#lillylife

[thenotyourmum]

[thenotyourmum]

How to deal with your family during the holidays:

School holidays are super intense times. It’s expected that all schoolwork and responsibilities go away and you MUST spend lots of time with your family – no exceptions. And don’t get me wrong, I get just as excited to finally be able to go out and do things with my family like walks, lunches, cinema trips; the things I’d usually miss out on because of school or work, but sometimes it can get a little too much.

There are a lot of expectations that you may put on yourself, I know I do. For example, most of the extended family will ask ‘how’s school’ or ‘how’s work’, and there’s that immediate pressure to be getting As and A*s and have a load of savings for things that are deemed important such as university or a car. It is, for me anyway, basically a period where you should be as fake as possible and not say things how they really are. My teenage years consisted of spending all my earnings on things I didn’t need, falling out with my friends and just about passing my exams. Sound relatable to you?

It is okay to play things down in these circumstances. In my eyes, family are great, yeah, but you choose your friends, and those are the people to cry and hysterically rant to. You may be super close to all your aunties and uncles and cousins and grandparents, and if so, you’re very lucky, but if you’re not that is also okay. Family can get extremely overwhelming in both cases, as you can go from hardly seeing them to spending days at a time together, especially during ‘holiday’ periods when you’re expected to be celebrating and happy. Like I said, it’s super intense. My advice to you is to try and enjoy the small time period when you have to endure this, it is only for a few days every few months a year. Instead of trying to act ‘fake’, turn it into you’re only focusing on the positives for now, because there always is some goodness somewhere. That can help your mental wellbeing, too, as focusing on the positive can make you see that the negative aint so bad after all. Bad grades are not the end of the world. Arguing with a friend doesn’t mean you’ll be friendless for life. And so what if you waste some money when you first get a job – you’re young and deserve the fun.

Relax and be yourself as much as possible and remember that no matter how close you are, your family adore the pants off you and would drop anything for you, even if it doesn’t seem like it.

Love always,

NYM xo

[thenotyourmum]

In her column this week Lilly has the skinny on skin (word-play!).

[thenotyourmum]

[beachybellexo-blog]

my graduation dress