposition I have come to enjoy. The more I floundered, the more upset and frustrated I was getting until I stopped and asked myself, why I was clambering so desperately to feel happy? Apart from the obvious fact that feeling low is rubbish and that I have a fear that anytime I start to feel crap my depression is coming back, I realised that without these miserable, low moments, I would not feel the giddy heights of happiness that I feel and I certainly wouldn't appreciate them as much as I do now. So, I decided that rather than spend all my energy fighting with my feelings, I would embrace my Britishness and keep calm and ca

Finally, a week where I can stop and breathe. It's been a positive week and I feel with each new day, brings new things to learn. I sometimes feel like I have only just begun living my life as I am meant to, which is odd at the age of 41. Last week I started adding a "song of the day" to my social media pages, the intention behind these is to get everyone's day off on a positive note. I thought I would share these on my Friday posts for everyone to enjoy, by adding the link to the day of the week. On Friday I went out with a couple of friends for some Friday night drinks. We sat in a beer garden, drinking rose and chit-chatting about our lives. I had a picture taken, which I usually hate but for once I didn't. When I wondered why I noticed that I looked relaxed and not like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders, it felt good to realise that. There was a man at the pub that I was convinced was the actor who played Martin Fowler in Eastenders. I was t

Its a small step, for a big reward I had other plans for today’s post. I sat down this morning to read another chapter of The Power of Focus, I read something I just had to share. “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It not just in some of us, it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fears, our own presence automatically liberates others.” This is from Return to Love by Marianne Williams as quoted by Nelson Mand

Mind, body & soul I’ve been so focused on my writing lately, that I have neglected some other areas of my life, so I’ve decided that I would try and do 1 thing each for my mind, body and soul. Put my phone away In last week's blog post I mentioned an advert I saw at the cinema about putting our phones away and enjoying what we are watching. I am incredibly guilty of this, even as I sit and type this now, I have a program on in the background that I have recorded. This week, I am going to put my phone on Do Not Disturb each day and put my phone, IPad & laptop in the kitchen whilst I watch a program. Sounds easy, but even in the cinema, I had to resist the urge to get my phone out of my bag. It's a very bad habit and I want to undo it. Get my steps up Although I am thoroughly enjoying the amount of time I have available to spend writing, the downside is that I am spending less time walking around. This week, I aim to try and increase my daily steps by 1000. I w

My productivity has skyrocketed since setting clear, concise goals. After spending some time last week reviewing my current goals and setting some new ones, I'm feeling quite excited about the future. For the first time that I can remember, I am very clear about what I want in life and it feels pretty damn good. Sometimes when I set my weekly intentions, I struggle to think of some, which is where I will usually chuck in something vague like "drink 2 litres of water each day" and then inevitably, don't follow through with it. Now I have some crystal clear goals, it's so much easier and I could list several intentions I have for this week (don't worry, I won't) I'll just give you the usual three. Finish my article One of last week's intentions was to write an article, I started writing one but as I mentioned in last week's post , it was bringing back some pretty painful thoughts and feelings. I will go back to that article, but only whe

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There is always something to be grateful for I often find that when one area of life is going well, another area isn't going as well. Maybe sometimes when something is going my way, I look at other areas to improve, so that everything can be just how I want it. This is why I like doing my weekly posts on what has gone well so that when my brain is chewing over all that I perceive as negative, I can remind myself of all the positive things that have happened. This week, I will admit, that I struggled. I had to look in my 6-minute diary and look at my daily gratitude, just to give myself a little oomph as I was in a bit of a negative mindset. Needless to say, I felt a lot better afterwards. My creativity is through the roof. I have a list of over 30 ideas for posts and articles and it's growing daily. I love not having a 9-5 and working to my schedule, I am up earlier, get more done and in general, feel happier. I have the time and space to think clearly and it works well f

A personal time capsule Last week, I wrote a post about the importance of self reflection . I hadn’t realised how much self reflection I have been doing, it is now as much a part of my day as brushing my teeth. One important thing to remember when self reflecting, is that you must guve yourself time and space to do this, writing daily reflections mindlessly and never actually thinking about them again, serves no purpose. I was excited to see that my first weekly challenge in my 6 Minute Diary, was to write an email to my future self for 6 months time, describing where I see my life at that point in time. There were two websites given where I could use to do this. I decided to go with Future Me, which I had heard already heard of, I thought I may have even wrote a letter to myself in the past. The idea is, that you write a letter to your future self, it can say whatever you want it to, you can even get ideas from the website. You then decide when would like to receive the letter

Thank you so much to those of you who have taken the time to complete the short survey I sent out recently. If you haven't yet completed it and would still like to you will find the link below. 43% of you prefer to read my posts on a Monday. 43% of you said you prefer to read them on any weekday with the remaining 14% preferring to read them on a Sunday 43% of you prefer to read my posts on Facebook whilst another 43% prefer Instagram The remaining 43% read them on WordPress 57% of you prefer to read my posts in the morning, 29% of you prefer the evenings and the remaining 14% prefer the afternoon. Your favourite posts are the written blog posts and what went well this week, followed by the weekly intentions, the motivational posts and lastly the newsletter. The majority of you would like to see more Written Blogs & Motivational posts with fewer posts on book reviews and newsletters. I’m going to leave the survey open for a bit longer for anyone who would still li

I would be really grateful ❤️ Last week I sent a very short survey asking for some feedback, I would really love to know what you would like to see from me. Please could you do me a massive favour and complete by clicking here .

This week, I want to focus on my physical health. I've been feeling sluggish and don't seem to have much energy lately. I'm going to try out some different exercises this week, I want to find something I enjoy, there must be something surely?! Drinking water is back on the list. Again! I've noticed my skin has been feeling a bit dry too so I need to try and get to grips with this water drinking malarkey if anyone has any tips on how to get more water on board, let me know. I also want to add more fruit and veg into my diet. My diet has improved, I've not been having many takeaways and have been cooking lots of healthy food, I just need to make sure that veg takes up a lot of my plate and maybe have some fruit for breakfast. What are your intentions for the coming week?

It’s been a mixed bag this week, but I have managed to turn it around. I enjoyed getting dressed up and going out for dinner and drinks with the girls last Friday. In the week, after having a really busy few weeks, I easily fell back into my usual routine, which helped turn my mood around. I finally wrote my article for publication! It only took me a month. I rewrote and re-read it about 7 times but I think I am happy with it now. What went well for you this week? ♥️

After walking to and from my counselling session last week, I realised how much I benefit from going for a walk, so this week I am going to get myself out each day for a morning walk. I want to update my vision board, the focus has been on the mind for a while now and I feel that I have made some good progress there, now I can work on some other areas. I didn’t manage to get the medium article written last week, so that’s a definite priority for me this week. I have a nice quiet week ahead so will be able to make the time needed for this without feeling rushed. What are your intentions for the coming week? ❤️