This is still me ❤️

The bigger picture I share what's been happening this week, my top 10 horror films, 20 things that make me happy and this brilliant post from @thirdeyethoughts Subscribe here

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

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

So much has changed since January and that includes my goals. I looked back at the goals I had originally set myself at the beginning of the year and half of them are no longer things I wish to achieve. I’ve been reading The Power Of Focus which has some great guidance on goal setting, so I am planning on working my way through that over the next week or so. I want to write some more articles so that I have some ready to submit to publications. I often have ideas pop into my head and I keep a note of them. I currently use Evernote for my blog posts, I just need to organise my folders a bit better as I have almost all of my blog posts in there! Lastly, but most importantly, I am going to block a day out in my diary each week where I make no plans. No lunches, no appointments, no dinners. Nothing. It’s a day just for me to do the things I need or want to do for myself. What are your intentions for this week? ❤️

“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

After having a massage last week and spending most of it having my brain race around, I tried a couple of mornings last week just sitting in complete silence, no phone, no TV, just me and a cup of tea. My brain was free to race around and do whatever it wanted and I found this helpful, so I am going to give this a go for 10 minutes each morning, instead of meditation. At the beginning of the year, I set myself some goals. Some were long term and others were short term and I try to base my monthly and weekly goals around these, to help me to achieve these. As the year has gone on, I have achieved some of these goals and some I have changed my mind about, so I am going to sit down and look at these and set myself some new goals. Once I’ve done this, I can update my vision board so it reflects my current goals. I hope that the second half of the year is as amazing as the first half.

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? ♥️

Despite being an anxious mess this week, due to certain things not going to plan, making time at the end of the week to think of the things that went well was really easy and helps me to realise what truly matters. I spent a relaxing weekend with my friend in Hereford, we lunched, we walked (me in inappropriate footwear resulting in blisters) and we lounged around, its nice to feel at home without having to do any chores. I spent some much needed time with the husband, unfortunately for him, its been a stressful week for me so I am conscious that he didnt have the best of me, but as always, he showed me love, kindness and endless patience and I am very aware of how lucky I am to have him. On Wednesday, I went to Essex to see my brother on his 40th birthday and spent a few hours with my family which was really lovely. I realise now, that all those things I have been stressing about are not as significant as I first thought. What went well for you this week? ❤

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The last few weeks have been really busy. I’ve had lunches, dinners and weekends away with friends so I’m really looking forward to having some time at home with the husband. Whilst he is working away in the day, I am going to get through my ever growing to do list, this includes finally writing and submitting my article for the medium publication. It’s been a couple of weeks since I got the invitation, but as it would be my first time submitting something, I don’t want to rush it. I have already decided on the content and I am quite looking forward to cracking on with it. I’m also planning on doing some cooking. I do really enjoy cooking, so now I have a bit more time, I would like to cook up some nice lunches and dinners, especially now I have the new Lucy Lord cookbook. What are your intentions for this week? ❤️

Earlier this year, a friend of mine, who left my employers last year, was telling me about her job, I told her if any new roles came up to let me know. A couple of weeks ago, a role came up, so I sent her my CV, which she then sent over just after Easter. Two days later the agency called me and set up an interview for the following week. The day before my interview, they called and offered me the position, I hadn't even had an interview, although this still went ahead as a formality. Knowing I already had the role, I was a lot less nervous and the interview actually went better because of that. It was a great way to start the long weekend. The husband was taking me away for me belated birthday treat, so we went off to the New Forest, somewhere I've always wanted to go and I was extra happy, knowing I had the new job offer. We had a really lovely weekend, visiting various villages, pubs, restaurants, a beach and a castle. I was feeling on top of the world. We came home on M

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I didn't do particularly well with last weeks intentions. I started off well, getting up at the same time each and taking a nice morning walk, but I found that as the week drew to a close and the long long Easter weekend arrived, I got lost in all the plans and let these slide. As I mentioned in last weeks blog post, food tracking became a complete ball ache and it took over a bit, so for the sake of my sanity (and waistline) I dropped it. I do still want to be conscious of my eating habits, I just need to experiment and find out what works best for me. I am always open to suggestions🙂 This week, is another short week for me. The husband and I are away for the remainder of Easter weekend and next weekend I am going away with my friend Rachel, so it doesn't give me much time at home, but I have tried to set intentions that will work with this. Send out my substack newsletter. My substack newsletter usually goes out on a Tuesday. I like to keep the content different from the

I’ve been on a pretty high vibe this week and with this, some pretty positive things are happening. As I mentioned in this weeks blog post, I had myself a little mini spa session on Wednesday and I’m pleased to report that as of Saturday morning, the nails are still look fabulous. Home spa sessions will absolutely become a regular thing now. The bestie came over for a catch up on Thursday night, we talked non stop for hours and as soon as she left I realised that there were loads of things I still needed to tell her, that are of course too long for a text message or phone call, so we will have to schedule another catch up in. At the end of the week, I joined the Medium Partnership Program. For me this is a huge step in the right direction for my writing career and I am looking forward to learning from other writers and hopefully having a bit more exposure to the world of writing. I have been blogging for over 5 years and I still enjoy it so much and I happily spend hours shut away in t

Cards on the table. I set an intention at the beginning of the week to track my food and. I wish I hadn’t. It’s. So. Fucking. Boring. You know what happens when I track food? I eat more, because I am always thinking about food. I wanted to track my food to keep an eye on the nutrients I was getting, but as soon as I opened my fitness pal, it became a calorie counting exercise and I just cannot be arsed with that. I get too obsessed! I once looked up the calories for a lemsip! I was ill, but still didn’t want to go over my calorie threshold. It’s a miserable existence and I’m just not needing this in my life right now. Yes I could do with losing quite a few pounds, but it’s really not a priority for me right now. Life is too short, there are enough things to think about, to worry about and food isn’t going to be one of them. So I am happily erasing that one from the list this week. After I stopped obsessing over food, I started obsessing over my skin. I’m not sure if it’s my age,