Feel Good Friday #15



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Seeing as it’s Valentine’s Day and so much emphasis is put on the notion of ‘love’ on this day of the year, I thought I would dedicate this post to the most important relationship we can possibly have as human beings - the one we have with ourselves. It’s all amazing and rosy being in love and all that, but to be brutally honest, at the end of the day the only person who you can be 110% sure is going to spend the rest of their entire life with you, who is going to look after you and who knows what’s best for you and will always have your best interests at heart, is ultimately yourself. Once you learn to love and accept yourself and all your little quirks and flaws, life seems to become a lot easier and the people who don’t accept you exactly as you are have a funny way of making their way over to the exit doors of your life. When you live your life for you and do the things that make you happy it seems you become much better equipped to spot that special person that may come along who will also love you exactly as you are. Until you value yourself, how can u know if someone else really does too eh?!

So whether you’re spending today with a special someone or not, make sure you celebrate your most important relationship by doing something nice for yourself - I’m going to have a large glass of wine and a nice hot bubble bath!

Seeing as this is our fifteenth ‘Feel Good Friday’ and I have a lot of work commitments coming up I’m going to make this my last post in this series, however if you enjoyed this feature do let me know! Hopefully it won’t be too long before I can put my inspiration cap back on and get down to writing a new series of posts as I have found this weekly bit of positivity to be quite therapeutic!

X

Feel Good Friday #14



(I reblogged this pretty quote on my tumblr this week)
Okay, so not everything in life goes to plan. I think I’ve come to learn that’s all part of the fun. Mistakes are where events take you by surprise, sometimes you even catch yourself by surprise. Making mistakes is all part of learning who you are, how to cope with different situations, they teach you about life. Everybody makes them! How else do you learn if not through your own mistakes. So many people are so worried about doing something wrong that they don’t take a chance to begin with, parents worry about their children making mistakes and so try to mollycoddle them. Well I’m a firm believer that mistakes are a good thing, they teach you how to do better next time and as this week’s quote goes, if you’ve made a mistake, hey at least you’ve done something! You’re living your life and that is a sign of courage, so don’t despair when something doesn’t turn out quite as you had hoped, take whatever lesson is to be learned from that situation and move on knowing that you can use the experience to better yourself.

X

Feel Good Friday #13



Today I’ve spoilt myself and had a lovely pamper session, I’ve done my tan, my nails, I currently have my hair in rollers and I am well and truly ready for the weekend. I always find that investing in my appearance makes me feel a whole lot better about myself, I can be having the crappiest day and the minute I hop in the bath with a few scented candles lit and take some time out for myself, I am a new woman.

Whether it’s girly pamper nights or something else, a hobby perhaps or a night on the sofa that takes your mind away from the stresses of everyday life, make sure you take time out for yourself. Everybody needs time to themselves to recharge their batteries and relax. Invest time into yourself, treat yourself regularly, it really does make the world of difference to your mood!

I’m off to dance the night away tonight, cue a whopping hangover tomorrow – I will definitely need some pampering then! I hope you enjoy your weekend.

X

Feel Good Friday #12

Home is certainly where my heart is. Quite literally, as I just flew back to the UK yesterday! I’m so happy to be back and my experience of being away for the past few months has really made me see my home in a whole new light. For as long I can remember I’ve wanted to travel, to see the world and to spend time away from my home comforts to experience a different way of life. Well although I haven’t exactly been roughing it lately, being so far away from my home and my loved ones has made me appreciate them so much more. Last night after a long day travelling and finally arriving home to my family, I lay down on the couch in my pyjamas, my big fluffy dressing gown on, cup of tea in one hand, TV remote in the other, cats sitting with us on the sofa and I’m going to sound like such a granny here, but it was pure bliss.

So this post is just a little reminder to appreciate your family, friends, pets and whatever it is that you hold dear to your heart, because those are the special things that really make your life what it is.

X

Feel Good Friday #11

(I reblogged this lovely quote on tumblr recently)

 

Well hi there and welcome to our first ‘Feel Good Friday’ and indeed our first blog post of the year!

I really wanted my first post of 2014 to be all about my Christmas holiday to Sri Lanka which was without doubt one of the best and most insightful trips I have ever been on.  However as it turns out, whittling through the sheer amount of photo’s that we snapped is taking quite a while and as I couldn’t possibly share them all with you (we’d be here an age) I want to pick out my favourite ones to share in an up coming post.

‘What’s this got to do with inspirational quotes?!’ you may be wondering. Well while I was away I really enjoyed visiting some of the beautiful Buddhist temples. Just to point out, I’m not a Buddhist and I’m not religious, however I found the experience extremely calming and I love the philosophy that Buddhism promotes.

I chose this quote as it is one that I truly try to live my life by. If you are thinking a thought that is happy and positive and you dwell on it, it is near enough impossible to feel down in the dumps. Likewise if you are thinking negative thoughts about people and situations, it is impossible to feel happiness in that moment, you will just feel grumpy. It’s so easy to judge and criticize others as well as ourselves and all of us, myself included, are guilty of doing so. However it’s a well known fact that if your predominant thoughts are those of positivity, it will reflect in your general level of happiness. So although I would consider myself to be a fairly positive person anyway, this year I’m making an extra special effort to choose only happy thoughts. If a negative thought pops into my head, I’m going to push it right back out again and replace it with a positive one.

I wonder who will be joining me on this one?!

 

X



Feel Good Friday #7



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This week I watched a documentary on Channel 4 called Fabulous Fashionistas which I found so inspirational. If you didn’t see it, in a nutshell the programme was about six women with an average age of 80 who refused to let age define them, they had their own unique sense of style, did what they wanted and didn’t conform to the preconceived ideas that society has about what an older person should be like. What’s more, they were all absolutely amazing people!

This got me thinking about the topic of age. Why should age define a person?! When I’m an old lady I want to be like them, to have my own unique sense of style, to still do the things I want to do. Anybody who knows me knows that I’m not one to always conform to society's ideas of what you should and shouldn’t do. Why? Well because I’m an individual, just like everybody else in the world and I don’t see why anybody should make up rules on how anybody else should live their life. I’m aware this might make me sound as if I live some sort of crazy life, I really don’t – I just make my own rules instead of following other peoples.

So there you have it, my inspiration for the week. I just hope that when I’m older I still live life the way I do now. I hope that I’m even braver than I am now and do more things, I want to be an old lady who has brightly coloured hair and wears purple lipstick - that’s my little pact that I’ve made with myself. Did anybody else see the documentary and if so what were your thoughts?

X





Feel Good Friday #6



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I was chatting to a girl at a makeup counter this week and I distinctly remember her having this quote tattooed on her arm. She was a really nice, helpful girl and as I read the quote I thought ‘fair play, you seem like a really happy, positive person’.

Then when searching for inspiration for this week’s Feel Good Friday I came across the quote again and thought ‘that’s the one’, simply because loving your life is such an important thing to do, yet something that at times can be very challenging.

For me, the key to loving your life is appreciating all the good things in it. By that I mean all the people who you love, who love you, all the things that you do or have that make you happy and so on. Taking a moment to appreciate that life is precious and can so easily be taken from you makes you realise what you value the most and what aspects of your life deserve your attention. Happiness is most definitely a choice and if there’s ever something in my own life that I’m unhappy with, I change it! If there are people that bring me down, I try not to be around them if I can help it, if I’m unhappy in any aspect of my life, I will try doing things a different way and giving something else a go. Nothing in life lasts forever and that can be both a blessing and a curse, however it’s the transient nature of life that makes it such a gift and one that I always try my best to make the most out of.

X



Feel Good Friday #5



                                                                          

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Now I’ll be honest, I would class myself as quite a strong minded person, I accept others for who they are without judgement and I expect the same from the people that I associate myself with. That’s why I love this quote.

I can be quiet until I know someone well and I’m not an ‘in your face person’, I’m happy and nice to people because I don’t feel the need not to be. For those reasons people can often get the wrong impression of me and assume I’m a push over. Well they couldn’t be further from the truth. Just because I’m nice to people it doesn’t mean I can’t stick up for myself and just because I don’t feel the need to confront a person if they have said something mean behind my back it doesn’t mean I don’t know the type of person they are. I truly do not care about the opinions of those people and I therefore don’t feel the need to be negative back to them.

So here is my point. A truly strong person does not need the approval of others. Those who are mean for no reason are most definitely insecure within their own lives and therefore their negativity should not impact on your happiness. A lion is fundamentally different to a sheep and thus a sheep’s opinion of what is right and wrong does not matter to him. The opinions that society may have of you do not matter, the opinions you have of yourself do. People who try to fit in with the expectations of society and other people, making themselves unhappy in the process are sheep. The people who live their life according to their own values and morals are lifes lions and those are the people who I have found are often the happiest.

I shall finish this post with a quote by Coco Chanel who I believe was a truly inspirational woman and one of lifes lions.

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The people who have negative opinions about you are often people who don’t know you anyway or who are jealous of you in some way. Those people don’t deserve space in your head. The only opinions that matter to me are those of me and my loved ones, why worry about the opinions of people who mean nothing to you. As the saying goes - those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.

                                                                                  

X





Feel Good Friday #4

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Today’s post is about taking chances! Had you guessed?! Recently I’ve been pondering over which direction I want my life to take me, by this I mean what job would I like to do when I’ve finished my degree, where would I like to live in the future, what personal goals would I like to achieve and other such questions.

Well about a week ago I heard about the 101 things in 1001 days challenge (in which you make note of 101 things that you would like to accomplish in 1001 days funnily enough) from my best friend Kate who is also doing the challenge and I thought ‘what an amazing idea!’ 1001 days is three years, plenty of time to achieve my goals! So I began writing a list of all the things that I’d like to do and achieve in the next three years and while it’s not quite finished yet, it’s really made me think of some exciting things that I’d like to accomplish, some of which I may never get around to doing otherwise. It’s made me think of new ways to push myself so that I can experience life to its fullest and most of all it has made me see that in order to achieve anything, we need to take chances. I took a chance last month when I started writing my blog and I’m so glad that I did because I am thoroughly enjoying writing about a topic that I love as well as reading some lovely comments that have been left for me by people who have read my posts.

So my advice is always to be open to taking a chance, because you never know where it may lead you!

X

Feel Good Friday #3



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I love the optimism induced by this quote. I really think that believing good things will happen to you makes you appreciate all the little things that happen throughout the day that you may not have taken notice of before. Being in an optimistic frame of mind and actively trying to see the positive in situations helps you to view the world in a way which allows you to see the wonderful things in your life.

So for instance, if you have a big decision to make – realise that it could be the start of an amazing new chapter in your life. If you’re starting a new job or school and are feeling nervous, think of all the things you’ll gain from the situation you’re in – new friends, a new perspective perhaps, new skills?! The next time you’re anxious about doing anything – realise that it’s completely normal to feel that way and make a mental note of what you will gain from that experience. Perhaps you will learn something new or maybe you just won’t feel as nervous the next time you’re in that situation, maybe you’ll even enjoy it!

Even the small things such as appreciating when people do something nice for you like holding a door open or smiling at you, do these things more often yourself and you’ll notice when others do them too! Taking the time to notice when you can see something positive in a situation eventually leads to an overall more optimistic mindset.

So there you have it, if you want to view life in a more optimistic way, start taking note of all the wonderful opportunities and people that come your way, starting today!

X



Feel Good Friday #2

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This week I’ve been contemplating the power of positive thinking. I always try to have a positive outlook on life for one reason – if I don’t, the only person it’s going to affect is myself. Everybody has their own difficulties in life, I don’t think I’ve met one person in my life that hasn’t and if anybody on this planet is actually lucky enough to experience a life without any difficulties, well I’m sure they could still find something to moan about if they really wanted to. So here is my point, when you think a happy thought, whether it’s about yourself, about someone else or just about life in general - it makes you feel good, right? On the other hand when you think a negative thought you feel the opposite! So why waste time thinking about things that make you feel bad? Now don’t get me wrong I’m by no means the most positive person in the world and of course like everyone else I have days where I could quite happily kill someone (not literally but you get my drift). However it’s the way in which I choose to deal with those emotions that I feel makes me an optimistic person. If something has happened that has upset me, I accept what I feel – I’ll have a cry or punch a pillow (whatever it takes) and then I’ll decide not to dwell on it and just be happy, simply because I can’t be bothered to feel negative – it takes effort!

So if I ever find myself thinking a negative thought I quickly replace it with a positive one, your thoughts shape your experience of life and we are only on this weird and wonderful planet for a short while so I intend to enjoy my time here. For that reason I take full responsibility for my own happiness, I choose to see the good in myself, in other people and in my life. I accept myself exactly as I am, because I am me and everything about me (even my flaws) make me into the person that I am. I have learned through my experience of life to let go of situations and people who don’t make me happy and I don’t let other people’s negative opinions or thoughts about me affect my mood.

In a nutshell, life is short – you may as well spend your time being happy, right?! So whatever it is that makes you happy (as long as you’re not hurting anyone) go and do it! Don’t worry about what anyone thinks, be you and accept yourself the way you are – because there is only one you in this world and the people who matter will always love you.

X