Appreciating life in uncertain times...

Happy Birthday!
It's what we say to the people that we love and the people who loves us say to us. Everyone has a birthday and it is a thing we can all share in common. Some of us look forward to our birthdays, some do not. Every year we face getting older, but even so, it is a celebration of life and achievement, of love and kindness. We feel invincible on our birthdays. 'It's my day, nothing can go wrong.' However it can do and it's even worse when it's someone else is suffering on their birthday and there isn't anything that you can do about it as much as you want to.

It may be something that scares you out of your skin and you just want to jump out of your body and run, just run somewhere, run away from the scaring frighting, uncontrollable thing that is hurting someone else. We avoid what we fear, but does that really help anyone? The anxiety and shock of the uncertain. The uncertain mind of the uncertain sufferer. To only we relax when we have identified the problem.

We have to accept our anxious sufferings sometimes until they disappear on their own, no matter how odd and discomforting it can feel as the heart pumps crazily round the body, trying to understand it's host.

Bodies are odd and they try to protect us. They keep us alive and do all they can too, until they really can't.

So the best gift on a birthday is a life. Your life, your families life, your friends life, those people you love, their lives. Each life is a special gift, more so than the presents unwrapped early before breakfast,. It's no more important than life itself. And when you know someone that you love and care about is okay, then you can really appreicate the importance of their life on their birthday and how glad that probably feel they still have it.

What's your university life?

Sometimes we reach a dead end and need change.
I remember two years ago upon starting university, I would dream about student life in the Halls and perhaps meeting a close friend or boyfriend whom I could have long meaningful discussions with, late at night in the kitchen while everyone was asleep. I could see a vibrant me with a life that combined of university and it's accommodation.

I didn't get the chance to go to Halls for freshman year and I was deeply disappointed by that. Was I truly missing out on the student life? However I got an application in early a year last May and I knew things were going to be opening up for me. I was ready to move out and start an independent life.

September now feels miles away. My mental and emotional health being tossed here and there with feelings I hadn't expected to feel in my bubble cloud. Living with anxiety makes those experiences much harder, and not to mention the cold weight of guilt on my shoulders for being extremely introspective. Was I missing it all?

I shouldn't have to feel guilty though.  I have however been extremely productive with my time here just by finding myself..in a small little cell sized room. When the more out-going flatmates ask if I'm up to anything, I think *I'm doing so much, you have no idea* but really say "Mmm not much. Just staying in." Sometimes you just want to have something interesting to say. But what I am doing is interesting to me but it won't be for you, I think.  I don't place value on getting drunk every night and trying to catch up on my sleep. I do however enjoy socialising with the wide range of friends that I have met during my stay in Halls and the ones I go to uni with. I like to talk about topics that I have a variety of routes and depth to them with friendships that will at least last the two or three years of education time or maybe beyond that for a few.

There are two different types of uni life and both of them are valid. There are many introspective types, blogging, listening to music, chatting to the selected few flat friends and finding themselves, in every Halls and that is ok. We may feel pressured to peel away from our comfortable skins but I believe that if you are happy with what you are doing, then thats where you should be at this point in time. When the time is right, we will come out of our chrisilis and bloom and find each other.  I heard the other day in the laundrette, a large group of high volumed voices were discussing the quiet girl in on of their flats. They were going to invite her to a big party saying that no one should be alone all the time. They then said that apparently the girl was happy to be by herself and I was thinking. *Yeah, I feel like that too. If I want to socialise then I will.

But Halls, it's not for me regardless of all the beneficial life skills have I have learned.  I can cook healthy nutritious meals and do laundry but there are so many thoughts and actions that can be done in one little room and I feel like I have come to the end of what it has for me. As for next year, I'll be commuting again. I'll have that freedom to be in the outside world and still be as introspective or as open as I like. Sometimes when we have small place we curl up to, we do like to stay there a bit too long. I would like to get out in the world, but who said it had to be in the noisy student nightlife?

Live a little.

There is Enough Space for Respect In This World..

What happened to a world full of correspondence of letter, a world full of individualisation of your handwriting and the magazine drawings of the acceptably unachievable perfect woman?

We seem to live in a world now where technology has taken over us. I look around me and I'm surrounded, just like many of us could agree. An instant buzz of the mobile and the ding of an email, the  too familiar black and white text and those in speech bubbles, recreating a real life conversation. We have become so virtual. Yes, the basics have become useful, but not an unhealthy dependency we have all be guilty to admit too.

Children, touching iPads and iPhones, putting together virtual puzzles and forgetting the tangibility of those misshaped cardboard pieces. I realise now that this is what my photography lectures have been talking about with their film cameras and how we have changed that dramatically, shooting acceptably good quality on our phones. I hadn't seen it that way, but there is always two sides to every argument.

Sometimes when you walk away from technology, you really experience a pure version of yourself. I never gaze hour after hour on Facebook at the other girls deeming themselves hot, in competition with their female friends and surrounding males. I don't stare at online magazine sites trying to keep in touch with the fashion of 'right now'. All this and what makes the world perfect, to say the least in a girls eye, is forever changing, the whole world is forever changing. We need to find ourselves and respect ourselves. This is what has gone wrong and we don't seem to know our place in this world. Our politeness and respect as flopped. All this crime, drug usage and lusty sex is a distraction, a quick route to get us to our happy place, but does it really? Of course not. We want so much more than that. We want love and we want respect and how are we supposed to get it? Not by those ways. By respecting and loving yourself. If you can't love yourself first, then you will find it harder to love others around you. Everyone is deserving of someone.

We have become so troubled as world, so confused and full of angst and misunderstanding. But what we need to understand is that we are all in this together. We all started off with a fresh innocent face, crying for air on our day of birth. The world was at our oyster and no means superficial in our eyes. We had no idea what insecurity meant, just that we knew that pain could make us cry.

We get lost, we all lose our confidence somehow along the path of life. It's our job to react to it in the right way and gather it all up. We have to look within ourselves and find peace. Find calm, a natural euphoria that we can escape to drug and alcohol free. It's possible and it takes practice.

Just sit. Remove yourself from that buzz of technology. Feel the guilt but do it anyway. You deserve time for yourself. You deserve to heal and each day brings a new opportunity for that.

Smile. Smile to yourself in the mirror, feel the overwhelming embarrassment, stare into those eyes and soften that gaze. Hold your head up high, take in your flaws and smother them with acceptance, wear them with pride.

We should pass others, no matter who they are, with a knowledge that they hold pride within themselves. A knowledge that they may have problems too and realise that things in your life may not be as bad as it seems, even if may feel like it now.

We need to be open to change. Pride ourselves, the country we belong to and the world we share and live in.

The world shouldn't seem such a scary place. The only thing we need to change, is ourselves.

30 Days Can Change Everything...

Sometimes life can be pretty scary.
You can be surrounded by many people and still feel like the loneliest and most helpless person in the world. And of course, that is not true.

We all feel scared from time to time and growing up can be scary. I've learned that many people have suffered depression and anxiety during some point in their growing up years and that is quite comforting.

A month ago I felt so lost. I had tried and tried to overcome Anxiety. What kind of anxiety? I don't know, I assume Stress but I don't particularly have to put a label on it if I don't need to. I had, however been struggling with this horrible beast inside of me. It took the fun and joy out of my life and I was in my head all the time with a blank face trying to get back to that default way of being. I forced and forced myself to breathe normally, whatever normally meant but that forcing was only making things worse and sucking the life out of me till I just felt pale, cold and sluggish. Living was all that I wanted, to breathe and why was it being so hard? Why was the world against me? And why didn't my mind trust my soul?

I had written a stress journal before. I never liked looking at it and I always rushed it so that I wouldn't have to. What was the point of that? I guess that was worried that drawing attention to this monster, strengthened it, but it was actually the resistance that influenced it more than anything. Everything was made difficult when I moved back to university after Christmas and my parents were away and all my closest friends could only be contacted virtually. I wanted their presence and virtual wasn't enough. I needed a voice, a hug, a source of comfort but they were living their lives elsewhere so black and white text was all I could make do with.

It took some scary moments that made me feel that I had to tell my parents, a realisation that if I didn't do anything, then I could waste away and I was too young for that, I have so much to give. The best way for me was writing a letter which they read and then the rest of my family. Although unable to understand completely, they were supportive but I just picked a wrong time at the end of the Christmas Holidays.

So what was I to do for a month without visiting home? I cried many times, but that saved me, helped me, detoxed me. I told my closest confidents and they supported me, offering their time to listen to whatever I had to say whenever I needed, all with their own stories of comfort and hardships.

I was told by one, that whatever advice that I get, whether that is professional or family/friends; it is only me who can make me feel better. I didn't like this and I was thrown deep in to more darkness. But there was so much truth in that. After all, it is the emotions inside you that control how you feel no matter if you have triggered them yourself or externally from another, but it's true. It doesn't mean to say that you shouldn't go searching for support when you need it, but it's something to keep in mind - a balance of the two.

What about that question? Well, I had had enough of trying for three years, I wanted change and I wanted health. I began a stress journal, a proper one, that I could write about anything and allow space for good comments and gratitude and pep talks given to myself. It's not the journal that has been healing me but it's the act of a record. If I hadn't written that first post I'd still be lost not knowing the date when I wanted to make that change. I have had some up's and down's and even re-visited the scary moments and sensations over that time, but I reminded myself by reading inspiring stories about people who have been through tough situations, that people get through patches like this, and I hope reading this has give you, the reader some inspiration.

I have learned that Anxiety cannot be controlled. It's a free spirit and you have to let it come and go as you please. Once you learn to acknowledge and trust yourself not to feel bothered by it, then the strong monster then starts to disappear and become weak, before it has enough and drifts away.

We need stress in our lives to keep us alive. Some of it's good and yes some is bad, but it's ok for your heart to quicken every once in a while and in fact it's only protecting you. Stopping yourself being stressed by tensing up, opens a creeky dark door to misery. Trust your body. Your mind might not know what it's doing but your body certainly does and it can heal.

When I say heal, I don't mean that my feelings of tension are gone for good, but I have found happiness within myself and that is what I have asked for.

It's amazing what you can do to improve your perception and body's health in a month.

You should try it some time.

Zoe

Freeing yourself from education's mould...

I remember when choosing your GCSE's was one of the hardest choices you had to make back when you were fourteen/fifteen. It was the start of deciding who you wanted to be. Someone had got this stick out and started poking you with it, pushing you to choose this subject or that subject and you just didn't know.

The decision wasn't too hard for me, I suppose. I love Art so that was definitely a 'Yes'. I also picked Geography and French. It was important to for me to have a language in there as we had been told that would look good on our CV's (Resumes).

However it is Art as an academic subject that I want to talk about.

If you are an Art lover, you probably spent many hours after school or on sunny and rainy days just drawing away. You invented imaginary people, gave me them a name, age and place of birth and signed your work with your full name and how old you were at that exact time, even that 7 and 3/4's business. Well I certainly did. Art is supposed to be limitless in how one expresses themselves and it's not just about drawings, it can be singing, photography or any creative subject. You will know that you're that kind of person and what you enjoy.

Up to GSCE level of Art, I had expressed myself so freely and reached a stage of, say drawing people that ended up in a kind of cartoon-like form throwing out any sense of proportion and shadows and shading. You could say I still wanted to belong in that cartoon world and I took Art in a fun way rather than serious. So drawing people wasn't for me but that's ok. It was when I got to choosing my topic for my Art exam. The duration was ten hours and we had to create a sketchbook and plan out beforehand. The topic was I, Me, Mine. You could say that the most limitless topic was right ahead and I got to thinking straight away. I had been working my way up the GSCE Art ladder with B's and due to get my first A. I was so sure and so confident about this.

As a nostalgic person, blossoming a new passion for photography, I created a pin board, a real tangable one that I was firstly going to paint on canvas but wanted the texture and photographs painted by hand. I hadn't painted enough, which was my outcome, leaving me with a C. It was Art, I was proud of it and  it didn't meet the criteria.

The mould had begun.
My further education at college was quite limitless and experimental, particularly my Independent Project taking a photographic form on Teenage Stereotypes and the fact that barriers are often too high.

I moved closer to the photography dream and now in my second year of university, that mould of getting us to be a certain kind of photographer and use certain tools with certain expectations has been, well thrown upon us. I'm liking the fact of using old cameras, the real kind that people used when photography began, but growing up in a digital age, it's hard for me to flip back.

I'm not naturally technical, I'm shy on first meeting and here are teachers saying to the class of many others like me that "Being a photographer you have to be a people person." forcing it upon us like we didn't know or that wasn't us, that and crushing our dreams. Many of us are good with people, we don't have to be gregarious. But that's the mould they want us in, as if we couldn't be successful any other way.

I may be struggling with the pace of this river, but I work slowly to achieve the best results and to really learn and my communication is gentle and directive. But just because us 'quiet lot' with softer voices doesn't necessarily mean that is us inside. I know for a fact that isn't who I would describe myself. With building confidence slowly, that "people person" is going to come out of all of us, because it's there. We fell in love with Photography and Art for the expression and wanting to make something beautiful out of some instant. We probably didn't consider that we should have all these millions of business skills. Some may do, but there work could be lacking in what is Art. We're not all perfect.

What happened to Art being limitless, the world being limitless? Or was that part of life that defined us as children and now we have to face the professional world seeking success in a grey suit, striving for a Face that isn't really us?

When choosing your career? Make it natural, make yourself natural with the natural confidence and aura that just makes your clients/colleagues know that you are genuine in what you want to achieve. You might actually stand out that way.

It's ok to be that boulder in the stream. It's ok to stand still for a moment, resist the stereotype needs and do whatever you want to do and express that you want to express. Once that education is out the way, those gates can be opened if you let them.

Be limitless. Be You. Be Free. 

The Importance of Priority...

Priority.

It's an important word and we usually place that on our work when it starts becoming a bit strenuous. I don't know about you but I tend to be a bit of a workaholic. I may not be in work, but with multiple uni modules to complete all at the same time, it can be a bit of a frazzle.

You ask questions to yourself, trying to decide which of these projects are more important and when to do them. I also like to plan and even then, there is the stress of where to slot everything in and how long I should be working on that particular task for.

We often see people on their commute to work with a snack bar or a muffin, with perhaps some coffee, or maybe just the coffee...maybe just nothing at all? We have to rush to this place of work, our obligations are there. It doesn't matter about breakfast. "Maybe I'll just skip lunch?" you think Or "Maybe you will just take a bite of your sandwich, a bite of your apple and go to the vending machine to buy yourself a calorfic Mars Bar?" After all, they do contain the same amount of calories as that ham and mayo sandwich that you were going to eat. Besides it boosts up your energy levels and gets you going. Those cheaters, that's us.

Well..actually in fact I don't tend miss meals, my stomach won't do with that; it would be grumpy with such an arrangement. We rush to get to the next thing, is what I'm saying, the more important thing, until we actually stop for a second and think "What IS the most important thing?" That is one question I asked myself today. I had four different things on my to-do list and they all seemed pretty important. The most important seemed to be that work word. Hmm yes that. But I also wanted to go to the gym. That's important.

The main thing that we should be considering is "What is important right now?"
For me? Health. Without health, we can't do the things that we want to do and find important, if it's flailing or just not really there. Yeah, it may be that coffee that speeds you along but actually getting some rest and taking breaks every once in a while to energise naturally, you'll actually function better without that coffee. Allow coffee to be your leisure than to be your owner, strapping you to a lead and making your run at top speed to keep up with it.

That was something I found difficult, not the coffee, but taking time to have a break and re-eveluate my day or to just do nothing for ten minutes or so every couple of hours and literally sit there and recharge. There are many ways to do that, even if it's just listening to some music or reading etc but actually slowing down and deciding what task you are going to do next will help you a lot if you are one of those frazzled lot. It's something I'm working on and though it can be difficult at times, it's starting to show it's benefits.

You can go about it your own way but actually I have learnt that sometimes doing the opposite can actually make you achieve more.

Hope it helps!

Honey Lemon Tea...

Tea with the absence of honey is bitter.


I have a mug with a smile at the bottom. It is quite a satisfactory smile with a little tongue peeping out, but none the less, it is a friendly mug. It's got quite a large capacity so it is fantastic for thirsty tea, coffee or hot chocolate drinkers. I was in good need of some tea with added honey and lemon. I always use the raw ingredients as I believe you get the most goodness out of it and a stronger taste than those mixed packs in supermarkets.  I find this drink very comforting and while I had my big mug, tea at the ready I took a journey.

The honey wasn't mixing well but the lemon was floating and bobbing playfully. Lemon Tea is nice without honey but I think the fact I had honey meant that I knew the sweetness was soon to come. I sipped my tea faster. "What am I doing?" I thought, "I'm supposed to be savouring my tea." But I wanted to get to the sweetness. I had enough of the bitter taste of the black tea and lemon. But that surface was so refreshing, why did I want to leave it? Perhaps it didn't taste good enough?

The cheeky expression at the bottom of my mug smiled at me as I continued to gulp away. Soon enough that bitterness turned sweet, an overlapping delicious transition with a full sensation to earn. I finally reached the full sweetness. But it wasn't as sweet as I had hoped because I hadn't put enough of this sweetness into my mug. I rushed my tea for the faint taste of honey swirling invisibly. I was disappointed and deflated.


No one likes a bitter world. We want sweetness and a smiling face at the end of the day. So why do we rush it? Why are we not content at where we stand right now in this present moment? Why is the future so much better? I think we should try and savour our mugs of tea, coffee, hot chocolate, juice or water. We should savour time and the see world in a mindful way, smell the world in a mindful way, hear the world in a mindful way, feel the world in a mindful way and of course, taste the world in a mindful way.

We can sometimes forget and lose sight and forgot to feel, through the rush of life. It perhaps might give us a sense of calm, purpose, joy and make us remember what life is really about it.

Finding a way out of an anxious fog with it's toxic relationships

I look around, they smoke like chimneys. Young racing hearts, reckless. They live life to the full. Youth - Love. Sex. Drugs. We see the faces, the observers. We see them, with their vulnerable and neutral expressions. They look at us, or maybe they don't?

A guy stubs out his cigarette on the cold ground as the bus approaches. I pick up my heavy load of groceries and reluctantly inhale that ashy smell of poison. I have smelt that stench and some like it too much recently. I look around, they all do it. It's cool right? I swallow and do my best to breath the air that is fresh as I look out the window. Soon the smoke disperses.
While I was on this ten minute bus ride, I couldn't help but wonder what made him start smoking in the first place. I thought it was about fitting in, they did it because of peer pressure. I have thought since then it could be that they come from a family whom their parents smoke. But more recently I have twigged that perhaps this person and people like him are going through downward spiral. We have all heard how smoking nicotine and illegal drugs can relax and improve the perception in mind of the smoker. However it can make their problem a whole lot worse. A new problem. A sick addiction. Their initial problem has now gone out the window, locked in the back of their minds. They know it's bad, but they just can't stop. Every New Year, each one secretly hopes "THIS will be the year I get over it." But they need it, their food, their drink, their love. A sick lusting entertainment and escape not only before their eyes but in their mind.

----

Sometimes smoking and taking drugs may seem like an easier way to sort out a problem. I wonder how many of you are succumbing to these death traps, scrabbling, clawing your way out. But it deals with your worries, right?

Facing the world when it's dark and looking forward is sometimes the only thing you can do. Your only option is to breath and sometimes that can be frightening. It's too much, is too fast, it's too tense. You just want to do it right.

Options?

Dance it out. No one says you have to be an expert. Even five minutes of  'Night Fever' zooming your arm up and down counts. Guys you may prefer football with your friends or if you are more of a flying solo guy, how about running?  Take a jog down round your street and feel that cool air fill your lungs and lift the silt and blackness out, circulating your body. Your heart pumping, unraveling your soul and surging you with the energy of which is life.  Engage with the endorphins in your head. They make you happier than any amount of drug pulsating in your blood stream. It may feel like a weakness stepping away from your drug one baby step at a time. How do you get over someone you love?  The chemicals in your brain work in the same way and it always seems lonely at first to stick out on your own. Once you do and give that chance for real, you begin to feel that strength returning. It often hasn't been touched by many young adults for a long time and continues not to until we choose it. It's about being ready. There are many ways to take your mind off stress. Relaxing music helps. It doesn't have to be the 5th Symphony but something that will capture your soul and take it to a new level, feeling some  natural sensations your body was made to experience in a pure state of health.

Writing is a fantastic tool. You could write a story on your experiences on what has made your angry and frustrated throughout your life? Write something everyday even if you have never been the best speller or grammar nerd. Sometimes it's about discovering your ambitions and interests. The next pen to paper creation could be a eye catching work of art, depicting life's troubles and the process of wandering through a torch-less land till you find that lamp of hope.

None said it is easy dealing with stress and anxiety. In fact it makes life and the simplest things in life seem very hard but the main thing is that you are not alone. Talk to a friend, or a family member or someone professional who knows and talks to people regularly. The moment we feel that we are no longer alone, is the moment when we can finally start the journey of believing in ourselves again. Even that journey may take a long time, but it's a step right?

My advice is none in the least professional but everyone around you has been through something or has learned to overcome in some way.

If you really want to become the happy person you want to be and I mean really want it, then you will. Surround yourself in positivity, even if you don't believe at first. Once you build up your exposure to positive quotes or people then that perception of negativity ticks over and you remember what it's like to feel human again. I know this because it's true, but you have to trust it and trust yourself.

Anyone you see has a story to tell on those blank and neutral faces that we wear on the bus, or at school/work and on the street. We all want to look strong enough and we may envy that slight smile on someones face just because we want to steal it for our own. Perhaps they have just managed to achieve that renewed feeling after a long and rollercoaster journey, because it is possible.