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THE “WRITING CURE” - 3 TYPES OF JOURNALING TO IMPROVE YOUR MENTAL HEALTH

Happy New Year, guys!

Yes, it is far too late to say that… but it’s my first post of 2021 and I’ve been procrastinating hella... so please kindly cry elsewhere if this is an issue. Thanks in advance!

I hope that everyone has had a fantastic start to the year despite the fact that we’re going to be held hostage in our own homes for at least another four months.

After giving myself time to throw a fit and and a little (massive and unnecessarily dramatic) strop after hearing the news about the new lockdown and calming down a bit, I started to contemplate how different it is this time around, for better or worse. Worse in the sense that it is a) the middle of f*cking winter so we can’t even enjoy being outside and have socially distanced pIcNiCs, and b) because it literally came out of nowhere so there was zero chance to mentally prepare for it. I literally woke up from a nap, checked socials and found out that we were suddenly on lockdown… Do you realise how mad that is?

Luckily, there are some silver linings with this lockdown that I brutally force myself to focus on so I don’t lose my sh*t. One thing is that most of us probably know by now how to keep some kind of structure to our days this time - because as much as binging trash tv, being horizontal for 75% of the day, eating, chatting shit on facetime for an obscene amount of hours, bunning and going to bed at 8 am was all fun and games the first time around, chances are that you realised pretty soon that your life was literally just wasting away and you have nothing to show for it… besides bedsores, losing all muscle definition and a migraine, that is. Yes, being lazy and unproductive is needed sometimes, but eventually you’re literally gagging for something to do - and this time around you probably have something creative or work-related to do that can keep your mind preoccupied.

Additionally, this lockdown comes hand in hand with the rollout of the vaccine, meaning that the end of this nonsense is coming closer and closer. Regardless of if you’re planning on taking it or not, it still means that the emotions that are a result of isolation and lack of social interaction won’t last forever - which, for me at least, is great news and makes things feel a lot less hopeless.

However, as much as focusing on the pOsItIvEs is imperative during times like these, it’s equally as important to acknowledge and feel your feelings. This whole situation f*cking sucks, let’s be real. We miss our families, we miss our friends, we miss going out, we miss going to the gym/having the option to go to the gym and making excuses not to. We miss our old lives, and the realisation that it is going to be what feels like eons until we can get back to that is bound to get people in their feelings from time to time… or all the time. I often find myself forcing myself to stay productive and creative, only to have the thought “What’s even the point?” attack me out of nowhere, and it really kills my vibe - because sometimes I can’t even think of a decent answer.

It’s dangerously easy to fall into a slump under these circumstances, regardless of how resilient and strong you feel that you are. Forcing yourself to find structure, purpose, inspiration and motivation during this time may be extremely important, but mate... it is exhausting. There’s only so much mental energy you can use to be ray of f*cking sunshine, and once that energy runs out, replenishing it is a huge task since you can’t even do the things you usually do to feel rejuvenated - because outside is locked off.

Ok, so I’m definitely projecting. But I know that a lot of people can relate to these occasional feelings of hopelessness.

This is where I’d usually remind you that these feelings are tEmPoRaRy and will pass, but I’m not going to do that because you’re probably sick of hearing it by now. Instead, I’m going to reintroduce you all to a coping method that you’ve all probably come across in your lives already - journaling.

As in, journaling with intent. I’m personally not very big on the whole “dEaR DiArY” thing where you just whine and b*tch and complain about people/yourself (but to each their own I guess), but I’m talking about writing about topics designed to aid your healing and to help you see the bigger picture of your mental health, and life in general.

I wrote a post a couple years ago about alternatives to therapy for those that aren’t keen on talking to a stranger about their problems (if you missed it, read it here), so I thought that this post could be an elaboration on that. Seeing as a lot of us may feel disconnected and isolated from our family and friends at this moment, getting into writing about your current mindstate, emotions and worries is definitely a healthy outlet that I would recommend to anyone that doesn’t want to bottle things up, but don’t feel like they have much choice.

“But Liv! I don’t have time to write endless pages about my feelings because I’m ~*extremely busy*~!”

I thought you might say that. First of all - extremely busy during a lockdown? Stop the lies please. Secondly, I’ve found that journaling is very much like going to the gym - once you’re into it and see the benefit of it you gladly set time aside to do it. However, if you view it as a gruelling chore that you’d less rather do than all the dishes currently in your sink, it’s very easy to come up with excuses to not do it. To be fair it isn’t for everyone, so if you try it and hate it it’s not the end of the world.

“Ok, you got me. I don’t want to do it because writing is LoNg”

I think what puts people off journaling has to do with the image that pops into their head. To this day I still imagine Elle Woods writing in a pink fluffy diary with a pink fluffy pen on her bed and kicking her feet in the air - which may be appealing to some (me), but cringe to other (uncultured) people. But journaling doesn’t have to be done on fancy stationary - you can literally do it in a word doc in bullet point form, or even record voice memos if writing is sOoOo LoNg. The idea is that you should find a method that works for you, doesn’t feel like a burden and that you can incorporate into your routine.

With that being said, I know a lot of people reading this will still think of excuses to not do it, so let me just focus on those that are open minded enough to try something new chile. I’ll be covering my three favourite journaling “methods”, that have helped me stay sane, motivated and in touch with myself. They are very much focused on emotional, spiritual and mental growth, and will encourage you to think outside of the box when it comes to your mindset and attitude towards challenges that may (will) arise.

What’s important to remember is that what works for me may not work for or resonate with you in the same way, so I definitely encourage further research into journaling/journal prompts that are tailored to your needs. Let’s get it!

1. Gratitude journals.

To say that a gratitude journal - as far as journaling goes, at least - is imperative for your mental health during times like these is definitely the understatement of the century. When you wake up and find yourself still being held hostage, that your body is still in an absolute shambles despite all the useless hOmE wOrKoUtS you’re doing AND on top of everything it’s f*cking snowing, learning to see things to be grateful for amidst all the stress and frustration might seem like a very difficult task. Especially when you feel like setting the whole building on fire.

However, trust me when I say that taking a few moments each day to appreciate the little things that are getting you through it all will make you realise that things could actually be a whole lot worse, giving you a slight boost in your mood and outlook - because imagine how you’d feel if the thing/person you’re grateful for wasn’t there to help you through what can be a really sh*tty time?

On top of just feeling better about this situation on a day-to-day basis, keeping a gratitude journal can also help you keep yourself grounded, present, self aware of what matters to you and just more mindful about life in general. When there’s not a whole lot of options of things to do, it can be very easy to fall into thought patterns of either wishing time would speed up so the future can come, or reminiscing on better and happier times in the past. I wouldn’t necessarily say that there is anything wrong with this from time to time, but it’s important to remember that life is still passing you by. On top of that, considering what made a kind of crap day bearable will help you realise that many of what we consider to be “bad days” are oftentimes a direct result of a negative attitude. Yes, I am projecting with this one.

With that being said, some days are genuinely just unfathomably horrible for seemingly no justifiable reason whatsoever - regardless of if you woke up feeling like a ray of sunshine or not. Again, even when bad moods aren’t a direct result of your stank attitude, practising gratitude can give you the motivation and kick in the arse you need to just ride the day out and remember that nothing that happens is permanent or unfixable.

Then, of course, there are the days when everything just feels like a burden - including thinking about positive things. Sometimes slumps just dropkick us in the throat out of nowhere, and it’s okay to take some time to allow yourself to be pissed off, sad and depressed. Obviously everyone has their own preferred method of riding out these slumps (my personal favourite is wallowing in it until I realise that I need to get a f*cking grip), but I definitely recommend trying to find something small you’re grateful for to remind yourself that it will pass, as this knowledge can make heavy emotions slightly lighter.

In terms of frequency, it really is down to the individual. I’m lazy in the sense that I don’t want to write every day, so at the end of each week I just write about three things that made things a whole lot easier and that prevented me from wilding the f*ck out. And in terms of what you put in the journal, the sky is literally the limit. It can literally be anything that has contributed to you keeping your sanity; last week it was katsu nuggets, the neosoul playlist I came across on Spotify and the fact that I was finally able to switch from a nose stud to a nose ring that made me feel grateful. So, in other words… don’t worry about it having to be profound or meaningful in any way.

2. Positive affirmations.

I’m going to go ahead and assume that you don’t live under a rock and that you understand the meaning of the saying that words carry energy and power, and the concept of speaking things into existence. When I first read about how the words we speak to ourselves and others can transform our internal states on a deep and profound level… all I could think about was how f*cked I am, as I literally only communicate in sarcasm, and brutal drags and insults are my love languages. In my defence, my sarcasm is a coping mechanism that has completely gone off the rails - but that’s a post for another day. The point I’m trying to make is that words have extreme power, and can, when repeated often enough, alter your attitude, perception and feelings about yourself, your goals in life and your current situation - for better or for worse.

So... technically we shouldn’t even be engaging in any kind of self-deprecating humor - because our brain doesn’t actually know the difference between seriousness and sarcasm/bants. All it knows is taking words at face value. BIG yikes.

With that being said, affirmations are powerful and positive statements that aim to direct your conscious and subconscious mind, as well as challenge unhealthy, negative and self-deprecating thinking patterns you might currently be engaging in. They can also influence your subconscious mind to access new beliefs - hence why saying them out loud and with intent on a regular basis is considered crucial for them to actually work. By intent I basically mean speaking your affirmations with conviction, like they are already true - regardless of how far away from them being true you may feel that you are.

In terms of writing positive affirmations that genuinely work, there are many different formats and methods out there that can be adjusted to the individual. I personally utilise a 3 step method that has been working well-ish for me so far - it’s still early days, but it’s definitely a positive habit that I’m trying my best to continue. The 3 steps are as follows:

1, Listing your perceived negative features.

Notice how I say “perceived negative features” as opposed to just “negative features”. This is important because more often than not, the things we are insecure about or don’t like about ourselves are only truly noticeable to us.

These features can literally be anything negative that has stuck with you over the years, regardless of if it’s a product of your own conclusions/internal critic or criticism/negative feedback from an external source. Usually they focus on your perception of yourself as a person, how you cope with life or the current situation you are in (e.g. home-/work-life, relationships etc).

The purpose of writing down things you don’t like about yourself isn’t to make you feel like sh*t, I promise. It’s to help you identify recurring themes in your insecurities, and to help you understand where these perceptions even came from in the first place.

2. Rephrasing your perceived negative features as a positive affirmation.

In this step, the aim is to find positive antonyms to the negative features you have listed. It’s important that the words you choose carry weight and resonate with you on an emotional level, while also feeling believable and attainable to you. This, because if you’re anything like me you’ll feel like you’re just lying to yourself if the affirmation is too over the top… which kind of defeats the purpose.

For clarity, here are a few of my perceived negative features (in the past), what they allude to and the affirmations I wrote for them:

- I worry too much about what other people will think about what I do, what I say, choices I make etc (fear of not being accepted/being talked about negatively) —> “I am feeling more empowered and self-assured as I release the need to care about others’ opinions”

- I’m too naive and keep letting people that don’t have my best interest at heart take advantage of my kindness (fear of disappointing people, fear of abandonment) —> “I am a kind, empathetic, loving person, and I am not at fault for showing kindness to people that didn’t deserve it”

- I hate the way my body is built and I constantly feel unattractive (low self esteem/confidence, body dysmorphia) —> “my body is beautiful, built exactly as it was meant to be, does all it can to ensure that I am strong and healthy and is immune to both internal and external criticism”.

3. Repeating your affirmations regularly.

This is where the ~*magic*~ happens. Yes, I am aware that telling yourself that you are that b*tch while looking into your own eyes in the mirror sounds very cringe and very coming-of-age-Netflix-original-for-tweens like. I can’t lie, it was in the beginning and I felt absolutely ridiculous… especially because a lot of my affirmations didn’t reflect how I felt about myself at the time. But as you incorporate repeating your affirmations into your daily routine, you’ll eventually start to feel a shift in your mindset towards yourself. The words you speak begin to chip away at the self-doubt and self-hate that you’ve built up over the course of your life, and you feel like you actually are stating facts instead of just trying to convince yourself.

Besides forcing myself to speak my affirmations out loud on a daily basis - regardless of how I’m feeling - I also make an effort to review them every couple of weeks to make sure that they are still relevant to how I feel about myself. Ideally, over time you’ll realise that the affirmations you made in the past confirm what you have always known deep down - that you are more than enough exactly as you are.

3. Shadow work.

Ok, so this sounds very dramatic, scary and ominous - and can’t lie, it can be if you allow yourself to be afraid of facing certain parts of yourself. In very brief terms, shadow work refers to the uncovering, processing and healing of different aspects of our “shadow” - which is essentially all the thoughts, emotions and behaviours we suppress and hide away in order to be perceived as “normal” by others around us. This might not seem like a problem, but the issue here is that the concept of “normality” and what is considered to be “normal” is in itself deeply rooted in the individuals past experiences, and especially childhood. For example, a person that grew up in an environment where expressing emotions and vulnerability/sensitivity was seen as a weakness may have problems with expressing their emotions as adults - since they have been conditioned to believe that emotions are a weakness, and are meant to be hidden away in order to be accepted.

As you can probably imagine, going through life with these false truths ingrained in your mind have a tendency to eventually come to the surface in some way in the future. Constantly feeling like you are restraining certain parts of yourself - regardless of if you’re aware of this or not - can manifest as issues such as mental and physical illness, feelings of low self-worth/esteem, addictions and many others issues that affect our life quality severely. These repressed aspects of ourselves are referred to as our “shadow selves”, and if we don’t “bring light” to the shadow - i.e. face the qualities we have that we have held back for so long - it can truly hold us back from reaching our full potential in life.

With that being said, shadow work encourages you to force yourself out of denial about certain aspects of yourself, accepting it, and working on unpacking and bettering those aspects without judgment from your ego. I personally struggled a lot in the beginning of my shadow work jOuRnEy because it was infinitely easier to think of myself as a victim of others doings, rather than a combination of other people’s actions and how my ego and shadow self chose to react… if that makes any sense. I used to hate doing shadow work, because I felt so ashamed and angry at myself for allowing my ego to be distorted by lies and other peoples’ projections for so long.

However, when these feelings arise and you feel like quitting - because WHY should healing be so f*cking painful - it’s actually a sign that you are headed in the right direction. Messed up, I know. But over time, you’ll become so used to sitting with your negative feelings towards yourself that they don’t even really phase you anymore, and you can admit that your shadow self and ego has caused you to form unhealthy habits and thinking patterns that can be detrimental to your mental health. Over time, you’ll develop a great sense of self awareness and self compassion, as well as great psychological, emotional and interpersonal maturity.

Trust me. Being able to admit and accept that you are flawed without being harsh on or hating yourself is a BIG flex, and makes you unf*ckwittable. I actually dare someone to come and drag me for something I haven’t already dragged and forgiven myself for, because I haven’t had a good laugh in a while.

So, the bottom line with shadow work isn’t to bring light to your flaws to feel like shit about yourself (although you definitely will). The point is to bring said flaws to the surface, understand where they stem from, consider why and how it has affected you, and becoming aware of your triggers. Setting time aside a certain time each week to do this work and understand yourself on a deeper level gives you power over your ego, shadow self and triggers, because doing the work helps you see and understand that they don’t really have power over you unless you let them.

In terms of format, I really just do whatever feels right when it’s shadow work o’clock. If I’ve had a particularly sh*tty week and can assign the blame to one of my shadow aspects, I literally just freestyle and write whatever comes to mind (my journal has SUFFERED this lockdown, honey). If nothing comes to mind, I like to make use of journal prompts that are designed to get you thinking and reflecting. I literally just get them online because I’m lazy, but here are some good ones to get you started:

- How judged do you feel on a daily basis? How much of said judgement is real and how much is imagined?

- What does it feel like to have your emotions belittled and downplayed?

- What has fear held you back from? Do you blame yourself or others?

- In what ways are you inauthentic?

As you can see, these prompts do not f*ck about. They’re going to get you in your feelings, make you feel weak and vulnerable and cry like a little b*tch, if you’re anything like me - not that there’s anything wrong with that! But the best part is that once you’ve finished writing, sat with all your negative emotions, accepted them and decided you are ready to move forward and heal, your triggers become less and less powerful - until the day comes when they’ve dissolved completely.

So, there you have it - three tools to help maximise your inner connection to your mental, physical, spiritual and overall wellbeing. As previously mentioned, there are tonnes more different journaling methods that can trigger a positive change in your mental health, and I definitely recommend looking into this and trying them out… wHeN yOu HaVe ThE tImE.

On that note, I want to reiterate that journaling shouldn’t be feeling like a time-consuming burden that you have to put a gun to your head to do every time - because brutally forcing yourself to do it is just going to make you feel sh*tty when you don’t/can’t/won’t follow through. It’s all about finding a time during the day, week or month (whatever frequency is best for you) that you set aside to really get in touch with and sit with your feelings. At the end of the day, it truly is a commitment that you make to yourself - and only you can decide how seriously you want to take this commitment. I will say this though - being inconsistent, procrastinating, skipping or making excuses to not do it only leads to distrust of the self. And If you can’t show up for yourself, how can you expect others to show up for you?

Check me out, leaving you all with food for thought and sh*t (and like I haven’t been ignoring the deadlines I’ve been setting for myself for weeks. Hypocrisy is and always will be my favourite pastime!). It’s giving Eckhart Tolle and I love it. The bottom line is that journaling can be a very powerful tool in your healing process, and it’s up to you to make it work for you.

Until next time!

Love,

Liv

5 STEPS TO EMOTIONAL DETACHMENT FROM TOXIC AND USELESS SOMEBODIES

Well, hello there. It’s been a slightly long minute… but I’m back with another banger for your headtops. A lot has happened since my (four month late) birthday post in which I said I was going to write more regularly… but you know what? I refuse to feel bad about it. We’re really in a whole pandemic, life is hurling curveballs at all of us at very disrespectful rates, and now the year is coming to an end very swiftly - like say it wasn’t June just a couple weeks ago. Yes, I’ve been feeling extremely unmotivated to come on here and give everyone a pEpTaLk about how ~*great*~ life is once you let go of everything that’s been holding you back - and that’s okay. I’ve decided to give myself a break instead of beating myself up over it, and can’t lie… I needed it. Besides - posting this post in particular now coincides nicely with releasing and purging all the drama that has been happening during this year before 2021 arrives, so let’s just pretend that the delay was intentional. Okay? Okay!

All jokes aside, I have been struggling a little with writing about this topic, because I really wanted to make sure I did it properly. If you read my never-ending birthday post (if not, read it here), you might remember that one of the points was that learning how to detach yourself from toxic people and situations is pretty much crucial for you to be able to fully let go of the past, to be able to move forward in life without any remorse or guilt, and to never revisit what used to be very painful situations ever again. As much as my own detachment jOuRnEy has been going relatively well, to say that the whole “letting things go and never revisiting them again” thing has proven to be quite the challenge would be the understatement of the century.

By quite the challenge, I mean a f*cking nightmare.

I’m sure many of you can relate when I say that having all this forced time off/downtime throughout the past year has made introspection, reflection and self-analysis pretty much inevitable. Even when you’re just trying to chill and binge watch your favourite box set for the gazillionth time as a distraction, eventually your thoughts catch up with you - forcing you to face certain things that were so easily ignored and avoidable when the outside was still open.

When you spend so much time of a day in your thoughts (trying not to lose your mind from the boredom), it’s only natural to start evaluating your situation, relationships and state of mind. I can only speak for myself, but going from constantly being able to avoid certain thoughts and feelings to suddenly being brutally forced to sit with them ended up being the catalyst I needed to want to find a way to finally strip myself of all the painful baggage, situations and people that have been holding me back from moving forward in life. Aaaand cue the inevitable - but extremely necessary - discomfort that the detachment process brings.

Hella revelations. Hella difficult conversations. Hella growing pains. Hella tears. Hella ended relationships/friendships. The list goes on.

I realise that I’m not exactly selling the whole detachment thing very well, but let’s be very real - it is painful, and you definitely need to be in the correct headspace to even be able to admit to yourself that you’ve allowed a certain situation to go on for so long. I can’t even lie, living in denial and turning a blind eye to former fRiEnDs’ behaviours and how they treated me was a hell of a lot easier. I accidentally got into the habit of justifying and defending other peoples’ mistakes and sh*tty behaviours, no matter how much it hurt me in the process… all because I saw pOtEntIaL in them.

Bruh. Typing it out like this and reading it out to myself is even annoying me. Ya girl is pissed for letting this sh*t run because where was my logic? My critical thinking skills? Common sense? InTuItIoN that I claim to have?! Was my third eye asleep?!

Sigh. Let me relax. It is well… no point in beating myself up over it now. But still.

However - with that being said - I definitely feel like I had to put myself through a lot of that sh*t, because if I hadn’t I’d definitely still be clinging on to expired/toxic friendships and connections. Going through it really had me in a place of suspecting that everyone wanted to hurt me and/or take advantage of my kindness. Luckily, I met some amazing people along the way that reminded me that not everyone is trash, that I am deserving of genuine and real connections, and that I need to learn how to let go of people once they start moving all kinds of mad… enter the concept of detachment.

As you can probably tell from the ever so slightly passive-aggressive title - no, I haven’t fully mastered the art of detachment… yet. I definitely have a long way to go before I can commit to the last couple of steps of the process, because as a chronic overthinker that looooves to analyse past situations and an eMpAtH that hates giving up on people, simply ~*letting go*~ is infinitely more easier said than done… but definitely not impossible. It really is an ongoing process, and I can tell you from now that you will revert back into the toxic mindsets that lead you to your current situation at least 1000 times along the way… but what’s important is learning how to g-check yourself, remind yourself why you are doing this and to keep it pushing no matter what.

Anyways. Without further ado, keep on reading to find out how to leave your d*ckhead exes, fake-ass friends and painful memories in 2020, so you can move forward into 2021 with love, light, a clean slate, peace of mind and all that other corny and cringe sh*t that we all crave - and never look back. Enjoy!

1. Set a very concrete reason why you want to start the detachment process.

Usually, this is a no-brainer. Most likely, the person you’ve decided you want to detach from has just done or said something unforgivable that makes you feel sick for ever even being associated with them. Or, you’ve clocked a series of minor violations that have built up over time… and one more tiny violation pushes you over the edge and makes you lose your head. Either way, it works as a catalyst to make you finally realise just how little respect they have for you, your feelings or your mental health.

However, there are certain situations where the reason may not be as clear as “she f*cked my ex” or “he stole £5k from my account” - sometimes, it’s literally just a gut feeling that someone doesn’t have your best interests at heart the way you have for them. Regardless, it is important to remember that any and all reasons to want to let someone go are valid, and you don’t owe anybody an explanation. This is your healing process and journey, and you’re the one that’s going to have to deal with the pain of it - so anyone that has any remarks on how/why/when you do it can choke, because what’s their own?

With that being said, it is imperative to make sure that the reason is strong enough for you to be able to stick to the process - because believe me when I say that there will be times where you’ll start asking yourself if you’re overreacting, if it’s really that deep, you’re being too sEnSiTiVe or being too radical. These thoughts are either a way for our mind to avoid having to process a lot of sh*t that will probably be very emotionally painful to work through, or a result of being gaslighted and being told that it’s nothing serious. In those cases, a strong reason should be enough to keep you reminded of why you are putting yourself through this process. It should keep you going, and help you find yourself on your darkest days when you just want to give up.

For me, determining a good reason that I know I will stick to became easier over time, because I realised that really delving deep into the root cause of the issue makes everything so much clearer. For example - yes, while Lucy shagging your ex and then meeting up with you for drinks is violation enough, chances are that if you dig deeper, you’ll realise that there’s been repeated pattern of her not respecting you as a friend, disregarding your feelings and not caring about how her actions affect you. In instances like this, it becomes easier to commit to cutting them out of your life, because it’s not just a “one-off” violation, if that makes sense.

The bottom line is that regardless of what the reason is, it should be a clear indication that you are choosing you. Your mental health, your sanity, your energy, your present and your future - and why would you want to jeopardize any of these for someone that clearly doesn’t appreciate your worth?

2. Find healthy coping methods to release your emotions.

I’ll be honest with you - the beginning of the detachment process is definitely the most difficult part, emotionally speaking. Yes, the whole journey is hard, but it’s in the beginning where you have to adapt to not speaking to this person anymore, not seeing them anymore, and having to force yourself to establish heavy boundaries with them… which will most likely be met with reactions that will make you want to respond in some way. Just because you know someone isn’t good for you anymore, doesn’t mean that your old feelings for the person just magically evaporate into nothing.

As much as you may hate to admit it to others and even yourself, you’re going to be hurting. And pain has a way of pushing us to find coping methods to release these emotions - or not have to deal with them at all.

Trust me, as much as I understand and can personally attest to that coping methods that numb your senses may feel like the best option at the time, the truth is that they do nothing for your personal growth. Sure, sometimes you just don’t want to feel - but what happens when you’re sober again? The feelings come right back - and now you’re really playing a dangerous game that can lead to spiralling, health problems and addiction. In the long run, you rarely end up feeling any better.

Healthy coping mechanisms look different for everyone, but there are definitely a few that are universal and can be good for pretty much anyone regardless of the specifics of the situation.

Talking to someone you trust (or a therapist). Working out. Indulging (heavily) in self-care. Doing things that bring you joy. Finding a creative outlet that you can pour all your feelings into… like a mental health blog(!). The possibilities are endless if you stay open minded and genuinely want to get better.

For those that may be stuck in that dark place where literally nothing will make you feel better (except maybe the person you’re trying to detach from… gets like that sometimes), or you feel like your energy is extremely limited - try to set one goal for the day. Just the one. Even if it is just tidying your room, taking a shower or doing the dishes. Setting minor goals that you realistically feel are achievable - and achieving them - are very helpful in gradually building up the confidence in yourself that you will get past this part of your life. And that goes for all situations in life that are heavy - not just the detachment process.

3. Find ways to keep your mind in the present and on the future.

So, you’ve started to begrudgingly get used to the fact that the person isn’t going to be around in your life anymore. You might even have started to realise how much your stress-levels have reduced, and begun to realise that this whole process was an excellent idea. However… not quite enough time has passed for you to be fully immersed in your journey, and you still think about them pretty much all the time. You’re feeling like a nitty trying to cope without crack for the first time in years, and that’s okay.

While it is important to allow yourself to fully acknowledge your feelings and mourn the loss of what used to be a very strong connection, you definitely owe it to yourself to try your best to remain present during this time. As tempting as dramatically starting out the window while it rains and thinking about them - like you’re in a music video - may sound, doing this is guaranteed to keep you firmly lodged in the past, and very stagnant in life… and we don’t want that.

Just do a couple songs to get the dramatics out of your system, then get ready to boss the f*ck up.

Now might feel like the worst possible time to start something new, especially since your emotions are probably all over the place and you’re finding it hard to focus on little else. But trust me when I say that this is exactly why you need to do it - you need to reclaim your life by putting yourself back into the main focus of it. And what better way to do it than starting a project you’ve always wanted to do, but haven’t because of insecurities and/or self-doubt?

Regardless of if it’s pursuing a new hobby or even starting your own business, having an activity that brings you joy, challenges you and pushes you to set and exceed goals for yourself is imperative at this kind of time in your life. While a lot of the detachment process is pretty much trying to force yourself not to think about someone - thus making you want to think about them even more - having a passion project is a healthy way of willingly keeping your mind in the present and on your future. This, because you’ll constantly be looking for ways to improve your skills for yourself and your success in life.

Personally speaking, this blog was the perfect passion project for me back when I started my own detachment process. It still is - despite my inconsistency in writing, there actually isn’t a day that goes by without me thinking about future posts and what messages I want to share with whoever ends up reading it. However, since my writing does involve a lot of reflecting on past situations, I’ve decided to expand my creativity and start selling my art (check it out here, we love a cheeky and shameless self plug!). Focusing mostly on drawing, getting more involved in the art community, investing in art supplies and researching drawing methods lately has definitely made me more present and motivated… and I’ll even go as far as saying that I’ve forgotten about the people I’m detaching from at times.

The point I’m trying to make is that doing something you enjoy for your own mental wellbeing is one of the most rewarding parts of this whole detachment palaver. When you fully deep how much of your time that used to be spent worrying and stressing yourself out over someone trash, and focus that time on something creative that actually benefits you and makes you feel better about yourself, you’ll soon find yourself asking yourself why you didn’t start earlier.

Of course, it is important to remember that while feeling passionate and motivated in your creative/business ventures after feeling like sh*t for so long is a great thing, you should still make room for sitting with your feelings from time to time. Especially in the beginning. There’s a very, very fine line between using a hobby to empower and uplift yourself, and using it as a distraction to not think or feel at all. At the end of the day, it’s all about finding a good balance that takes into account where you currently are in your healing process - over time you’ll realise that you won’t need as many “days off” to be in your feelings, and trust me… that realisation and feeling is phenomenal.

4. Forgive and heal.

I just love how I’ve bunched these two together into one cute little step like they’re not the hardest part of the process. In theory, forgiving someone for yourself (not for their benefit) makes a lot of sense, but let’s be honest… a lot of us lie to both others and ourselves when we say we’ve moved on and forgiven them.

I, for one, can confidently say that most people I’ve claimed to have fOrGiVeN still live in the deepest parts of my mind rent free. They might not be present all the time in the way that they used to since I started the detachment process, but once I get in my feelings their presence is often there as strong as ever… and this is okay. Of course you’re not going to magically forget how someone treated you just because you’re committed to moving on, but there comes a certain point where you realise that all you’re doing is going round and round in circles in your mind, while time is just passing you by. Think about it - how many hours of your life do you reckon you have spent in bed, staring at the ceiling dramatically while fuming over a situation in which you were done dirty?

If you’re anything like me, the answer is BARE. And don’t even get me started on how the amount of hours increased more than tenfold during the lockdown because I couldn’t even distract myself properly.

Actual footage of me re-deeping a vio at 4 am.

But as much as lamenting to yourself about how much sh*t you’ve let slide and how you’re never going to let yourself be treated like that again is healing in itself, at some point you literally feel yourself losing the plot from replaying the situation in your head so much.

This is a sign that it’s time to heal and truly move on. It’s time to evict them from your mind… because they have millions of pounds in rent arrears at this point… and that can’t run, because what kind of disrespect?! You deserve better than shitty tenants, or worse - squatters.

Ok, enough with the renting comparisons because I can’t concentrate while chuckling to myself. The thing about healing and moving forward is that there is no one size fits all solution that works for everyone, so all I can really do is speak for myself and hopefully provide some tools that you can use to tailor your own healing journey.

This is going to sound very dramatic and depressing - because it is - but I’ve noticed that for me, the past creeps into my mind in the form of happy memories and good times… inevitably making me reminisce about people that used to mean a lot to me. This might not seem like anything harmful - surely there’s nothing wrong with reliving some good times in your head, right?

Wrong. For me, it starts off all cute and positive - but then my mind starts to wander. I start to remember other memories with the person. The bad memories that made me not want to have them in my life anymore. The memories in which I realised exactly how worthless, disrespected and unappreciated they made me feel… and what was meant to be happy reminiscing turns into either sadness or frustration, because now I have to re-open their case to really make sense of how much they had me f*cked up back then. Aaand before I know it, hours upon hours of angry analysing have passed by. Time that I’ll never get back, which will never sit right with me.

The way I’ve managed to combat this is by throwing myself into my own self-growth and self-love journey. In simple terms, placing all my focus on my mental wellbeing, my future goals and personal development makes it gradually easier to leave the past in the past - because the more I evolve, the less I associate myself with past versions of myself where I may not have been as strong, secure and assertive, as reminding myself of my worth has made me now. I can now understand and accept why I chose not to see the disrespect at the time - usually because of my former attachment issues, or because I deluded myself into thinking that the person cared the same way I did. El oh el.

Basically, I realised that a lot of my attachments to these toxic people came from a place of unresolved trauma, lack of validation and low self-worth. Once I identified these issues and started working through them, I noticed that placing my focus on understanding myself instead of someone else made things easier to cope with - because while I’ll never fully understand how someone else's mind works, I can work on understanding mine because I’m literally in it 24/7, 365.

In other words, healing and forgiveness is all about YOU and your development, and has very little to do with the other person in the long run.

Another large part of the forgiveness process for me is dedicating some time to use what I know about the person that I’m trying to detach from to understand the “bigger picture” of why they treated me the way that they did. A vast majority of cases just made me realise that their actions, thought processes and ideas were literally just a series of trauma responses and projections that they weren’t aware of - or were aware of, but refused to address.

Either way, this is where my empathetic nature works in my favour - because I know what it’s like to not be able to swallow your pride and deny certain negative aspects of yourself. Admitting that you’ve been in the wrong and that you need to heal takes a great deal of self-awareness and humility - traits that the people I’ve dealt with definitely do not embody. The unfortunate truth is that a lot of people might even live their whole life deluding themselves that they are okay, that their actions don’t hurt others and that they are not to blame for anything. When I realised this, I noticed that a lot of my anger started to fade - and I started to pity them instead, making forgiveness slightly easier. What’s important to remember here is that while pity can make you want to bE tHeRe for the person and help them heal, it’s actually very much their personal journey. You can’t help someone that doesn’t realise they need it, or that doesn’t want to be helped - so all you can do is leave them to it and focus on your own life.

Another important aspect of forgiveness and healing is remembering that it is inherently an act of self-care, and not a service you’re doing to the other person. You’re not “letting them off easy”, “letting sh*t slide”, or “letting them win” by choosing to not allow the situation poison your thoughts, feelings and present anymore. You’re choosing your mental health, sanity and future - all very valid reasons for jUsT LeTtInG gO, if you ask me.

“But Liv! How do I know that I am truly ready to move forward? And how do I know that these feelings won’t come back and re-trigger me in the future, despite all this effort I’ve put into healing now?”

Excellent questions. I wish I had better answers... but the harsh truth for both is that you don’t. You have no idea what’s going to happen, how people are going to act, what will remind you of the situation or what is going to trigger you. You have zero control over the situation, and you’ll come to the ugly realisation that the world, in fact, doesn’t revolve around you and your comfort and mental health.

I know, right? Imagine my shock, horror and surprise when I realised this.

The truth is that life is going to keep throwing cute little triggering curveballs at you, and the only thing you can truly control is how you react to it. You can choose to let it poison your mind and mood… or you can simply sit with it, allow it to pass without attaching emotions to it, and then keep it pushing when you’re ready to.

I’d definitely argue that this part of the process is the hardest to achieve - especially when you’re an emotional drama Queen like myself. However, once you get to that point where you can let your triggers and memories pass without affecting the present… you’ve pretty much won, because nothing can rattle you anymore. You become truly unf*ckwithable, and I can’t wait until I get to this stage of my process.

In the meantime, it’s all about constantly reminding yourself to stay in the present, because life will keep going on regardless of where your mind is at.

5. Be grateful for the process and do not look back.

I know, I know - feeling gratitude when you’re neck-deep in the sh*t is infinitely easier said than done. When you’re there ugly crying in the mirror, the last thing on your mind is going to be “Aw, look how much I’ve grown! I love that for myself! Well done, me!”. However, when you’re all exhausted, cried out and feel that zen feeling afterwards (you know what I’m on about), take time to acknowledge that while it feels like it’s never going to end now, one day you’ll be able to make your peace with what happened and that it will never happen again.

Be grateful to yourself over your resilience, how much you’ve learnt and how highly you must regard yourself for pushing yourself through this whole experience - because as you know by now, it is extremely hard.

When you can learn to see past the pain and emotional distress this whole process has caused you and find silver linings that you can be grateful for, it’s finally time to start looking towards never looking back on the situation ever again. Or, at the very least, being able to think about it without attaching any emotion to it, and just letting the thoughts pass by without any judgement before gently bringing yourself back to the present and getting on with your happier, stress-free life. Sometimes it can be easy to romanticize an old connection when a lot of time has passed, and you start to forget why you were so angry and hurt in the first place. In these cases, it’s important to remind yourself of why letting go and keeping it pushing is so important for your growth. Here are some things I like to consider when I feel myself spending too much time on memory lane, reminiscing and lowkey wishing I hadn’t been emotionally intelligent enough to recognise I needed to move forward:

Where would I be - emotionally and mentally - right now if I hadn’t decided to put myself first?

If I met someone new that reminds me of the person I’m detaching from, how would I react?

How have my current friendships and other relationships changed since deciding to focus on detachment and healing?

When comparing my past state of mind to my current one, what has changed in regard to how I view myself? How I view relationships/friendships?

How has pushing myself being the best version of myself set me up for future relationships, friendships and generations (if I end up having kids)?

Spoiler alert: I can tell you now that you will realise that you have grown so much without even realising it. Seemingly behind your own back, you’ve become a self-aware, self-loving, no-sh*t-taking, confident powerhouse that would rather have all your toenails slowly extracted before even considering letting someone get away with disrespecting you ever again. You will realise that everyone currently in your life is there because you want them to be - not because you need them in any way. They’re there because they love and support you the way you deserve to be - but you know that if anyone was to act up, it’s curtains… because now you know that anyone that doesn’t consider your mental health and happiness important has no place in your life. And that’s on Tampax Compak Super Plus.

I want to end this post with a personal story from my own detachment process. As those of you that have been reading my blog for a long time know, one of the biggest reasons why I even started this blog in the first place was to have an outlet for my emotions and to help myself to heal after a bad breakup.

When I say I thought I was going to die, I’m not even being dramatic or exaggerating. I legit thought that I would never be able to move past it, or get over him. Back then - despite having a decent background in psychology and understanding the importance of expressing my emotions - I chose to bottle things up (except for in therapy) and turned to unhealthy coping methods so I didn’t have to feel so much. I can’t lie… life was very sh*t, and I honestly struggled to see the point of even being alive anymore.

Fast forward about a year - I made the conscious decision to take responsibility for my healing and detachment, because I realised that holding on to someone that hurt me so badly wasn’t healthy. Deciding to let go of all the promises we made to each other, the memories and good times is hands down one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do, but I realised that just clinging onto the past just because of familiarity was not the one. Plus, at this point I had started to be able to admit to myself that the relationship was never as perfect as I had made it out to be in my head - making it easier and easier to gradually let go. I begrudgingly continued the healing and detachment process, winging it and hoping for the best.

Major time skip to just a few months ago - I’m literally just at home, chilling, minding my business. All of that. I went on the calendar app on my phone to check something, when it suddenly hit me that what would’ve been our seven year anniversary had passed a few days before… and I hadn’t even noticed. A date that used to mean so much to me and get me in my feelings just a year before, had now completely slipped my mind.

What’s more is that when I clocked it… I felt nothing. Nada. Zilch. And that’s when I fully realised how oblivious I had been to the bigger picture of my healing journey, because the sudden apathy towards a situation that really had me considering if life was even worth it anymore really came as a surprise. Even now, as I’m writing this and am clearly thinking about how dirty I got done… I feel nothing besides how proud I am of myself, and I love that for myself.

If I - THEE most sentimental, dramatic and emotional woman on the planet - can get there, trust me… you definitely can too. I had to figure out the “formula” for myself, but now that I’ve given it to you, you literally have no excuse for not letting that toxic and useless somebody hurt you anymore. Get to it!

With that being said, I wish you a happy, stress-free, peaceful and self-loving 2021, because you deserve it. I can’t wait to share my new ideas with you in the new year, so I’ll see you on the oThEr SiDe.

Love,

Liv

#selfhelp #selflove #Empowerment #opinions #detachment

26 LIFE LESSONS LEARNT IN 26 YEARS

So… ya girl turned 26 back in May. I had originally planned to post this the day after my birthday for maximum dramatics and symbolism, but here we are.

Yes, I am painfully aware that my birthday was over 4 months ago now, and yes, I have already been dragged to the moon and back by both myself and my friends for not finishing the post on time (it’s been chilling in my drafts since, like, late April)… so face your front and mind your business.

All jokes aside, these past months have been insanely chaotic for us all on both a personal level and global scale. Everyone and everything seems to have gone mad. A whole pandemic… having to literally fight for equal rights and justice in 2020... having to watch world leaders single-handedly destroy the countries that they themselves campaigned to govern... and on top of that, being forced to stay indoors and not being able to do whatever you want?! Sh*t, I’m even surprised that myself or anyone I know hasn’t been sectioned yet. This whole year needs to be put in rice, immediately.

I can’t lie, watching everything unfold these past few months - while struggling to come up with ways to entertain myself because of the constant negative news and energy drifting round and stifling my creativity - has had a massive toll on my mental health. Although my coping skills have become a lot better over the years, how in the hell was I (or any of us) meant to prepare for a year of constant chaos, death and revolt? No one could’ve seen it coming, and that’s why these circumstances have made me feel like my mental health has been dropkicked in the throat. We’re not built to be cooped up at home for so long, and we’re definitely not built to have to consume heartbreaking and traumatising media on a daily basis. No wonder so many people have been feeling like they’ve lost the plot.

On top of that, I’ve also been dealing with a lot of other things - because when it rains, it pours. Not being able to distract myself by doing fun stuff because of Corona has somehow given my subconscious the confidence to go absolutely apesh*t. This, in the sense that a lot of past situations I’ve forced myself to suppress over the years to be able to just function like a normal(ish) human being have managed to claw their way to the surface and demand my attention like a bunch of spoilt and crying toddlers. To put it in the least dramatic way possible, these feelings and memories have been killing my ~*vibe*~... like, a lot. Ya girl’s been going through it. It’s been particularly hard because I promised myself at the beginning of the year to work harder on not obsessing so much over past situations that I have no control over, but due to the circumstances I’ve forced myself to give myself a break and take each thought as it comes.

Yes, this is all very depressing - but despite everything, there have also been a lot of silver linings of this lockdown. Besides day drinking, chick flick marathons and chatting sh*t on facetime 24/7, having all this time to focus on my mental and spiritual health has definitely taught me a lot about myself. I genuinely feel positive and like this time of my life is needed to be able to grow and evolve when I’m not in that negative state of mind. These experiences coming back to the surface and demanding to be felt and dealt with may be hella exhausting, but I’ve definitely done this enough now to know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and that one day I’ll be able to fully make sense of it and fully heal. And when I finally have gotten to that stage, I will definitely write a few posts about it - because no one should feel like they have to deal with this level of headf*ckery alone.

Anyways, there you have it - another long-ass excuse for my lack of productivity. But hey, at least it’s valid.

Enough with all the dark sh*t - we have more than enough time to revisit that and other fun stuff in another post, don’t worry! Instead, let’s pretend that it’s still the day after my birthday, that I am editing this with a hangover while stuffing my face with leftover cake, that I am indeed capable of keeping personal deadlines and that I haven’t been AWOL for over a quarter of a year. Keep on reading for 26 big and small life lessons I’ve learnt along the way in this dunya, in no particular order. It’s going to be a very long one (tip: scroll and find the ones that resonate the most with you), so get cozy, put the kettle on and get some snacks or whatever.

1. You are still young - do not compare your journey to other’s.

Okay, so I’m definitely projecting with this one. When I turned 25 last year I had a bit (a lot) of a minor (major) existential crisis because I was very far from where I had always expected to be at 25 years old. Career-wise, fitness-wise, finance-wise and relationship-wise I just felt like a massive failure, and like from that moment on life would just go downhill. I made the mistake of comparing myself to my agemates and people younger than me, and seeing other people’s success when my own life was a mess didn’t exactly make it better.

For this year - despite me now being on the wRoNg side of 25 - I feel very calm and even happy about getting older, simply because I realised that my time will come and that everyone's journey is different. For this reason, comparing your progress to other’s doesn’t even make sense and just puts a load of unnecessary pressure on yourself. Be patient - all the work you’re putting in now will pay off soon.

2. Take time to reconnect with your ~*inner child*~.

I know, I know - it all sounds awfully hippy-dippy, but hear me out. In short, your inner child refers to the subpersonality that still feels, thinks and reacts as you did when you were younger, and reconnecting with that childlike aspect of yourself can be beneficial to your mental wellbeing and psyche for many different reasons.

The main reasons I have focused on reconnecting with my inner child in the past couple of years have been for a) learning how to tap into that creative, free and spontaneous nature I had as a kid before life got in the way; b) to heal wounds that occurred in my childhood that are still holding me back, and c) to reparent my inner child by unlearning toxic mindsets and behaviours that have had a negative impact on my life.

In terms of creativity, I remembered how much I used to love drawing and writing as a child, and returning to these passions as an adult has had such a massively positive impact on my mental health in ways that I can’t even begin to describe. Doing activities you used to love as a kid should really be considered acts of self-care, because the childlike joy and excitement that comes from it? Absolutely bladdy priceless.

Then there’s the dark and mildly traumatising side of reconnecting with your inner child. Revisiting and analysing what can be very emotionally painful memories is never going to be a delightful task - but trust me when I say that you have to push through it, regardless of how long it takes. There aren’t any shortcuts or detours involved when trying to heal a wounded inner child, so make sure that you are patient with yourself and take the time you need to heal.

All in all - regardless of if you’re trying to get your creativity flowing, trying to enjoy life more in general or trying to unpack almost a couple decades worth of trauma (my personal favourite!), setting aside some time to really reflect and remember your thoughts and feelings from way back then really does help make sense of your thoughts and feelings as an adult. I’ll even bet money that every single insecurity and doubt you may have about yourself can be traced back to something that happened during your childhood - which is why reconnecting with yourself at that age is imperative if you want to truly heal.

3. Be confident about your creative projects.

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learnt in life so far is definitely understanding the fine line between confidence and arrogance. I can only really speak for myself - although I know that a lot of women can relate - but I was raised to be humble about a lot of my accomplishments. It got to the point where even the slightest self-acknowledgement of my talents made me feel like I was being arrogant, attention seeking and braggy, so for a long time I kept a lot of W’s and my pride in my work to myself. However, this is one of the aforementioned toxic mindsets that I’m currently working on unlearning - because if I don’t hype up myself and my talents, who will?

After speaking to friends about similar topics I get the impression that this reluctance to hype up our own creativity goes - in many cases - way back to a time during which we might not have had our creativity appreciated and validated as children. For me, this makes a lot of sense because I was extremely creative and had a very vivid imagination as a child, but I think somewhere along the way it got stifled by the pressure of making certain family members (who thought anything remotely right-brain stimulating was a waste of time) proud.

Anyways, it doesn’t matter anymore. Now that I’ve realised that my creative vision is a blessing, and that being confident in the quality of my work has nothing to do with being arrogant, you best believe that I will self-validate every single project I complete, and I hope you will do the same.

4. Love and take care of your body.

I mean this from both a body-image and health point of view. I spent way too many years of my life hating my body and hating looking different to literally everyone around me, and I’d be lying if I said that realising how damaging this self-hatred was doesn’t get me in my feelings from time to time. However, I have been able to get out of this mindset - for the most part - and can now appreciate that my body is beautiful, and that the perfect body I was always striving towards doesn’t even exist.

With that being said, it is important to remember that loving your body goes beyond self-acceptance... It also entails taking care of it through exercise and healthy eating.

I know, it sucks. I don’t make the rules.

I’ve definitely been struggling with being healthy during my 20s - partially due to my sweet tooth and partially due to comfort eating and other unhealthy coping methods when my mental health was at its worst. As expected, my initial reaction to the weight gain was piling even more self-hate and pressure onto myself, when I really should have been kinder and more understanding to myself during that time. I should have used exercise and healthy eating as a coping mechanism to get better, instead of forcing myself to lose weight in a harmful manner due to feelings of disgust for my body.

CoUlD’Ve, WoUlD’Ve, ShOuLd’Ve… Sigh. Hindsight really is 20/20. What’s important is that it’s never too late to start the self-love journey, and that your body is beautiful regardless of the form it currently happens to be in.

5. Know how to communicate effectively.

That is, with people who are genuinely worth your time and energy. No matter how good of a person you are, there will always be people that seem to be entirely committed to misunderstanding you, twisting your words and trying to make you out to be a bad person. Hell, you might even be that person in someone else’s life... whether you realise it or not (I reckon I probably am). Trying to communicate with someone that has no desire or intention of getting to a level of understanding with you is literally the most frustrating and draining task ever - which is why I no longer do it if I don’t have to. There’s literally no point, and I’m just exerting energy over someone that is probably enjoying the conflict - so why bother?

With that being said, learning how to respectfully disagree, give constructive criticism, set boundaries, resolve conflict, listen to and g-check the people that you do genuinely want in your life becomes more and more important with age. I’m definitely guilty of leaving things unsaid or unresolved in the past - due to fear of offending/losing friends that meant a lot to me at the time - but we’re aDuLtS now, guys. If we can’t talk without constantly having to sugarcoat things, are we even really friends?

The answer is definitely a resounding ‘no’ from me, and since adopting this mindset - along with knowing when to distance myself from people that are literal energy vampires - my life has been a lot more peaceful. 11/10, would recommend.

6. Eliminate fear of failure.

Obviously, no one wants to fail at anything. But I’ve genuinely found that my biggest L’s in life have been the most character building and taught me the biggest life lessons. Although it might be hard to see how the situation is making you evolve when you’re neck deep in the sh*t, once you get into the mindset that failing is a learning opportunity, you’ll see that your ego won’t be as wounded when things don’t work out the way you wanted them to.

Again, I can only speak for myself, but I feel like many of us with immense fears of failing at something were probably raised in environments in which failure was not an option and often followed by some kind of negative reaction (e.g. undermining of intelligence, disappointment, verbal abuse etc). I think that constantly associating failure with this kind of shame has made us terrified of making perfectly human mistakes. Mistakes that we wouldn’t pay any mind to if someone else were making, but that we beat ourselves up over - just because it’s us.

Or maybe that’s just me. I don’t know, man. Regardless, teaching myself that failure and making mistakes is okay and part of the process has made me feel a lot more secure in myself and my capabilities - simply because I now know that there aren’t any mistakes that are unfixable and it’s never that deep. At the end of the day, as long as I know in my soul that I’ve done my best, there’s really no need for negative self-talk.

7. Pick your battles.

I.e. don’t sweat the small stuff. It’s so wild to me that a couple short years ago I would let every minor inconvenience, disagreement and disappointment caused by others really get to me and ruin my day. Nowadays I have gotten so good at simply removing myself from situations and people that just bring negativity into my life, because honestly? The stress isn’t worth it. Life is so much more peaceful when you refuse to give energy to negativity and toxic/inconsistent people, and once I got past the feelings of guilt for not being so available to everyone it really became one of the best choices I ever made.

8. Be kind.

This one is a cliche and a no-brainer, but still very imperative. Remembering that literally everyone has their own sh*t going on - regardless of if they speak on it or not - is extremely important, especially in terms of us interacting with each other. Being kind, sensitive and respectful to others literally costs nothing, and positive energy has a tendency to be contagious.

Obviously (for me at least), this becomes a slightly different story when the person involved constantly allows whatever they are going through to affect the way they interact with you. Things like lashing out, self-isolation and self-destructive behaviours are all tell-tale signs that the issue isn’t with you and that you shouldn’t take it personally, but of course everyone has limits to how much they can empathise with these kind of behaviours. As someone that has been on both the receiving and giving end of this kind of behaviour, I’ve found that the best approach for me is to still be kind, but to love and support them from afar - simply because I know that I have a tendency to take things to heart when I’m not even the issue. The bottom line is to try your best to be kind and understanding, but also to know when to distance yourself from toxic behaviours that can end up taking a toll on you.

9. Process your feelings.

I definitely get it. Sometimes life throws sh*t at us that is a lot easier to just push to the back of our minds so we can stay focused on what we have going on at the time. But believe me when I say that whatever feelings you squash, ignore and push past now will come back to haunt you in the future.

Okay, so this sounds very dramatic and ominous. Your feelings aren’t going to take physical form and beat you up… however, it might feel like this is what is happening. Obviously this differs from person to person, but I’ve found that when I don’t allow myself time to process my feelings as soon as possible after they’ve been triggered, there is a risk of me being re-triggered and snapping again at a later stage - albeit at something wildly unrelated and minor. In other words, small small issues that pile up on top of negative feelings end up becoming the straw that breaks the camel’s back, the drop that spilled the glass, and whatever other corny and related sayings you can think of.

What I’m trying to say is that carrying around the weight of unresolved negative feelings takes a toll on you, no matter how resilient and ~*zen*~ you are. I have no doubt in my mind that carrying past negative feelings, trauma and pain for days, weeks, months and even years has detrimental effects on both your mental and physical health. There is a lot of research to explain this further, and I have also seen these effects on family members, friends and myself when times have been tougher than usual.

With that being said, it might sound like you’re screwed if you’ve gotten to this age and not learnt how to fully feel your feelings. I’ve been feeling that way for about five years now, I reckon. However, it’s never too late to strive for good mental health and to deal with unresolved feelings/trauma - once you get past the fear of being triggered by the bad memories, you soon realise that that’s all they are; they can’t hurt you if you don’t let them.

10. Be ‘selfish’.

So, we’re at that age now where - traditionally speaking - we’re sUpPoSeD to be looking to settle down. Get married, have kids, get a mortgage, be on a set career path… all of that adult stuff that always used to seem so far away, but is now heavily breathing down our necks and killing our vibes. It’s upsetting me and my homegirls, to be honest.

All jokes aside, there is nothing wrong with wanting these things for yourself at this age. However, my point is that millennials/Gen Z (especially women) are put under insane amounts of pressure in their twenties to have all their sh*t together - either by family or just society in general. Meanwhile, many of us are so riddled with anxiety, insecurities, unresolved trauma and lacking a sense of self due to constantly trying to please others and to not be a disappointment to the older generation that we don’t even know which way is up anymore. This is where selfishness comes in.

No, being selfish doesn’t mean to be an inconsiderate d*ck to everyone around you in this context - sorry to disappoint. I mean that it’s important that we take the time to slow down, not be so hard on ourselves and to focus on finding our own path, purpose, dream career etc on our own terms - not to please someone else. Now is the time to unpack your traumas, ~*find yourself*~, and unlearn any destructive mindsets and behaviours you’ve picked up during your childhood and teenage years. Now is the time to learn how to love and accept yourself fully. The way I see it, if you don’t make time for this, a happy, lifelong marriage and strong, healthy relationships with children you bring into the world (if that’s what you want) are a myth - simply because healthy relationships require inner peace. Even if you don’t see yourself going down the ‘traditional life plan’ route, this is still extremely important.

Times are changing; there is nothing wrong with doing certain things later in life if you’re not emotionally, mentally, physically or financially ready to deal with it… no matter what your parents/judgemental aunties/condescending uncles might try to tell you.

11. Take people at face value - not for their potential.

If I got a pound for every single time I’ve told myself this over the years, blatantly ignored it and then ended up getting hurt, I would’ve spent this entire lockdown at an all-inclusive luxury resort on a beach somewhere hot, instead of struggling in a germ-infested London. Honestly. I try not to get mad at myself for this, but it’s very hard not to because it ends up being a cycle that infinitely repeats itself in all my relationships (platonic, non-platonic and family) - leaving me feeling like Boo Boo the Fool for not listening to my intuition.

In my defense, I get myself into these situations because despite coming across as a sarcastic and heartless piece of sh*t sometimes, I genuinely do try to see the best in people and give them a chance to prove themselves as a good and positive influence in my life. This in itself isn’t the problem. The problem is that once I see even a molecule of potential in someone, I very easily latch on to that potential and become Stevie Wonder to the million red flags that pop up over time… and I don’t even realise how disrespected I’ve been until further down the line or long after the situation is over. I reckon that this insistence on riding for people that end up doing me dirty stems from knowing what it feels like to be given up on, or dismissed before even getting to prove myself. It’s a really, really sh*tty feeling, and I think I’m just wired to not want anyone to feel that way because of me.

In other words, my niceness and understanding/accommodating/empathetic qualities might be some of the best things about me - but they really invite sh*tty people to take advantage of me.

The bottom line is that despite wanting to push people to be their best selves, there really isn’t much you can do unless they want your help. Unfortunately, a lot of people would rather fake a desire to improve themselves instead of just saying that they don’t want help - simply because they enjoy the attention and the energy that they end up leaching from you while you’re worrying about them and their (non-existent) ambitions.It’s literally only recently that I’ve kind of figured out how to combat this, and now I see right through these type of people, and can cut them off with ease. Again - it’s all about protecting your energy, and making sure you only give it to people that are genuinely trying to improve and elevate themselves. You are not a charity - stop allowing useless somebodies to deplete your life force just because their own is clearly not enough to keep them motivated.

12. Be self-aware in a healthy and constructive way.

As you’ve probably gathered from reading this, I am insanely self-aware. I honestly don’t think there is a single negative thing someone could say about me or my character that I am not already trying to work on, or at the very least am aware of. Of course, being so in tune with myself for most of my life used to make me overanalyse everything I said and did - sometimes years after it happened - and I’d be so harsh, mean and critical towards myself for things that weren’t even that deep when I look back on them.

I’m not going to lie, I don’t think there’s a ‘cure’ for overanalysing and overthinking everything. Once you’re aware, it’s very hard to just stop - believe me, I’ve tried. But what I’ve tried my best to do instead is to flip my overthinking into something positive. By this, I mean that when I’m up at 4am and start to deep my whole life and everything I should’ve done differently, I try to focus on what I’ve learnt and how much I’ve grown from the situation, and how much of a better person going through that situation has made me. This is definitely something I’m still working on, since negative thought patterns that have been imposed on you from a young age are very hard to break. But what’s important is that I try, and it has definitely helped me be kinder to myself.

13. Don’t let feelings distract you from your goals.

More projection for ya headtops. Tantalising humans really just pop up out of nowhere when you least expect it sometimes, and when the connection is there it can become dangerously easy to get carried away and lose focus on your own goals. I’ve been very vocal about my opinion about how healthy relationships are meant to elevate and inspire you as opposed to stressing you out and holding you back, so this isn’t exactly anything new to those who have read my blog for a while.

With that being said… I get it. Meeting someone new is hella exciting - of course you want to make an effort and see how things go. It’s easy for me to come on here and say that you should make sure that you don’t go catching feelings for someone that wouldn’t want you to continue shining and flourishing in your lane while with them, but we all know that a) we can’t help who we fall for, and b) me saying so would make me the hypocrite of the millennium. I’m not sure how or why I manage to attract (and get attracted to) people that I later on down the line realise do more harm to my goals than good… but at least I’ve learnt a lot from those situations, and I’m a lot more picky about who I deem deserving of my time now.

14. Always make time for #self-care.

There’s not much to explain here besides reminding you that the world and everyone in it is mad, so taking time to yourself and doing something you know will make you feel better during a hard time (or even a simple time, let’s be real) is crucial in this life.

Get the takeaway. Buy the shoes. Do a cheeky face mask. Have your 3rd bubble bath of the week.

Life really is too short and too crazy to deny yourself the little pleasures, so do it and do it without any feelings of guilt. If you’re anything like me, I’m confident you’ll think of a reason for why you deserve it - no matter how ridiculous it may be.

15. Get comfortable with being alone with your thoughts.

Okay, so I feel like I’ve discussed this topic to death, so I won’t delve too deep into it here. Instead, I’ll just reiterate that learning how to just sit alone with your thoughts and feelings from time to time - especially at this age - is imperative for your mental health.

As important as it is to have genuine and supportive friends that you can open up to about your mental, it’s important to remember that there are always abstract thoughts and feelings lurking beneath the surface, that you couldn’t even put into words even if you tried. Regardless of if it’s unresolved feelings, suppressed traumas or an uneasy gut feeling/your intuition, some things just can’t be explained until you’ve been able to figure out where these thoughts are stemming from - and I firmly believe that this “detective work” needs to be done alone to be able to get to the root cause of the thought/feeling.

It goes without saying that delving deep into yourself to try to figure out what these thoughts/feelings mean can be a very intimidating and triggering task - so I fully understand why a lot of people struggle with facing this alone. To clarify, I am not saying that you shouldn’t turn to friends for support if you need it - I am saying that as great as your friends may be, they can’t read your mind and will never be able to do so. Only you can know for sure exactly what you’re thinking and feeling, and taking time alone to allow yourself to become in tune with your mind and understand yourself on a deeper level is the first step towards being able to put your feelings into words - and to be able to communicate them to others.

16. Don’t let fear of judgement stop you from doing whatever the hell you want.

This has been a major one for me the past couple of years. As I’m sure you know, regardless of what you do, say, wear or look, there will always be people - sometimes even complete strangers - who will have something snide to say in an attempt to discourage you from trying to do your thing. I’ve mentioned in previous posts how many hairstyle, outfit, blog and creative ideas that I’ve scrapped because of fear of being judged, and I try not to get annoyed with myself for caring so much - because it’s not my fault. I’m sure many of you will relate to being raised in an environment in which you were almost forced to conform to whatever was seen as a rEsPeCtAbLe lifestyle. If you didn’t, you’d be deemed a disruption to the status quo by others… which we were conditioned to believe was a terrible crime. Shock horror.

I’m here to tell you to not give a f*ck about their opinion - because who in the blue hell are they?

After being very concerned about what others think of me for most of my life, finally realising that judgement from others usually stems from their own insecurities, bitterness, jealousy or an otherwise tragic and unfulfilled existence came as a massive breath of fresh air. I even feel sorry for people that feel the need to insert their sh*tty little opinions into things I do, because I don’t even think they realise that it’s falling on deaf ears and blind eyes now. I’ve literally become Helen Keller to the nonsense now, because I don’t have time. And they’re wasting their energy. Poor things. I hope they get some rest soon.

With that being said, it does take time to get to a point of not being phased by judgement. A lot of time - for me, I’d say it’s been a couple of years. I still have a long way to go in regards to not being phased by judgement coming from people whose opinions I still care about too much (i.e. family members and other people I look up to), but the key for me was definitely baby steps.

17. Learn how to forgive.

As appealing as holding on to everlasting hatred towards someone that did you dirty sounds, trust me when I say that the best thing you can do for yourself in this kind of situation is to forgive them - or at the very least try. Carrying anger, hate and resentment in your heart is extremely emotionally draining, and let’s face it… the person in question is most likely sleeping soundly at night, at peace, snoring, drooling and having happy dreams about living rent-free in your head after all this time.

The thing about forgiveness, I’ve learnt, is that it doesn’t have to mean that suddenly everything is okay again, or that what they did somehow became erased overnight. Absolutely not. Instead, forgiveness has become a tool to give myself closure over a situation, letting myself accept that what happened happened and to reclaim my sanity after being angry about it for a long time. It’s for me and my mental health - not for the person that hurt me.

Additionally, it is important to remember that forgiving someone doesn’t necessarily have to mean that you are now obliged to continue being nice and cordial with the person. If you’re on that level of maturity, honestly… you deserve all the accolades, because I don’t think I could ever do it. For me, most of the time the person in question won’t even know that they’ve been forgiven - and I like it that way. I just wish them the best from afar and keep it pushing once I’ve healed from the situation. Regardless of the choices you make in relation to your own situations, just make sure that you’re doing it for yourself and not out of consideration for the other person.

18. Understand that your ~*purpose(s)*~ may take time to become clear.

Bare in mind, this is coming from someone that still has no idea what the f*ck she wants to do with her life. Honestly, every year around my birthday I try to figure out why I’m even on this planet - and every year I think I have the answer before life comes and humbles me again.

While I’m not particularly interested in getting into existential questions regarding if life even has a purpose, I will say this - just keep doing your thing. Stay in tune with your emotional, spiritual and mental health so you can determine whether or not you feel you’re on the correct path for you. If you’re anything like me, you will feel in your heart when you’re not where you’re meant to be, regardless of if it’s a job, a new activity you’re trying out or even a relationship. If your gut feeling is telling you that something isn’t for you - don’t ignore it. Eventually you should get a fair gist of where you should be going and what you should be doing - even if the actual purpose in itself doesn’t become apparent until much later.

Or at least, this is what my theory is. As I said, I have no clue. But this is what I’m doing and it’s definitely been working.

19. Don’t feel forced to have a detailed life plan.

Don’t get me wrong here - having goals, plans and aspirations is extremely important. However, having your whole life planned to the minute just isn’t realistic. I have written about how I used to be extremely adamant on being in control of every single situation, and would have a minor (major) breakdown whenever plans changed in a way that I couldn’t affect.

Having a nervy b everytime something doesn’t work out in your favour is obviously a very counterproductive (and hella childish) coping mechanism - if you can even call it that. Nowadays, I just try to stay as open minded and flexible as possible whenever life feels like throwing me one of its cute little curveballs, so I can try my best to adapt to the situation and keep moving forward, as opposed to throwing all my toys out of the pram like a spoilt brat whenever a minor obstacle to my plans presents itself.

What’s more is that having a rigid life plan with hard deadlines for when you should’ve accomplished certain things leads to - in my experience - another unnecessary reason to start criticising yourself, which we at this point know is a waste of time, energy and just bad vibes in general.

Just relax. Honestly. You’re doing great, regardless of if you’re exactly where you want to be or not.

20. Put yourself first. Always.

I’ve touched on this multiple times in this post already, but I definitely feel like it deserves its own point. I also want to direct this specifically to women - although some of the gems of wisdom I’m about to drop can be applied to men too, I assume. I don’t really care if they don’t though, to be honest - everything else in this world is already for them, so I’m sure reading something that isn’t won’t kill them.

Sis. I know you are exhausted from being strong all the time - yet here you are, still standing and still fighting. For what it’s worth, know that whoever and wherever you are - I am extremely proud of you for constantly picking yourself up and dusting yourself off every time you are mistreated, disrespected and/or taken for granted.

But it shouldn’t be like that.

You may have been taught early in life to always put your own health, happiness, dreams and wellbeing to the side when needed to accommodate and support others - because that’s what women are mEaNt To Do. But this is so inherently f*cked up, wrong and unfair - it genuinely pisses me off whenever I think about it because it literally makes zero sense to me. It reinforces the notion that we only exist to serve, protect, help and satisfy others needs - whether it be in a family setting, at work or in relationships… almost as if we aren’t human beings with feelings.

Yeah… f*ck that. Call it tough love, but I really need you to grow a back bone right now. Too many times have I personally felt/heard about us feeling the need to bend over backwards for people that do nothing to help or protect us from the pains that life can bring, so clearly you need to be there for your own damn self. Think about it - that ex/potential/fwb/mcm that you’ve spent so many sleepless nights obsessing, crying and worrying about, and that you tried so hard to keep satisfied to the point of mental, emotional and physical exhaustion - where are they now? Living rent free in your head and almost definitely not thinking about you.

Yes, I am a little heated. Yes, I am projecting. And yes, if I ever catch you placing a mans needs and feelings over your own, you will catch these hands because clearly you haven’t been listening.

All jokes aside and as cheesy as it sounds - you are a queen, and I need you to step into your power right now. I want so much better for you, and you can’t get better until you fix your priorities. Your focus should always be on protecting your heart and mental/spiritual health - regardless of the situation you find yourself in. It is 100% possible to nurture and care for others without giving up your sense of self and power, so please, please, please find a balance that empowers and benefits you, and you alone.

21. Learn how to practice detachment.

I have plans to write a post about this in depth in the near future, so I won’t delve too deep into it here. In short, detachment refers to the practice of severing ties to people, feelings and memories that may have meant a lot to you for a long time and had a major impact on your life, but that you now realise are toxic and are holding you back from moving forward and growing as a person. Essentially, it is all about forgiving, forgetting, letting go and moving on from whatever hurt that may still be lingering long after the situation is over - and never bringing it up again.

Sounds great right?

Wrong. Detachment f*cking sucks - but it is extremely important. As I’ve mentioned earlier, I naturally hate giving up on people and I tend to obsessively reflect on past situations. I try to convince myself that all this reflecting and overthinking is helping me heal - which it has, to a certain degree - but the honest truth is that it takes up a lot of time in the present. It’s emotionally exhausting and time consuming. Detachment, on the other hand, basically forces you to not even acknowledge the past pain and hurt someone has caused you, and placing all your focus on the present and the future… so this is naturally a very hard task for me.

With that being said, it’s pretty obvious that it’s not going to be easy for anybody. Reaching a level of emotional maturity in which you can completely disregard the pain someone that meant a lot to you has caused you really sounded impossible to me at first - especially mixed with the complicated feeling of not wanting to “abandon” the person that hurt you. But I’ve been working on this very hard during the lockdown, and I can confirm that after doing it for a while you begin to realise that the situation's power over you is entirely determined by the importance you attach to it. Once you learn how to remove that importance and your emotions from the equation, you’re one step closer to being able to truly move on.

Anyways. Stay tuned for a post about this because there is a lot to unpack.

22. Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

This is another one I struggle with a lot, because who wants to feel like a weak-ass b*tch who can’t manage on her own? Not I, said the cat.

All jokes aside, I think many of us can relate to not wanting to bUrDeN our friends and family with our struggles and problems, simply because we’re now at an age where everyone has their own lives to tend to and figure out. No one wants to feel like they’re being annoying, or feel stupid and paranoid about being judged because they can’t figure their own sh*t out (more projection for ya!).

I’ve really been working hard to get rid of the notion that asking for help has anything to do with intelligence or capability, but it’s very difficult to do so when you’ve been raised in an environment where admitting that you can’t manage to do something alone was often equated with not trying hard enough, or not being smart enough. Asking for help was seen as a weakness and a last resort, and I’d often feel ashamed to admit that I was struggling with something.

The funny thing is that while I apply all these rules about not burdening/disturbing people with my problems to myself, I’d literally drop everything in a nanosecond to help a friend out if I could. I’ve noticed this a lot with my friends, too - we’re reluctant to ask for help, but always there for each other if needed. This if anything proves that the fear of being judged/annoying is all in our heads, and that we should be kind enough to ourselves to allow ourselves to be helped from time to time. Yes, everyone wants to be that superwoman/man that has all their sh*t together - but the reality is that we are all human, and life can be very brutal at times. Surrounding yourself with people that care about you and want to see you win is key - and although allowing yourself to lean on someone else from time to time might take a little (a lot) of pride-swallowing, I promise that you will feel better once you’ve shared the load of your problems.

23. Don’t let past experiences poison current friendships.

This is quite possibly the biggest challenge for me right now, and I’m literally only just beginning to get better at this. I’ve mentioned multiple times that my overly empathetic and accommodating personality has attracted a lot of sh*tty “friends” over the years, and for the longest time I blamed myself and thought there was something wrong with me for constantly allowing people to treat me so poorly. As a result of this, I developed hella trust and abandonment issues.

I genuinely didn’t even realise how much these experiences had f*cked me up until I started taking my mental health seriously, and realised how much I had closed myself off emotionally to protect myself. I also realised that I - very unfairly - projected my trust issues onto people in my life that have done nothing but be kind and caring towards me, simply because I allowed myself to be so blinded by the past and assumed that they would do me the same way. I’m honestly just grateful that my closest friends could see through the front I put up and didn’t give up on me, because whew… they really didn’t need to.

The point I’m trying to make is that while it’s very natural to be afraid of being hurt, betrayed and disappointed again, you can’t live your life thinking that everyone is against you - simply because it isn’t true. Yes, it’s very hard to rebuild your trust and confidence in people again... but going through life being paranoid that everyone is against you is just setting yourself up for loneliness and bitterness, and we don’t want that. Again, what’s worked best for me here is working on detachment from the past, and learning to not feed into the feelings of paranoia that arise from time to time. It will take time, but you definitely owe it to yourself to allow good people into your life properly.

24. Step out of your comfort zone more often and just have fun.

Let me be very clear and say that I’m not encouraging anyone to jump out of an airplane - although that would definitely be a massive step outside of anyone's comfort zone. But what’s life without a little thrill?

Regardless of if it’s as extreme as launching yourself off a cliff and placing all your trust in a flimsy elastic band, or as simple as just trying a new activity or restaurant, life becomes so much richer and more fun when you do something you wouldn’t normally do. It genuinely nourishes and stimulates your right brain - which for me is a much welcomed break from life having to be so f*cking serious all the time.

It also boosts your confidence to try even more new things, and that’s when life starts to get a bit more interesting. Live it up, b*tch!

25. Make happiness your priority.

Right, so I appreciate that not everyone will agree with this - and that’s okay. You’re entitled to your wrong opinion. I’ve been very open about the mental health struggles I’ve had since my teens, and about the various unhealthy coping methods I’ve tried to deal with it. However, I’ve found that the best way of coping is very simple:

Just do what makes you happy.

Honestly, it’s that easy. A lot of people - myself in the past included - feel a lot of pressure to give their life meaning and purpose by using something outside of themselves to define them as a person. When I was younger that thing was sports, and after uni I thought I’d find happiness from pursuing the career I thought that I wanted. However, I realised a couple years ago that attaching the concept of happiness to an external factor will constantly just make you feel like it’s just beyond your reach - and when you finally reach the goal that you swore would make your life happy and fulfilled, you’re just left with an underwhelming feeling of “...is this it? Surely there must be more to life than this?”

For this reason, I wholeheartedly believe that true happiness stems from inner peace, accepting the past and simply just pursuing things in life that sits right with your mental health and spirit. Building happiness from within sets you up to be confident that you will be fine no matter what life throws at you, and will make you truly unf*ckwithable.

With that being said, I fully understand how it can be easy to equate our obsession with reaching career/life/relationship/fitness/etc goals to happiness, but let’s say for argument's sake that you do reach every single of your goals that you think will bring you joy. When the pride and elation of accomplishing these goals wears off, are you genuinely happy? Or do you realise that your inner battles are still there, and that the part of your brain that was so focused on accomplishing this goal now just feels… empty and idle?

Okay, so that got a little depressing - but these are questions that I highly recommend you ask yourself. Chances are that you realise that while having goals and ambitions are important, they’re all air if you’re not genuinely happy on the inside.

If there was a one-size-fits-all path to happiness, I would share it here. But unfortunately, the path to happiness is highly personal - only you can determine what will bring you inner peace and alignment. Personally, I started with reconnecting with my childhood self to remind myself what made me feel happy before life started getting serious, and went from there - maybe that could work for you, too.

26. Understand that everything will fall into place at the time it’s meant to.

I put this one at the end because I feel that it summarises all points very nice-like. It’s extremely easy to get caught up in how you think life is supposed to be like at this age, and even easier to fall into a depressed state when you deep how far away from this ideal you might be. As someone that has had the importance of an established career, rigid life goals and living up to others’ expectations rammed down my throat at a young age, I’ve always had this unsettling feeling that I’m running out of time to accomplish what I need to accomplish in this life - and I’m only 26.

What’s helped me a lot with this unsettling feeling is taking time to ground myself, take a deep breath and reflect on how far I’ve come, as opposed to how far I still have to go. I also force myself to remember that as long as I’m constantly in tune with myself and gently pushing myself to evolve and mature, I’m already winning.

You will find happiness. You will find love. You will reach every single goal that you’ve set for yourself. You will overcome whatever internal battle you’re currently fighting. You will feel like yourself again. You will receive every single blessing you’re waiting for - as long as you’re willing to put in the work and understand what is right for you and your mental/emotional/spiritual health.

It may take longer than you want it to, but it’s important to remember to enjoy the journey and learn from your mistakes. As uncomfortable as it may be to accept that no amount of control and planning can predict life’s twists and turns, allowing yourself to trust that the universe will give you everything you need at the right time is extremely empowering and calming.

Keep doing your thing, and you will reap the rewards in due time.

So, there you have it. If you read the entire post from start to finish, you deserve all the accolades because at the time of posting this, even I haven’t read it all in one go. I hope that you found something that resonated with you and will help you navigate through the f*ckeries in this life easier than before.

Anyways. Happy belated birthday to me, I guess. I can’t wait to never do a post like this again!

Love,

Liv

#selfhelp #opinions #Empowerment #selflove

BEING ‘SINGLE SINGLE’ - LESSONS LEARNED FROM FOCUSING ON MYSELF

Well, hey there. It’s been a while.

As I’m sure you all will appreciate and understand, March was an extremely hot mess in many ways, but mainly due to how COVID-19 showed up and started ruining everyone’s lives, and my motivation to write has been very limited due to stress and anxiety over how the situation is unfolding (please stay safe and at home!). However, I have finally somewhat adjusted to the situation and started to feel kind of normal again, so… I’m back like I never left. We love to see it.

I should point out that this post has been on my mind since, like, late December, and I started writing it in the middle of February after I finished the Confidence Chronicles. As the effects of Miss Rona started to become even more prominent in our everyday lives, I wanted to rewrite some of the parts so it would become more relevant to what is currently going on before publishing it… so without further ado, let’s get into it.

If you’re in my age group, I’m sure you will understand and agree that there are different ‘categories’ of being single, and all these levels are immensely different if you get political and look at the specific details of them. For the purpose of clarity and to illustrate, I (personally) would dub these categories as such:

*Single and MiNgLiNg: You’re not tied down to anyone. You’re talking to, seeing and doing whatever you want, with whoever you want, whenever you want. You’re living your best, unbothered life. Feelings are/have become an alien concept to you. I respect it. Gwarn with your bad self.

*Single (but not really): You’re technically single, but there’s someone (or someones, if you’re so inclined) that you’re into and that you’re secretly hoping things will work out with so that you can leave this ghetto that we call the gAmE. I’d say that this is the category where most situationships reside in, before eventually dying out or graduating to an actual relationship. I hate this category, because it is literally the worst: everyone has different opinions on what can and can’t run, and from what I’ve seen it usually just ends up in someone getting hurt.

*Single-ish: kind of like the previous category, but the main difference is that although there might be someone you want things to work out with, you’re grudgingly talking to other people as well in case things go sour. Either to protect your own feelings or out of sheer boredom because the person you want isn’t stepping up in the way you want them to. You probably even try to convince yourself that these other people are better options than the one(s) you actually want, but deep down you know you’re lying to yourself. Sigh. A mess.

And finally, the namesake of this post:

*Single single (aka ‘Single and not looking’): You’ve completely distanced yourself from trying to get to know someone, for whatever reason. You have no interest in changing this anytime soon. Your phone is drier than your hands during this epidemic (cream your hands after washing them… please).

Up until very recently, I have considered myself single single. This came to pass after things not working out with the person that I wanted, after floating between the single (but not really) and single-ish categories for what felt like eons. I’m not even going to lie, it hurt - but I’m glad it happened. If it hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have been able to write this post and share what I’ve learnt from taking a step back and choosing to focus on myself, and I definitely wouldn’t have elevated to this completely new level of confidence the way I have.

The choice to cut all romantic/physical ties off for a while came when I was overanalysing the situation for the trillionth time. I realised that ever since the age of 16, I have always been involved with someone in some way - whether it’s literally just talking or something more. That’s literally almost a decade of my life that I’ve let boys/men live rent-free in my head… Ew. I know, very embarrassing. As if that embarrassment isn’t enough, I soon realised that there must be a correlation between how low my self-esteem, self-confidence and perception of self-worth used to be and the men I’ve had to deal with in my short life so far. I recognised that the craving for male attention and validation that I thought I had eliminated was, in reality, still very much intact after things ended with the person I wanted. I almost got angry at myself for feeling so empty and worthless after it ended, because I genuinely thought that I was stronger than this.

It’s all good, though - these past few months that have been spent realigning my focus in life, my personal goals and my own dreams have been so crucial to my growth as an independent woman that doesn’t need a man to feel whole. I had already come very far in this inner work (as you will tell from my previous posts), but having this time being completely alone definitely reinforced the things I already knew, but was struggling to apply to my life. I have learnt so many invaluable things about myself and what I want in a relationship in general, so let's get it.

1. I will - shock horror - not die if I don’t get attention.

This is definitely the first realisation I had after my initial decision to not talk to men anymore. As childish as it sounds, I didn’t realise how weird it would be to go from constantly being gassed by someone whose opinion I cared about a little too much… to literal radio silence.

This is how I know that this decision came at the right time of my life, because I genuinely don’t think I would’ve been able to cope without constant attention and validation a few years ago. Honestly, I was like Tinkerbell - on the verge of perishing every time I didn’t get the energy I believed (and still believe!) I deserved when I was looking nice. It’s very embarrassing and almost comical how much it used to ruin my day if I didn’t get some kind of comment about how pRetTy I am, and I’m so grateful to myself that I got out of that mindset before committing to being alone. If you’ve read my post about how to have a healthy relationship (if not, find it here), you might remember that I talked about how freeing myself from the perception that attention, affection and validation from men being something needed to survive in this life was one of the best realisations I’ve ever had. This is still entirely true, and not being involved with anyone has even made me even more of an advocate for this.

I feel like I’ve discussed the importance of building your confidence to death during my confidence series, so I’m not going to delve too deep into it here. But if you haven’t read those posts, the most important takeaway is that confidence and a deep belief in your own sauce comes from within, and gradually breaking down your insecurities with positivity, a willingness to think about/confront your demons, taking the time to get to know yourself properly, and giving yourself the love and accolades you know you deserve. At no point whatsoever did I mention the approval of men (or whoever you’re attracted to). With this in mind, I can definitely say that this deep love and appreciation I’ve been feeling for myself lately has 100% stemmed from me truly believing in it, as opposed to partially based in forcing myself to believe it and partially based in expecting validation from whoever I’m dealing with.

Furthermore, I’ve officially gotten to the point where the compliments I give myself have started to slap harder than compliments/attention from men, and it’s made me feel extremely empowered and like I have a newfound appreciation for myself. They mean more for the following reasons:

* They’re largely focused on aspects of my personality, mindset, abilities and intelligence - as opposed to just empty comments on my physical features/body.

*The only ulterior motive I have with giving myself compliments is to improve my mental health and confidence, since I don’t need to get into my own good books first to off my own pant.

Whew. All tea/shade/offence intended!

All jokes aside - regardless of if you’re in a relationship, talking to someone or happily single, I’d definitely recommend asking yourself if you’d still feel the same way about yourself if you didn’t get attention or validation on a regular basis. If the answer is no, then I’d definitely recommend asking yourself why that is (and reading/rereading my Confidence Chronicles series).

2. I’m really productive when I don’t have any distractions.

I’m not going to lie, I’ve missed smiling and giggling at my phone like a smiling and giggling idiot. I’ve also missed communicating solely with dark memes, as this is one of my love languages. For those reasons, not talking to anyone kind of sucked at times.

However, much like cutting junk food out of your diet - it gets easier the longer you stick to it, and after some time you’ll realise that you’re probably better off without it. Honestly. The amount of time I’ve freed up from not constantly being on my phone to have pointless giggly conversations about absolutely nothing is actually insane, and before Corona came into the picture, I was extremely productive (not to say that I’m no longer productive… but I may or may not have been doing 48h Netflix binges every few days now that everything is closed).

I’ve spent more time brainstorming blog ideas. My art has drastically improved. I’ve started to lose the depression weight I put on. My skin has cleared up. I’m currently learning eight new languages. I’m writing a whole BOOK. I’ve taken time to update my career plan. And last but not least - I’ve spent a lot of time healing and looking to the future as opposed to dwelling on the past and things that I am unable to change.

Having time to myself - especially while being in a better frame of mind than other times I’ve found myself alone - has reinforced the knowledge of how much I can accomplish and how good I can feel about myself outside of a relationship. This isn’t news to me, at all. But if I had realised how much of a difference being completely solo dolo would have to my productivity and motivation, I definitely would’ve chosen to cut everyone off ages ago… however, the timing in this case has been impeccable. Committing to be alone after going through over a year of inner work and self-healing has allowed me to both appreciate the confidence and resilience I’ve been rebuilding on a completely new level, as well as be able to take a step back and fully enjoy the peacefulness of not having to constantly have someone to worry/overthink about outside of myself and my own goals/projects.

3. I’m a really f*cking cool person to hang out with.

This realisation came long before I decided to not talk to men, to be honest. For as long as I can remember, I’ve always been an ambivert - meaning that as much as I love spending time with friends, I highly value my alone time as well. Regardless of if I’m just Netflixing, writing, drawing or imagining fake scenarios in my head that will never happen (unless, of course, my book becomes a bestseller and I end up on Ellen), I always have a fantastic time being alone. It’s my time to recharge, dissect my thoughts and feelings, and not have to deal with anyone else for a bit.

When I first decided to be completely single, one of my main goals was to commit to being comfortable alone regardless of the situation. I’ve always been comfortable taking myself to see a movie or on a nice café date, but I really wanted to push myself to the next level of iNdEpEnDeNcE. I went to a couple gigs and a couple tourist attractions alone earlier this year when no one could/wanted to go, and I had the best time ever. Honestly, I was living the dream. Those experiences made me start planning the cute little solo holidays I was going to go on and restaurants I wanted to take myself to, and I was getting really excited. But then, of course, Corona came and ruined everything, so my plans have been put on hold indefinitely.

With that being said, I’d be lying if I said I don’t miss going out for cute little dates with someone I’m seeing/in a relationship with. Some of my favourite memories are gigs, day trips and holidays with someone else. But I think once I chose to ignore the social norms in place that dub doing things alone as “weird” - and overcome feeling “weird” as I’ve done things alone - I’ve definitely felt more excited to schedule in quality time with myself. I personally can’t wait for this Rona nonsense to be over so I can resume planning my art/architecture trip.

“But Liv! How did you overcome the feelings of awkwardness and weirdness when you went out? How did you overcome the anxiety that people were looking at/judging you?”

Excellent question. The answer is hard drugs and loads of alcohol.

I’m kidding. I don’t think the anxiety ever fully goes away, since we’ve been so hardwired to see people without a group as an outcast or even a threat. But at some point I just decided to focus on enjoying myself, as opposed to worrying about what the people I’d never see again around me felt.

(Also… alcohol definitely helps. Drink responsibly, kids.)

4. Apparently I have a massive saviour complex?

I think most people that have known me for a long time or at least taken the time to get to know me properly would agree that I am a huge empath. I have always been highly perceptive of other peoples’ feelings, emotions and moods, and I am instinctively inclined to ensure that people feel seen and heard after speaking with me about whatever they needed to vent/get advice about. This, because I’m obviously a huge advocate of normalising talking about mental health struggles, and because I genuinely enjoy sensing that they feel better after confiding in me.

Now, I wouldn’t necessarily say that being an empath is a bad thing - in fact, these traits are some of the things I like the most about myself. But taking a step back from any kind of relationship/situationship has made me suddenly and painfully aware that my high levels of empathy may not be based in a fundamental kindness as I initially thought. In fact, part of it - and I have no idea how large this part is - may be due to a severe saviour complex, and therefore based in an inherent selfishness.

Yes, I know it’s confusing. Me too, I’m confused. Hear me out.

Sometimes I get so carried away while writing about all the ways that I’ve healed and bettered myself after my previous relationship… so much that I forget I had issues I was going to counselling for before he ruined everything and the sessions became all about getting over him. I genuinely forget sometimes that I had a life before I even knew he even existed, which just goes to show how large of an impact it had on me. Very sad, I know.

The stuff I was going to counselling for at the time had me in a very dark place, and looking back at it the breakup was kind of a blessing in disguise for my brain. I definitely think that refocusing my energy to heal from the relationship protected me from having to face certain aspects of myself that I wasn’t ready to deal with at the time.

Fast forward to a couple years later - I consider myself fully healed from the situation. I’ve learnt so much about myself, my mental health, relationships and love in general, and for a good year or so I was meeting new people and starting to think about a potential new relationship. I met some great people (and a couple nutcases) that things didn’t end up working out with, but I didn’t really mind that things weren’t going perfectly because I had hEaLeD™, and I had proved to myself that I could move on… so sh*t was sweet for a while.

However, when I decided to go on this dating hiatus, something I didn’t expect at all happened:

The issues, thoughts and feelings I was initially going to counselling for - before the breakup - started to come back to my attention. And this time, there was nowhere to run and nothing/nobody to distract me.

At this point in time, being forced to face these issues genuinely doesn’t feel as hard as it used to, as I have grown and matured a lot since when I first started feeling these things at around 14/15. I can think about things without it ruining the rest of my day, and I can put words to the feelings I struggled so much to verbalise back then. But regardless of how much easier it is now, it’s still f*cking hard - and this is what brings me back to my point about having a saviour complex.

The term “saviour complex” implies a deep rooted need to save/help people by fixing their problems - often at the expense of their own needs and feelings. Some would even go as far as saying that these “saviours” go out of their way to help others so they don’t have to deal with their own thoughts and feelings, and the more I think about it the more painfully obvious it is that perhaps my inclination to help people - and especially those that I’ve been involved with in some way - comes from a place of selfishness and an immense desire to not have to think about my own troubles.

This has definitely been a scary epiphany for me, and old habits have made me focus on the negative side of constantly trying to help and empathise with people. It’s made me question my entire character, in the sense that the traits that I’ve admired the most about myself might just be a defence mechanism so I don’t have to deal with my own sh*t. However, on the other hand, I’ve been spending a lot of energy reminding myself that regardless of what the truth is - if I ever figure it out - I’ve still been able to help people that have needed someone to be there for them, so does it even really matter what the reasons are at the end of the day? Probably not. I really need to keep working on getting out of my own head sometimes.

With that being said, being alone - whether it’s being single or temporarily for this lockdown - really forces you to face yourself and accept that maybe you don’t have everything as together as you thought, and that’s okay. As long as you acknowledge/fully feel your thoughts and feelings instead of dismissing them out of discomfort, the outcome can only be emotional growth and maturity.

5. My next relationship is going to be phenomenal.

Arguably to my disadvantage, and despite experiencing how peaceful and stress-free being completely single is… I still want love in my life, as long as it is on the right terms and healthy for both of us. I guess I’m just a hopeless romantic like that, at the end of the day… or a sick masochist.

I say this, but I know that all this work I’ve put into rebuilding and elevating myself will - when the time is right - bring someone amazing into my life, that will fully love my confidence, my imperfections and everything else about me that makes me, me. I have so much faith in this that for now, I’m really just chilling and going about my life and my own goals, as well as trusting the process. I feel no stress or anxiety about it anymore whatsoever, and I never thought I’d ever get to this point of calmness. It really is a great feeling to know that the next person lucky enough to be in a relationship with me is going to be nothing short of an additional blessing in my life (and I to theirs), because I am now no longer willing to compromise on or overlook toxic/unhealthy/bad vibes in whoever I end up with. For this reason, I would once again like to reiterate how grateful I am to myself for realising that this time alone was something I needed (and actually sticking to it) - it really has made me feel invincible.

The beautiful thing about all of these realisations is that you don’t even have to be as drastic as me (in terms of cutting the person/the people you’re talking to off) to get into a better headspace when it comes to relationships. If you’re lucky enough to be in a relationship with/dealing with someone that respects, loves and encourages your individuality, allocating quality time to spend with yourself shouldn’t even need to be justified. Obviously, a lot of relationships don’t really have a choice besides giving each other space during this lockdown, but even so I don’t think that time apart should be seen as a strain or a risk to the relationship. I feel so strongly about this that I’ve realised that I can’t even be with someone who doesn’t understand the importance of being our own, separate people who choose to form a team, as opposed to two incomplete individuals who are reliant on each other to feel whole.

With that being said, my biggest realisation and takeaway from this time alone is this:

My next relationship will not “complete” me; it will simply compliment my already existing wholeness.

Read that again.

Now - I know we’re all sick and tired of being cooped up in our houses. But we literally have all the time in the world to spend quality time with ourselves, so why not do so? Now is the perfect time for reflection, g-checking yourself, positive affirmations and self-love. I promise that you’ll come out of this lockdown feeling so much better about yourself.

Stay safe (and stay home)!

Love,

Liv

#selfhelp #love #empowerment

THE CONFIDENCE CHRONICLES PART V - CONFIDENCE IN YOUR CONFIDENCE

This is post 5/5 of my “Confidence Chronicles” series, in which I discuss the mindsets, actions and thought processes I’ve applied to build/rebuild my confidence in different aspects of my life. The goal of these 5 posts is for you readers to be able to apply relevant points to your own insecurities in order to combat them, and hopefully build your own confidence over time.

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So… we’re finally at the last post of the Confidence Chronicles. It’s taken its sweet (long-ass) time, but we finally got there in the end. Furthermore, it’s almost exactly a year ago since the idea for this series popped into my head, so this really has ended up coming full circle… albeit unintentionally. Not going to lie, it’s kind of a bittersweet feeling - it’s going to feel strange to not focus so heavily on confidence anymore, but on the other hand… I don’t have to focus so heavily on confidence anymore. Finally, I can bring my other post ideas that have been collecting dust in my drafts to life!

The funny thing is that although I started this series with a plan for what I was going to write about in each post, I never actually settled on what aspect of my confidence I wanted to end this series with. I figured that when the time came to write this, I would have a clear idea of what would be an appropriate note to wrap up the series on.

Of course, at that point in time I didn’t know that the latter half of 2019 was going to turn my life upside down. I didn’t know that I was going to find myself in a massive slump due to stress, confusion and anxiety over my career, my direction and purpose in life and my role in the grand scheme of the world. I know it all sounds very melodramatic and like an excuse to not apply myself to complete my projects - which might be partially true - but the truth is that these questions have been weighing on me for a long time. Long before I started working on my mental health, long before I started this blog, long before moving back to the UK. I’ve been able to ignore these feelings for a long time, but lately they’ve been making themselves extremely hard to avoid. I think that the reason lies in that I’m soon going to be on what society likes to call the “wrong” side of 25, and that I still feel like I’m figuring out where my life is going… i.e. running around like a headless chicken.

However, this blog has really forced me to confront my fears in a way that counselling or confiding in someone I trust ever could - simply because it makes me work through my innermost thoughts and feelings alone. Attempting to address deeply buried issues in order to make my peace with them so I can move past it has been a very triggering process, and also extremely reliant on trial and error.

When you make an error in your healing process, it can be devastating and a major setback in your daily life. But when you get it right… the pain and hard work all becomes worth it. Trust me. There is nothing more satisfying than thinking of a past situation that used to make you feel like you had the weight of the world of the shoulders, and realising that although it felt like it at the time, it didn’t kill you. Hell, you’d even be able to go through it again and be confident you can make it through again, if you had to. One day you’ll even be able to laugh at the situations that once tore you down, and with your newfound confidence be able to realise that at the end of the day… it wasn’t that deep (or, at least, not deep enough to kill you).

For this reason, I want to tie the messages from the previous posts of this Confidence Chronicles series together to make this post - confidence in your newfound confidence. Once you build a solid foundation of confidence in all aspects of your life, the next step is learning to adjust to the newfound energy, positivity and motivation that this confidence manifests itself as. I personally learned (and - in certain cases - am still learning) how to harness this “power” in the following ways:

1. Slowly but surely trusting myself to believe in my own capabilities.

Do you want to know something that’s funny but at the same time not funny? If not, tough sh*t because here it comes: despite writing so extensively about confidence, my own levels of confidence are somewhat unreliable at best.

As I’ve mentioned countless times before, I never write blog posts when I’m in a bad place mentally. In fact, every single post (except one) on here is written when I’m in a great mood, my mind is clear, my confidence levels are unbeatable and I can write about my bad times in an objective manner that doesn’t end up making me sad. A quick scroll through my past posts prove that it’s so easy to assume that I’m 100% over the hard things that I’ve written about on here, simply because I’ve become so good at realising my own past mistakes and how I should move forward. However, in reality, there’s usually not a day that goes by without the topics crossing my mind.

I’ve been told many a time by friends that while I’m excellent at giving advice and knowing exactly what measures to take to get over a situation, I’m not very good at applying said advice to myself. It’s very true, and very frustrating - reading my own posts back makes me realise that I already have the tools and capabilities required to be able to heal, but so far I only seem to be able to use these tools when I’m in a good place. For this reason, I struggle a fair amount with self-doubt in my authenticity as a mental health blogger, because what’s the point of preaching about self-love, self-care and bettering your mental health if your own mental health is in a complete shambles from time to time?

However, it’s not all bad, because the more I apply myself to think of solutions, apply said solutions to my own life and start seeing the benefits of constantly working on myself, the more confident I become that one day I’ll get to a stage where I can confidently write about my issues without this nagging feeling that I’m a fraud. Additionally, g-checking myself from time to time and making sure that I am actually following my own advice makes me increasingly more secure in the knowledge that I am extremely emotionally intelligent and do have enough experience to change my own life, as well as others’.

I think the main thing here is to keep on doing whatever it is you’re trying to improve upon, and allow yourself to appreciate how far you’ve come on your journey as opposed to solely focusing how long you have to go. Regardless of if you’re doubting your capabilities in the workplace, your body goals, your ability to adapt to new situations or your creative ventures - or a combination of all four - it’s important to acknowledge and celebrate your progress.

Giving yourself a well-deserved pat on the back and focusing on how far you have come since the beginning gives you the chance to fully appreciate the hard work you’ve put in towards bettering yourself - which leads to you gradually feeling confident in trusting the power in your own capabilities over time.

2. Stopping the negative self-talk.

As it so happens, I have quite a dark and self-deprecating sense of humour - and so do many of my friends and my sister. Calling myself and others every offensive name under the sun as a joke is something that used to occur on a near daily basis, under the guise that it was all harmless banter. I’ve literally been doing this for as long as I can remember, but the past few months or so, I’ve really been trying to stop for a few reasons.

The main reason is that regardless of how harmless belittling your intelligence and capabilities as a joke may seem, doing it on a regular basis can lead to you internalising these notions and gradually starting to believe them. Although I genuinely thought that I was mentally resilient enough to be able to separate jokes from reality, whenever I’d fall into a bit of slump the first things that would come into my head were the things I’d said about myself as a joke. They would sting a lot, because in those moments I would genuinely believe them.

“God, I’m such a dumb b*tch”.

“Ugh, when did I become such a d*ckhead?”

“I swear to God.... I f*cking hate myself”

“Oh, great, so on top of being a dumb b*tch - I’m also a fat b*tch. Excellent”.

The mad thing is that I’m actually laughing while writing this, simply because I’m in a positive state of mind and know that it’s all a joke. I know I’m neither dumb, a d*ckhead, or fat. Nor do I hate myself anymore. But as soon as that Sunday night sadness hits (I know you all know what I’m talking about!), there I am - trying to choke back tears because I’ve managed to delude myself into thinking that the above is, in fact, true. For this reason, I’ve also tried to stop doing it to my friends, because I’d hate to think that they may be internalising something mean that I’ve said to them as a jOkE.

It’s also interesting to think why self-deprecating humour comes so easily to a lot of us. I can only speak for myself and certain friends that are similar to me in this aspect, but I genuinely think it’s because we’ve - very sadly - grown accustomed to being verbally abused and/or having our weaknesses constantly being picked at during our formative years - either in our home environments, school environments, or both. Instead of devising healthier methods of coping with and eliminating these internalisations, we’ve become reliant on using humour as a source of escapism from our nagging insecurities cast upon us by people around us.

When I started seeing self-deprecating humour in this light, it actually made me quite sad. There I was, thinking that I should get into comedy for being so hilarious, when really it turned out to be just me being too scared to deal with my own insecurities. That’s when I knew things needed to change, and I’ve been working on this ever since.

Personally, the easiest way for me to reduce my negative self-talk has been to try to visualise how I would feel if a stranger (it used to be friends, but then I remembered that most of my friends are as tapped as I am) was saying it to me. I soon realised that if it had come from anyone else but myself or my friends, I’d be ready to throw hands over this literal verbal abuse. I am now trying my best to speak to and treat myself in the same way that a stranger or acquaintance would - with dignity, respect, honesty and with a regard for my own feelings (because, lo and behold, it is possible to be brutally honest and kind at the same time).

Of course, this is so much easier said than done - especially if you, like me, love a cheeky self-drag and dragging others (out of love, of course). However, this doesn’t have to mean that you can stop having fun - I’ve found that an eloquently worded drag meant to act as a wake-up call for me/someone else to improve my/their situation without having to resort to insults and name-calling is infinitely more creative, satisfying and efficient. Furthermore, I’ve found that g-checks that are based on constructive criticism as opposed to cruel insults give you a clearer image of how to improve yourself moving forward - which can only be a good thing.

Basically, just be patient and kind to yourself and others. Take on the constructive criticism received from yourself and your friends/family to work towards bettering yourself, and your confidence will follow.

3. Learning to trust the feelings of positivity and self-love.

This is by far the hardest one for me - and for good reason. When you’ve spent a large part of your teenage years and early adulthood believing that your capabilities and strengths are inadequate, that you’re ugly, that you’re not worthy of love and happiness, that your life has no purpose and that your family and friends would be better off without you, it’s nearly impossible to break free from this toxic downward spiral and to unlearn all of the behaviours and thought processes that have manifested as a result of these feelings.

The keyword here is nearly.

Obviously, I can only speak for myself, but I would like to think that this could be applied to others as well. When I started this jOuRnEy, I honestly thought I’d never get to a place where I genuinely love every aspect of myself. Despite this, I kept pushing myself through the extremely triggering task of unpacking my toxic feelings - until one day I suddenly didn’t have them anymore. Or, at the very least, they suddenly no longer hurt me. Seemingly out of nowhere... I felt okay.

The sad but still understandable thing about suddenly coming to terms with who you are, what you’ve been through and feeling confident enough to move forward is that you don’t trust the feeling at first. At all. You tell yourself that it’s just one of the little upswings before everything comes crashing down around you again, dragging you back to step one, and you try to mentally prepare yourself for said downfall to happen.

But it doesn’t.

Sure, you might have little dips every now and again. You know that healing isn’t a linear process, so you assume that these little dips will lead to you spiralling again. But, to your surprise, they don’t - and you find yourself picking yourself up, dusting yourself off, and moving forward with your life relatively unscathed and with more experience and wisdom than before. You start to get suspicious and a little scared because things are actually going alright for once. You’ve become so used to your life being so riddled with anxiety, insecurity, sadness and chaos and the good times being fleeting, that this new reality is extremely alien to you.

This is where things can go one out of two ways.

Either your anxiety kicks in and you start self-sabotaging in different ways because you’re afraid that the longer things are going well, the harder the fall is going to be - so you might as well save yourself the pain by not pursuing things that could allow you to be happy. Or, you are able to tentatively start trusting and accepting the waves of love and positivity as your new reality - making you find the strength and confidence to move forward despite the past pain and hurt.

Personally, it took several rounds of self-sabotaging before getting to the point of learning to trust the positive feelings and my confidence in all aspects of myself. I try not to beat myself up over all the opportunities I’ve turned down simply due to genuinely believing that I’m not good/smart/pretty/talented enough, but I’d be lying if I said it doesn’t make me sad from time to time. However, the more time that passes I get more and more confident that new, even better opportunities will come up for me - and I’ll be confident enough to embrace them without any hesitation when the time comes.

To wrap up this whole Confidence Chronicles series, I want to leave you all with this simple but true statement:

It gets better - if you’re willing to put in the work.

Regardless of which of the posts resonated with you the most, I need you to understand that building confidence takes time. I would even go as far as saying that it’s a never-ending journey, and that the learning to fully love and trust yourself and your capabilities is a never-ending process as life progresses. However, the more you work hard on your own betterment, the easier and smaller the challenges that arise from time to time become.

My ultimate wish is that we all one day can get to a place where we can trust ourselves enough to be happy and confident, regardless of what life throws at us. That whenever things that would usually send us down that spiral again pop up, we can just take a deep breath, count to ten, and be confident in the knowledge that the situation no longer has power over us, and that we will easily be able to work through it.

Until that day comes - never stop fighting.

Love,

Liv

#selfhelp #goals #selflove #opinions #Empowerment

THE CONFIDENCE CHRONICLES IV - CONFIDENCE IN YOUR CRAFT

This is post 4/5 of my “Confidence Chronicles” series, in which I discuss the mindsets, actions and thought processes I’ve applied to build/rebuild my confidence in different aspects of my life. The goal of these 5 posts is for you readers to be able to apply relevant points to your own insecurities in order to combat them, and hopefully aid in building your own confidence over time.

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Oooh, check me out with the post consistency. That’s how you know it’s a new year and decade, baby!

I’d like to start off by saying that I have been excited to write this post in particular for quite a long while now - literally since about July last year. However, my life was a bit of a mess at the time, and I didn’t want to put the previous post on hold, so it had to wait until now.

Maybe this was for the best, though - this post is going to be about confidence in your craft and the projects you put out into the world. Although I was literally planning on writing this post around 7 months ago, I can honestly say that my confidence levels in my own projects have never been higher than right now, so writing about it now makes more sense. See, procrastination helps!

Anyways. To kick this post off, I want to take some time to acknowledge my many talents. Besides my *impeccable* blogging skills, not many people know that I’ve dabbled in acting and drumming in the past, and I am currently also writing a book (more about that in a future post) and getting back into interior design, learning new languages and drawing. These are my current favourite pastimes, and what I say to people whenever I’m asked what my “hobbies” are.

The reason why I’m sharing this is because I want people to understand that unless you are vocal about your passions, how the hell are other people meant to be able to support and appreciate your work? It goes without saying that bigging yourself up and showing off your talents can feel extremely vain if you are a naturally reserved/humble person - but my hope is that this post will teach you how to be more confident in your work.

I am very excited to share this post because I am blessed to have friends of what feels like millions of different talents. Actors, musicians, podcasters, poets, youtubers, models, MUA’s, chefs, hair stylists… the list goes on, and it makes me so proud to see that they are all in their respective creative bags right now - so this post is somewhat dedicated to them as well if they ever have feelings of insecurity in their talents.

I will be talking about what I have found to be the most important factors of being confident in your creativity, not letting criticism (constructive or otherwise) make you want to give up, and getting over the initial fear of putting something you’ve created out into the world, because let’s face it; sharing something you’ve created can be incredibly vulnerable. You are essentially sharing a private aspect of yourself for the world to critically analyse, and it’s normal to find this daunting - however, it’s all about how you handle it.

Based on my own experiences and anonymous examples from my friends, I will try my best to explain how best to develop a deep sense of confidence and pride in your creative endeavours.

1. Ensure that you are doing your craft out of passion.

Regardless of if you are creating content solely for your own enjoyment or to capitalise on it, I definitely think that it is imperative that what you are doing fills you with joy and that you are excited to do the activity. This may sound like a no-brainer, but I feel like I see a lot of people nowadays forcing themselves to pursue certain endeavours due to influences from social media, or are forcing themselves to capitalise off a hobby they used to love, but now hate because of the added pressure of having to create content/products for the target audience.

This is partly why I am apprehensive about ways of monetising this blog - or any of my other creative projects, for that matter. I’d be lying if I said it hasn’t crossed my mind, but my biggest fear is starting to resent an activity I once loved because of external pressure such as deadlines, not having full creative control and having to “tread carefully” with the messages I put out, if that makes sense.

Pursuing a hobby for the sole purpose of others is never going to make you feel that what you’re creating is good. Constantly trying to please the masses as opposed to just doing whatever makes you feel happy is always going to make you feel anxious and scared of the reception, I think. Instead, I’d suggest that you evaluate what is more important to you: approval or enjoyment. If it’s the former, then by all means… keep forcing yourself to pursue hobbies that may or may not give you recognition. Who knows - maybe you’ll blow up and get the sponsorships, money and fans that you want, and I don’t even mean this in a petty or sarcastic way. If that’s what you set out to do, then I’d be very happy for you.

However, I reiterate: pursuing a hobby for anyone other than yourself runs a great risk of becoming a burden in the long run, as well as a risk of losing your self confidence when you don’t get the attention or accolades that you believe that you deserve.

I think I have an issue with the above because it relates back to past posts in which I’ve discussed humans’ desperation to be approved and acknowledged by their peers. It alludes to a deeply rooted insecurity in yourself, your abilities and your belief in said abilities - I only say this because this literally used to be me before deciding to sack everyone off and do whatever the f*ck I wanted.

Personally, my dream scenario would be for people to find a hobby that they are truly passionate about and that they can capitalise off in a way that doesn’t restrict their creative process and that is on their own terms. Because, let’s be honest - receiving money and accolades doing something that you truly love is a major confidence boost… regardless of if the money and recognition motivates you or not. But the bottom line is that your confidence in your creativity should not be rooted in anything else but your own joy.

2. Appoint a/some constructive critic(s).

It goes without saying that true confidence comes from ~*wItHiN*~, but there is nothing wrong with looking to friends and/or family for opinions and support. In fact, I’d even go as far as saying that having someone who understands your vision and wants you to achieve your goals is a must.

This someone is a crucial part of the creative process, because they will ideally motivate (aka bully...exactly like the gif above) you into meeting the deadlines you set for yourself, give you honest feedback and give you a kick up the arse on the days where you don’t really feel like doing anything. They will remind you of the reason why you started your project when you feel like giving up - and having someone like this in your corner that unconditionally believes in you is a massive ego boost.

Something that’s even better than having one person in your corner is having multiple people in your corner. And something that’s even better than having multiple people in your corner, is having multiple people in your corner that are also creative and have their own projects going on. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a group of people with the exact same hobby as you (although this definitely helps too!), but surrounding yourself with people that are also making things happen for themselves gives you a beautiful sense of community. I can only speak for myself, but forming friendships with other creatives has definitely helped me come out of my shell. I still remember when I first “pitched” my blog idea to my friends - thinking that I’d get a lukewarm response (because let’s face it… a lot of people unfortunately don’t enjoy reading anymore) - but the positive feedback and support I got is what gave me the confidence to actually start. And when I was on my hiatus, I’d be harassed for updates on when my next post was coming, and brutally dragged when I didn’t post on the days I had promised. The same goes for their projects as well - it was only recently that we had to bully someone for not releasing their podcast when they said they would.

Another aspect of having a group of critics that believe in you is the motivation you get from seeing them putting their plans into action. Honestly. Seeing my friends’ work ethics and how hard they grind makes me want to be better - not only to keep up, but for myself in general.

The bottom line is that although you don’t need people in your corner to get started, it is definitely a major asset to have. You should be confident that your work is great by your own accord, but getting it confirmed - or receiving feedback for improvements - is just another key to improving your confidence.

3. Do not be afraid of vulnerability (if your craft requires you to do so).

Believe me… I get it. Putting out something you’ve created for the entire planet to see can be incredibly daunting, especially if a lot of emotion has gone into it. It feels like you’re putting a very dainty and vulnerable part of you out on a perilous battlefield, out in the open where nowhere to take cover. This is where a lot of us (myself included) tend to overthink sharing our work, or in some cases chose not to share it at all. If only you guys knew how many draft posts have ended up in the bin because I was worried about being judged (they’re being revived though, fear not!)... it’s mad how much fear and anxiety can hold you back from being great.

This is where it’s important to understand the power of being able to be vulnerable, honest and open through your selected medium. As cringe as it sounds, opening your heart to the world and letting people see your insecurities, unresolved issues and things you’d much rather hide leads to the situations power over you significantly diminishing. And the more you do it, the closer you get to the situation no longer being able to hurt you anymore - because once it’s out in the open, nothing or no one can actually tell you sh*t. Once you get to the point of no longer caring who knows what your internal struggles are, I promise that you feel insanely confident and empowered, because you are no longer living in fear.

Another beautiful aspect of vulnerability in relation to self-confidence is that ever so often, you get to hear that your work has genuinely helped, inspired or motivated someone. I know I said that validation and approval from others isn’t the best reason for pursuing a hobby, but this is different in the sense that you’re doing your thing regardless of if you get positive feedback for it - the recognition is truly just a bonus, but a contributor to increased confidence all the same.

Hopefully, utilising these three methods will make you feel a great deal more confident about your creative projects/side hustles for the following reasons:

You’re doing this project primarily because it brings you joy.

The way I see it, taking time out of your day to do something that makes you genuinely happy is an act of self-care and incredibly empowering, in the sense that we are choosing to not be distracted and led astray by the infinite amount of garbage media that is constantly in our faces due to social media. Being able to make time on a project - whatever it may be - that brings you happiness and engages your right brain is a massive blessing in our age group, as we take on more and more responsibilities that eat up our time and drain us.

A cute metaphor for this could be that your day to day routine is a desert. Going to work/uni, doing work/uni related projects, doing chores around the house and all your other responsibilities is walking around for hours in the sun, making us drained, famished and parched. Our hobbies should be like a much-welcomed oasis, providing us with water, food, shade and somewhere to recharge (joy, inspiration, motivation and a well-deserved break for the brain).

Okay, that was a bit cringe. But you get the point - allowing ourselves to have something in this hard life to enjoy is a confidence boost in itself.

After paying attention to the feedback you get, you’ll become even more skilled at your craft over time.

It’s no conundrum that experience equals expertise, and that constantly improving your creative process in accordance with feedback from someone you know understands your vision will make you more sure of yourself in the long run.

Think about it: if you’re already doing something you genuinely love, and you have a trusted person/trusted people in your life to turn to for genuine opinions, how can you not win?

By “winning”, I mean your work getting progressively better over time, combined with a feeling of security and support from your peers. I mean becoming more emotionally, mentally, spiritually and maybe even financially (if you’re so inclined) stable through doing something you genuinely love. The prize is peace of mind, feeling supported, and full creative control of your work - and I honestly can’t think of anything more satisfying.

You’re taking control of your doubts and insecurities and flipping them into assets.

For me, this is a no brainer. What could possibly be more confidence-boosting than overcoming insecurities and being able to use them to your advantage in your creative endeavours? It’s literally what my entire blog is based upon, and writing about things that have caused me a great deal of pain in the past has ended up being a very therapeutic and cathartic experience, as well as extremely empowering - in the sense that I don’t allow certain situations have control over me anymore. I can now focus on continuing to heal, and help others who may come across my work in the meantime.

Having a personal project that challenges you to face and overcome your insecurities is something that I think everyone should try to have. It might get hard at times and extremely tempting to quit, but once your work is ready for the world to see I promise you that you’ll get a boost in confidence.

By keeping these three points in mind, I can pretty much guarantee that you’ll feel infinitely more confident in your creative projects. Knowing that you’re putting your entire heart into a project that you are sharing with the whole world, knowing that you have supporters that you can trust with honest opinions and feedback and knowing that you’ve stayed true to yourself regardless of if the norm enjoys is an ideal state of mind to be in.

On a final note, I want to reiterate that there is no “wrong” or “right” way to have a hobby and gain confidence from it. This post is just general guidelines that really helped me come out of my shell creatively, and I’d like to think it’d work for others too. However, you know best how comfortable you are with exposing your work and what your existing confidence levels are like, so please proceed accordingly (and don’t blame me if things go tits up because you decided not to take the time to listen to yourself!).

Love,

Liv

#selfhelp #selflove #goals #empowerment

THE CONFIDENCE CHRONICLES PART III - CONFIDENCE IN STARTING OVER

This is post 3/5 of my “Confidence Chronicles” series, in which I discuss the mindsets, actions and thought processes I’ve applied to build/rebuild my confidence in different aspects of my life. The goal of these 5 posts is for you readers to be able to apply relevant points to your own insecurities in order to combat them, and hopefully aid in building your own confidence over time.

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I know… this is insanely overdue. But this time I have a valid reason, I promise.

The purpose of this part of the Confidence™ series was (and still is) to discuss and learn how to eliminate feelings of insecurity, fear, anxiety and situational depression that can arise from trying to pattern a major life change. Namely, those changes that you just know are going to reshape your whole future from the moment it’s set in motion, and completely tear you out of your comfort zone.

Believe it or not, when I started planning this series what feels like eons ago (April? May? Who even knows anymore), I had an extensive plan about how I was going to discuss how I found the confidence to completely start over - twice - and how much it has made me feel better about myself in all aspects of my life for overcoming it all. I was so pleased with myself in regards to how I was going to tie in this post to my post about overcoming my crippling anxiety that came with moving back to London earlier this year (read it here anyways, it’s good stuff), and I had even almost finished the post.

Ok, that’s a lie. But I had come a little more than half way.

However, I was forced to delete all my delightful anecdotes and clever little reasonings about my growth from forcing myself to move back to the UK and eventually back to London to be happy (I don’t count moving to Sweden or Nottingham as sTaRtInG oVeR because I didn’t choose it for myself… all tea/shade/offense intended), because something very unexpected ended up happening.

Basically, the job that I moved to London for - my *~dReAm jOb~* - ended up not being at all what I wanted. In fact, it ended up putting me in a much worse place mentally. I could go into detail about what exactly happened at that office but it’s honestly not worth the energy - I recently quit on the spot, packed my load and went home the same day, and since then, I’ve been unemployed.

So - what does this have to do with this post?

After having some time to regroup and pattern my emotional and mental adjustment to this new situation, I realised that a lot of the coping mechanisms I used to get through other life-changing predicaments in the past were also applicable to a major life change that didn’t necessarily involve the stress and drama of relocating to another country or city. In addition to this, I also realised that the more I put myself in not so ideal situations - such as unemployment - the better I get at handling myself in these situations, and the more able I am to stay calm and collected while I’m trying to figure out my next step. In other words - it would have been wrong to submit this post about navigating a large change in my life, all while excluding a currently ongoing major life change… if that makes any sense at all.

Anyway - all you need to know is that this post will discuss how to find the confidence, mental resilience and energy to go through a complicated life change, eliminating the fear of failure during the whole project and understanding that while everything might not go to plan, you will be okay at the end of the process. I will draw examples from my two big moves, as well as my ongoing situation to illustrate my points.

So, without further ado, if you want to know how I’ve been able to confidently navigate a few of the hardest times of my short life with (most of) my sanity intact, do keep on reading.

1. Identify how badly you want to/need to make a major change in terms of your mental health.

Don’t get me wrong, I’d never downplay someone else's mental and emotional turmoil… but if you’re anything like me, you’ll probably have a mini meltdown at least once a week over something extremely minor, in which you dramatically declare to yourself that you are leaving and never coming back. Last time this happened, I was pissed off because McDonald’s hadn’t given me any sauces for my nuggets.

A tragedy? No (yes).

A reason to uproot my whole life and move to Indonesia? Depends on how you see it… but I’m going to go with no.

The point I’m trying to make is that you need to evaluate your current situation in depth, assess what about it is making you feel like a major change is needed, and see if there are any less drastic solutions that can help you through that rough patch.

In my case, even after analysing the situations in hindsight, I genuinely believe that there was no other option for me in either of the cases. I’ve touched upon how I never really felt at home or like I belonged in Sweden; therefore, moving back to the UK for uni and meeting new people that were more on my wavelength ended up being a massive boost for my self-confidence and sense of belonging. In terms of moving from Nottingham to London, I had a massive back-and-forth with myself if it was really necessary; I considered changing jobs and moving further away from areas in the city that constantly reminded me of my ex, but in the end, I decided that cutting Nottingham out of my life altogether was the only way I could allow myself to heal. Finally, with my former job, I considered firming all the stress until I’d either a) pass the one year mark so it’d look better on my cv when I quit, or b) tough it out until I got promoted and would get a massive pay rise so that the stress would be worth it. Needless to say, I opted for neither.

The common denominator here is that I thoroughly evaluated the situations in terms of the toll they were taking on me, and made a decision based on that. I’m a firm believer that once you prioritise your mental wellbeing over everything else - and do all in your power to keep your mental peace - self-assurance will inevitably follow, simply because knowing what you will or will not put up with is the first step to becoming more confident.

2. Eliminate fear.

Please don’t get me wrong here. It is one million percent normal to fear the unknown and hesitating to venture out of your comfort zone. We crave stability, comfort and familiarity to have a calm and peaceful life. But trust me on this - forcing yourself to ignore the alarm bells in your head and resisting the temptation to not go through with the change will be the best thing you’ve ever done.

It’s definitely no secret that there are so many of us out there that hate our strict routines, go to a job we hate every day, and are made to feel worse by our peers who seem to be having the time of their lives on social media (spoiler: they probably aren’t). However, we choose the dullness and boredom over making a change, because we’re afraid of instability and uncertainty in life. I even used to be like that, because I got told at a young age that education and career stability are two of the most important things in life, and that venturing away from them will severely damage my prospects for my future career.

This is true, to a certain degree - but I decided that my own happiness needed to start taking priority over my fear of being unstable. In other words, I decided that my own well-being is and always will be my main priority in life, regardless of the situation.

Once you make that commitment to yourself - and really mean it - I promise that you will discover confidence you probably didn’t even realise you had. When you look at your life and realise that you’re not being the happiest version of yourself, you’ll want to do everything within your power to change this - regardless of how scared you are.

In my case, this was especially true when I was working in Nottingham and first started considering moving to London. I was absolutely terrified that I was going to be moving to one of the most expensive cities in the world without a 100% guarantee that I would be financially stable, and for a long time my fear of both financial and emotional uncertainty made me try my best to see the positives with my current situation, and to find an excuse to play it safe.

However, as you can probably imagine, I got tired of lying to myself and pretending to be content with my situation. You can only run away for your feelings for so long, and in the end me forcing myself to stay somewhere where I was no longer happy just made me even more emotionally drained. In other words, the fear ended up inflicting more pain and stress than actually getting my sh*t together and organising the move when I first had the idea to leave the city behind.

I want you to remember that part. Letting yourself stay in a distressing situation because of fear will only stagnate and depress you in the long run. I really, really hope that this testimony gives you the kick up the arse that you need to take control of your future and emotional state.

Another approach to fear is to not eliminate it, but to embrace it. This, in the sense that my fear of living with regrets is infinitely larger than my fear of living in uncertainty. The thought of making a “safe” decision now, and then 10 years down the line finding myself obsessing over loads of different “what if…?” scenarios that could’ve happened if I had just been brave enough, makes me incredibly anxious. In this case, I welcome the fear, because it takes on the role of a motivator.

The bottom line is that you (most likely) won’t die from living in uncertainty for a while. However, you have to develop the confidence that everything will turn out fine in the end. Which brings me to my final point…

3. Understand that although things may not go to plan, life has a way of figuring itself out.

If you by any chance are already considering going through the process of starting over (if so, kudos!) and have devised an immaculately detailed plan on how to succeed, I’m here to tell you to rip it out of your notebook, scrunch it up, and slam dunk it right in the bin. Honestly. You could have the whole process planned down to the minute, and still, something will go wrong. And that’s okay.

I used to be an extreme control freak that would immediately feel anxious when I didn’t know what was going to happen, and if things didn’t work out as I had envisioned it in my head I’d go into full meltdown mode. However, the more I make these major life changes, the more I understand that part of the beauty of it is letting things work out as they should, at the exact right time that they should.

Allowing things to fall into place naturally - as opposed to trying to force the result that you want - empowers you to get used to adapting to difficult situations that may arise. Learning to adapt is heavily built on accumulated experience over time from other difficult situations. Having this experience with a variety of differing predicaments allows you to be able to proceed with confidence that everything will turn out okay no matter what happens - and having the fact that everything will be fine in the back of your mind can give your anxiety and overthinking brain a well deserved break. Furthermore, allowing your brain to have this chance to relax gives you even more confidence.

You see how all factors come full circle? This is because we are not meant to try to manipulate the process. Attempting to control an unpredictable situation is what leads to stress and anxiety in the first place, and - at least in my case - when efforts to force a certain result end up failing, it takes even more of a toll on your confidence levels. I start obsessing over the how/why/where/when I went wrong, just bringing negative energy into my own life for no reason - trying to justify it by telling myself that I’m trying to LeArN fOr NeXt TiMe. There is a huge difference between analysing a mistake and criticising yourself with hurtful and negative thoughts - the latter being a massive killer of confidence.

Instead, allowing things to flow naturally and observing pain points during the process while keeping a calm and collected mind makes you more resilient to recurring problems - which in turn gives you confidence to take a leap of faith when needed.

With these three points in mind, along with a genuine drive to succeed, I can guarantee that pushing yourself to start over won’t feel as terrifying and daunting. Once you’ve established why you need to make a major change in your life, what needs to be done to achieve it and have a clear vision of how this project is going to benefit your mental health (or whatever aspect of your life that you want to make a change for), pushing through the hard times of starting on a completely clean slate will be infinitely easier.

That’s right - it is going to be maddeningly hard at times. There will be times where you will want to give up, and try to convince yourself that your current situation isn’t so bad, after all - because let’s face it, these kinds of changes are hard work. However, as the cliché goes - nothing worth having comes easy, and that also applies to your peace of mind and happiness. I genuinely hope that anyone reading this that is considering starting over completely - whether that entails moving jobs, cities, or even countries - can use this post as a reference point, and as a reminder that everything will turn out just fine.

Put it this way - if I can navigate two major moves and two major career changes while trying to pattern my then near crippling anxiety, then I have no doubts whatsoever that you can find the confidence and resilience to make whatever changes you need to make to improve your mental health.

Love,

Liv

#selfhelp #Empowerment #confidence

THE BOUNCE BACK - ONE YEAR REVIEW

Happy New Year (and decade)! This is just a quick post to commemorate a new beginning and what the new year will entail for my blog.

In a few days, it will be exactly one year since The Bounce Back launched. It definitely has flown by… probably because I have been AWOL for a large part of the year. However, I can definitely and truthfully state that this blog has been active for a whole year - during my time away, there wasn’t a single day that passed without an idea for a post crossed my mind. I was basically too overworked, exhausted and somewhat lazy to actually put it into writing, but I was definitely on here in spirit.

If you’ve followed my blog from the start, you might remember that one of my first posts was about realistic resolutions, and how to ensure that your goals are actually achievable. My stance on this hasn’t really changed since then, but the biggest difference is that as opposed to other years, I now have a whole blog to set goals and resolutions for.

A lot of the things I want to achieve with my blog are things that I am already doing and want to get better at, as well as post consistency (!). I have narrowed it down to these three concrete goals:

1. I will post 1-2 posts per month (minimum).

One of the biggest challenges last year (feels so weird to say that!) was finding the time, motivation, energy, enthusiasm and inspiration to continue to post as regularly as I did in the first half of the year. There was seemingly always at least one factor missing, and on top of that, there was a lot going on in my life and with my mental health that made my blog take the backseat. However, as previously mentioned, there was not a single day that passed where I wasn’t thinking about my blog - and if I have time to think about it, I definitely have time to write.

To begin with, I will be committing to a minimum of 1-2 posts a month by writing a little bit every day - even if it’s just a few sentences. I have tons of ideas that have just been chilling in my notes since, like, May last year, so this goal is definitely realistic.

2. I will continue to educate myself on different theories, and making my own theories.

Besides the whole bOuNcInG bAcK theme of this blog, I also started it because I really have a whole degree in psychology that I was barely using in my everyday life. I have so much knowledge about the human psyche, mental health and learned behaviours just gathering dust in my mind, and this blog was the perfect solution to not let all this knowledge go to waste. It has also pushed me to do further research into psychological approaches and theories, which I thoroughly enjoy paraphrasing and applying to my own situations in order to educate myself and others.

In addition to this, continuing to educate myself has made me even more analytical, enabling me to combine different theories and approaches in order to properly grasp certain aspects of the concept of mental wellness - hopefully generating my own theories along the way. I will continue to do this by reading more mental health, self-care and spirituality books/articles in my spare time, which I hope will lead to even more educational and articulate posts for myself and my readers.

3. I will continue to be brutally honest and raw about my journey.

Having a safe space to offload my thoughts and feelings has worked excellently in two ways. Firstly, it has done wonders for my mental health. There’s a lot of content on here that I have struggled to verbalise or talk about with someone for a long time, and putting it into writing where I can choose my words carefully has been a massive help.

Secondly, being brutally honest and unfiltered about how things make me feel/have made me feel has given me the knowledge that I am not the only person feeling this way, and therefore never alone. Not only does it warm my heart that there are people out there relating to thoughts and feelings that I thought I was alone with, but the fact that my honesty has literally helped others is more than I ever dreamt of. Although one of my main objectives with this blog was (and still is) to provide advice and guidance to others, I’m genuinely pleasantly surprised that it actually happened, if that makes sense. Ugh, my impact. My mind.... It’s so powerful.

With that being said, I’m really excited for this year in regards to my blog. After reading through all my posts from last year, I can safely say that I have grown and matured a lot emotionally - and I hope that this year will be equally educational and enlightening for all of us.

My first ‘real’ post of the year will be the Confidence Chronicles III post, which I will aim to have out by January 15th at the latest. Until then, I hope you’ve all had a blessed start to this new decade!

Love,

Liv

#goals

“THANK YOU, AND GOODBYE” - MAKING PEACE WITH YOUR DEMONS BEFORE ENTERING 2020

So… here we are, at the end of yet another year. I honestly can’t believe that I will have had this blog for a year in a few days. It feels like just a few weeks ago I submitted my first posts about why New Years resolutions are a scam and how to set realistic goals (both of which I can now say are really poorly written, Jesus Devonté Christ… I’m so grateful for the growth in my writing this year).

Before I get into this post, I should clarify that the next Confidence Chronicles post will be out in mid/late January because I wanted to do a couple of posts acknowledging the end of the year first, and also because I’m sh*t at planning. Additionally, the Confidence Chronicles have been dragging since, like, June... due to life getting in the way and general writers block/laziness - so I’m very sure that waiting a bit longer won’t kill anybody.

Anyways. If you’re lucky enough to have fully sobered up from your Christmas debauchery, chances are that you are (hopefully) taking the time to reflect on how 2019 has treated you, if you achieved your goals, and setting goals for 2020 - preferably in an overpriced and fancy bullet journal that you’ll give up by March at the latest.

I usually love these days leading up to the new year, mostly because I am obsessed with taking the time to give myself closure over the year that has just passed in order to start the new year fresh. Usually I love thinking back on both good and bad situations, thinking about lessons I’ve learned from mistakes and bad choices, and thinking about self-improvements I’d like to make in the upcoming year. In other words, I usually enjoy acknowledging how much I’ve grown in the past 365 days and figuring out ways to maximise my growth in the coming year even more.

The keyword here is “usually”.

This year, however, is very different from past years for two fundamental reasons for me:

2019 really had me f*cked up.

It’s the start of a new f*cking decade and the end of an era.

When I realised the latter around the beginning of November - because, y’know, realising this earlier would’ve been way too easy - my anxiety almost spiralled out of control. This, simply because I didn’t know how to handle the fact that not only had I reached enough of my goals for 2019 to not be disappointed in myself, but it was also the end of the most formative decade of our lives (if you’re around my age, that is). Plus, there was a lot of pain and emotional baggage that I’ve either been too tired or too blind to even acknowledge throughout this whole decade - and I was afraid that I’d not be able to have the blessed 2020 and upcoming decade that I’ve been trying to affirm and speak into existence for myself.

Let me explain.

Think of it this way - if you’re in my age group, the 2010’s represent your mid/late teens to your mid/late twenties. Although the decade excludes your vital childhood years, I think we all can agree that this decade has represented the systematic trials and errors needed to develop into independent and functioning adults. I refuse to believe that there are people my age out there that can honestly say that they weren’t challenged in any way, shape or form during this time - regardless of how privileged or sheltered you have been.

Now, imagine all your own personal trials and errors you have gone through in the past decade - no matter how big or small - and consider how the situations have shaped you into the adult you are today. It can be something as minor as how we can hear the opening chord of a song and immediately burst into tears because it reminds us of someone we’d rather forget, or something major - like how can we get our hearts broken to the extent that it almost ruins us, to gradually healing over time, to finally becoming our old selves again - albeit with emotional scars that change the way you think about relationships forever.

Regardless of the effect the memories have on us, I think it’s important to acknowledge that at the end of the day, we didn’t die, we learnt an important lesson and we wouldn’t be who we were today if it didn’t happen. We should be grateful for these little trials and rough patches, because we are blessed with the skill of adaptation. Once we make an error that big and learn from it, the risks of being in that situation again are drastically reduced. The errors are, in a way, what remind us that life isn’t meant to be easy and constant smooth sailing - we’re meant to have the bad times to be able to grow, challenge and mature our world views. Plus, how would we appreciate the good times if we didn’t have bad times?

With me so far? Awesome, because here comes the heavy part.

I’m not trying to make it come across as if this whole “appreciate the bad times” approach is something I’ve invented - I’m pretty sure this is common knowledge for people my age. We all should know at this point that life isn’t meant to be lived with your head stuck in the past, and that no matter what happens, we should always keep moving forward. The only connection we should have with our pasts are the lessons we have learned, as well as pride and gratitude that we made it through whatever is haunting us alive.

The issue for me is that this isn’t in any way a revelation or an epiphany - I’ve been well aware of this for most of the decade. I’ve known all along that I need to charge my L’s to the game and not let it have any power over me. I’ve been knowing this.

The problem is that getting to a point where life’s curveballs don’t phase me anymore is easier said than done.

The sad reality is that although 2010-2019 contains some of the best times of my life, there were a few experiences that managed to really and truly crush me, and that (despite my acknowledgement of my mistake and growth) still managed to devastate me every time I thought about them. Every time I’d try to be positive and move forward, these memories would rear their ugly heads, forcing me to acknowledge them and to allow them to f*ck me up - time and time again. I can safely say that my inability to not allow the past to ruin my present tainted a substantial part of the decade for me, which would often make me feel like I’m never going to get better, and that love, peace and happiness isn’t in the cards for me.

In other words, I’m painfully aware about what my issues are and what the solution is. But getting to a place where we can even enforce a solution like this takes a lot of strength and a readiness to just let sh*t go - two things that I don’t feel like I’ve had for a long time. For this reason, realising that the decade is coming to an end and that I still have so much unresolved baggage from this decade pushed me to a point of apathy towards the concept that a new year signifies new beginnings. It robbed me of the faith that a new year entails a clean slate and an opportunity to get your sh*t all the way together and to allow yourself to be emotionally and spiritually reborn.

But something happened a couple weeks ago, that I’m positive I will always remember as my last turning point of 2019. I’m a firm believer that everything happens for a reason, and I’m sure that this event occurred so that I could have this epiphany right before it was too late. It’s going to sound so minor, but hear me out.

I was watching random videos and chilling, when I came across a woman called Marie Kondo. You may have heard of her - she is an organising consultant that helps people de-clutter their lives with what she calls the KonMari method, and she uses this method in her show Tidying up with Marie Kondo. The method basically entails gathering all your belongings, one by one, and determining whether they should be kept or not by how much joy they spark within you. If the belonging doesn’t spark joy, you simply get rid of the item.

To understand what captivated me about this method, I need to go into further depth. Kondo’s approach is based in the belief that all our belongings have souls, and carry energies that we have cast upon them over the years of using them. When evaluating whether a belonging sparks joy or not, what really is happening is that we are gauging how the object is corresponding with our own soul and energy - which should result in sparking joy. Upon deciding that an object no longer sparks joy, we are to thank the object for its service to us - before chucking it in the bin.

Thanking an object for its service is meant to mark an official ending of a relationship between two souls, and as someone that places a lot of value in closure, I believe that this process can have a very cathartic effect on us. There’s a very beautiful and poetic sense of finality in this approach, and I think that learning how to let go of stuff we’ve been hoarding over the years enables us to be happier and more relaxed.

Watching Kondo fascinated me, and got me thinking - a lot.

Is happiness really as easy as surrounding ourselves with things that spark joy?

Is leaving bad energy in the past really as simple as thanking it for its service, walking away from it and never turning back?

Does thanking an object for its service before getting rid of it really constitute the concept of closure that we have?

If bad energy in objects can be left behind, what about bad energy in feelings? Past traumas? People we no longer associate with?

After thinking about it extensively, I decided that I would try to apply the KonMari method to my own life - only that instead of purging objects that no longer spark joy, I would use the approach to purge memories that spark the exact opposite of joy. Hopefully, it will serve as a way of no longer letting the past have such a huge impact on my life - allowing me to have the positive, peaceful and happy 2020 and start of the new decade that I know I deserve.

Think of it as an extension to your usual resolution/goals to bring into the new year list. Whilst goals like “lose weight”, “save more money” and “travel more” definitely have their place on the list (for the 10th year in a row… tragic), it is equally important to consider the things that you want to leave behind. No matter how amazing your year has been, there’s always going to be something that weighs on you - big or small. I like to think that making peace with bad things that happened to you and then dumping them in the past - rendering them powerless - must have a positive impact on our psyches.

I’ve decided I’m going to adopt this approach throughout the new year. I’ll tweak it as I go along (because as we all know, healing is not linear and a relapse into momentary sadness is pretty much inevitable), and who knows? If it proves to be an efficient approach, I might just trademark it and become the Marie Kondo of clearing your emotional inventory.

So, without further ado, here are the experiences and feelings that I am ending my relationship with and dumping in 2019 - after acknowledging and thanking them for the lessons they have taught me over the past decade, of course. On New Years Eve, I intend on reading these out loud to myself to make my “re-birth” more ceremonial and official (and because I’m a dramatic b*tch).

Thank you and goodbye to the way I felt when I had my heart broken in the worst way.

It’s actually so mad to think that this whole situation has interfered with almost 8 years of my life now - from meeting him for the first time, to falling in love, to making plans for our future together, to being betrayed, to being left alone in the darkness to figure out where the f*ck I go from here. Usually, the thought of letting a man live rent free in my head and giving him the power to determine whether I am worthy of love, worthy of respect, worthy of affection and determining if I even have the will to live anymore would make me hate myself, but not anymore. Instead, I want to thank him and the circumstances that put me in this mess.

Thank you for this blessing in disguise, because if this hadn’t happened to me, there is little to no way I’d be the independent, strong and resilient powerhouse I am growing into. Reflecting on the relationship, the breakup and the healing made me realise that there’s no logical reason to keep dwelling on the pain, unless it’s for educational purposes (ie this blog). And while the pain has taught me many valuable lessons that are worth keeping, I hereby leave this situation's ability to further hurt me in 2019.

Thank you and goodbye to the toxic situationships/friendships that made me doubt everyone that entered my life.

I’m going to assume that everyone can relate to this to some extent. You become “friends” with someone and let them become a large part of your life, care for them and open up to them - only for them to eventually f*ck you over in some way. Even in situations where it’s extremely clear that you have done nothing wrong and that things happened solely due to them being a sh*tty person, it’s hard to not feel paranoid and let the situation fester and become bitter, convincing yourself that you’re too nice, too understanding and too quick to trust people. Which inevitably leaves you in a position of continuously pushing away people that are genuinely good for you.

I have a feeling that I’ve lost out on what could have been very amazing and healthy friendships, solely because I’ve grown to expect that I’m going to be hurt in some way and therefore figured it’s easier to lock things off before we get too close. However, living life under the assumption that everyone’s out to hurt you is a very tragic way to live, and I’m grateful that I realised this before the new year. Although it will take time to break down my barriers, my intention is to leave feelings of distrust and insecurity in my friendships in the past, start listening to the alarm bells when they come up (!) and to focus my energy, time and attention on the friends that do genuinely want to see me win.

Thank you and goodbye to the bottled up resentment towards my parents.

This one is actually a relatively recent breakthrough. This past decade, my relationship with my parents has been strained, and I have had no idea why we’ve been clashing so much. After numerous hours in therapy and self reflection, it dawned on me that it’s hugely related to my bad experiences that followed after moving to Sweden at such a young age.

I never wanted to move in the first place, and my parents forcing me to readapt in a country and environment in which I deviated so much from the norm made me subconsciously harbour a lot of anger towards them. Obviously, now I can appreciate that they had no idea that things would turn out the way they did and that they did what they thought was best, but it’s hard to just change how I feel about the situation.

There are tons of other reasons why our relationship is strained that I’m not even comfortable sharing on this blog as of right now, but this is definitely one of the larger ones. I am eternally grateful for realising this before the decade ended. Unless it’s for the purpose of a blog post, I refuse to let my experiences define myself or my relationship with my parents anymore. I hereby revoke the power these experiences have over me and my mental wellbeing.

Thank you and goodbye to those who took advantage of my kindness and generosity.

To put it crudely, a lot of people took the absolute piss out of my kindness this decade - literally draining my energy and positivity like parasites. As previously mentioned, I’d often end up hating myself for being too kind, too understanding and too accommodating, and on numerous occasions I’d even quietly vow to myself to be a complete b*tch to everyone that hasn’t earned my kindness. Like a twisted way of protecting myself from more disappointment and pain.

However, it never worked - simply due to the fact that treating people badly until they deserve kindness just never sat right with me. Lately, I’ve realised that there is nothing wrong with me for being continuously f*cked over by people due to my kindness. In fact, kindness and compassion are beautiful, desirable and increasingly rare traits to have (at least in this country), and the issue lies with the person that feels the need to take advantage of my kindness as opposed to me.

Don’t get me wrong - I am not saying that I’m going to continue to let people use me. F*ck that. Instead, I’m shedding the feeling that I’m stupid for being a kind person… along with the people that have been leeching off my kindness for far too long. There’s no space for you demonic lot in my life from now on - and if you for some reason do manage to slither your way into my life in 2020, just know you’re getting cut off with the quickness.

Thank you and goodbye to the feelings of guilt when I put myself first.

This is a bit of a tricky one, because it isn’t really related to anyone else in my life but myself. I’m not entirely sure why, but while I’m a large advocate for putting yourself first and the #selfcare movement that has developed over the past few years, I still feel slightly uncomfortable whenever I do something selfish.

Even if it’s something as simple as a bubble bath treating myself to something nice, there’s always this underlying feeling that I don’t deserve it - and I don’t know why.

Maybe it’s to do with a subconscious notion that I don’t deserve nice things? Or that I’ve simply gotten so used to putting others happiness before my own that caring for myself has become a slightly alien concept? Who knows - I’m sure that the coming decade will provide more than enough time for a breakthrough on the topic.

Until then, I want to express gratitude to these feelings before leaving them behind - because the way I see it, this means that helping others and making sure everyone is okay is in my DNA. And while these traits aren’t a bad thing - as already established - I refuse to let the feelings of guilt creep up on me. In the event that I do find the underlying reason to why I’ve been feeling like this, I hereby revoke the reasons power to negatively affect me in any way, in advance.

Thank you and goodbye to the illusion that others perception of myself, my personality and my appearance in any way determines my worth.

This is quite a generic and widely applicable one. I’m sure that all of us have dealt with insecurities and fear of being perceived in an unfavourable way by others - especially during our teen years.

For me, specifically, this decade has been detrimental for my perception of self worth. Feeling hideous for a large part of this time - as well as constantly trying to please others - really made me feel like a lesser person, and like I constantly needed validation and reassurance from others.

In all honesty, I’ve tried so hard to come up with an aspect of this that I’m thankful about - but I can’t find one. I hate that I’ve spent such a large chunk of my life criticising every aspect of myself and making myself believe that I’m not the beautiful, intelligent, ambitious, hilarious and caring queen that I now know I am. However, I will express gratitude that I came to this realisation before the end of the decade so I can include it in my emotional purging. I will also work hard on forgiving myself for projecting false and skewed perceptions of myself into the world. Now that I know the feelings of insecurity and my own personality not being good enough are all in my head, I hereby promise myself to not attach any weight or meaning to them if they happen to pop up in the future.

Thank you and goodbye to my immense fear of failure.

When I say that I’ve lost track of all my L’s in the past decade - or even year - please understand that it is the understatement of the century. Failing exams, being fired, job rejections, failure to meet goals and fear of disappointing people close to me with my shortcomings have all been recurring themes of this decade.

But guess what - I’m still alive!

So why do I constantly feel anxious that the worst case scenario is always going to happen if I don’t get everything right every. Single. Time? Even when someone authoritative like a teacher, manager or parent tells me to calm down because it’s not the end of the world… I still feel sick to my stomach at the thought of failure.

I’m grateful for this fear, though… because it’s tangible proof that I genuinely care about the outcome. The issue is that instead of letting the fear be a tiny voice in the deepest depth of my head, it usually takes center stage and wiles the f*ck out for what later turns out to be no reason whatsoever.

Thank you for showing me that I do genuinely care about my fate, but this over-the-top fear and anxiety to take an L has to stop. More time it’s not even that deep and I end up learning something valuable - rendering the anxious meltdown obsolete. I hereby revoke the fears power over me, and will from now on try to see failure as a learning opportunity, as opposed to a doomsday scenario.

Thank you and goodbye to the 2010’s - the most amazing, devastating, bizarre, hilarious, scary, depressing and enlightening time of my life (so far).

As much as I have focused on all the mindsets and behaviours that I want to leave behind in 2019, I’d be lying if I said I would have changed any of these experiences for the world, simply because all the things that have been going on all lead me to this point I am at now.

I am ready and willing to loosen the past decades grip on my presence and future.

I am ready to accept that while reminiscing on great and sh*tty times isn’t necessarily damaging, it is important that l always remember to keep moving forward.

I am ready to prove to myself that although my mental health issues are a big part of who I am today, they do not in any way define me.

I am ready to progress into “real” adulthood without the heavy weight of childish insecurities and fears weighing me down.

I am ready to use all the lessons learned during the past decade to make this upcoming year and decade peaceful.

And, most importantly…

I am ready to never let another persons actions drag me into a dark place ever again.

I know it’s going to be far from easy. Whilst stating your intention to move on from painful situations is all good and well, putting this into practice will be extremely hard work. Unlearning toxic behaviours and mindsets takes time, and I’m not naive enough to assume that it will go away overnight.

The most important thing will be keeping my cool, referring myself back to the promises I’ve made to myself in this post, and of course - to always stay positive and keep the faith that everything will work out fine.

Aaand that concludes the final Bounce Back post for this year! I can’t wait to finally write up all my ideas for posts in the new year, and I hope that the first year of this blog has been as helpful for you as a reader, as it has for me.

I hope you’re feeling at peace with how this decade is ending and how you will be entering the new decade. 2020 is the year we all reclaim our happiness and get drowned in the blessings we deserve… I can feel it.

Much love,

Liv

#selflove #Empowerment #goals #selfhelp

THE CONFIDENCE CHRONICLES PART II - CONFIDENCE IN YOUR BODY/APPEARANCE

This is post 2/5 of my “Confidence Chronicles” series, in which I discuss the mindsets, actions and thought processes I’ve applied to build/rebuild my confidence in different aspects of my life. The goal of these 5 posts is for you readers to be able to apply relevant points to your own insecurities in order to combat them, and hopefully aid in building your own confidence over time.

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Before I start...Yes, I am fully aware that it’s been three months since I said I would post more regularly. Yes, things have been shit in my life for a minute, and you probably know that I hate writing when I’m in a bad place. No, I’m not going to address it right now - probably in a future post though.

Cool. Safe. On to the good stuff.

Ever since I started this blog, I knew I wanted to do a post (or even multiple posts!) about confidence in your body, body image and getting to a point where you can look in the mirror and confidently look past your “flaws” and say “yeah… I’m that b*tch”. But truthfully speaking, I’ve been kind of struggling with figuring out how best to approach the subject.

Although I keep reiterating that I write these posts mostly for myself to express my thoughts and feelings on certain topics, I really wanted to make sure that this topic in particular was written in such a way that it can apply to anyone reading it. This, simply due to the fact that the insecurities I’ve battled over the years in relation to my body and appearance made me feel extremely alone, and it took me a very long time to understand and accept that - shock horror - I wasn’t the only one with crippling insecurities that I let limit myself.

Obviously, now this embarrassingly obvious, but I genuinely think that it took me longer to comprehend it due to that pretty much regardless of what situation I’m in, I’m always different to the norm in some way. My skin, hair, build and other physical features have always and probably will always set me apart from my peers regardless of where they are from, and this whole jOuRnEy has been about learning to accept and eventually love these differences and uniqueness. I want everyone reading this to come away from this post feeling the same way - that you, too, can learn how to love every aspect of your appearance regardless of what your “flaws” are, as an effort to boost your confidence and as a fat middle finger to a society that literally feeds off of our insecurities.

I’ll be using my former insecurities and anonymous examples of other people’s insecurities to illustrate my point, and hopefully you can find something that resonates with you and can help change your perspective on your physical appearance and body.

1. Consider taking time away from social media.

Who else remembers when Instagram first launched, and the “popular page” being clogged up with #thighgaps, #thinspo and #fitspo? I definitely do, because it was at this time in my life that my body image was at its absolute worst. I was very young at the time, and although it makes me sick to admit it, I let all those likes on the photos of thin and petite bodies get to my head and made me hate myself and my body for a very long time.

Looking back on it, I try (and fail) to not beat myself up over letting validation through likes, comments and followers ruin my self-esteem to the extent that it did - but what’s important is that I’ve gotten over it now, and I strongly believe it was due to my decision to take an indefinite hiatus from the app. Without the constant reminder that my body deviates from social media’s (often unrealistic) beauty standards, I definitely feel that learning to appreciate and love my body without something to compare it to came naturally, as opposed to feeling forced to just accept it - a mistake that I feel that many people make in the body positivity movement.

For me, putting some distance between myself and beauty standards online has really allowed me to see how harmful, contradictory and negatively influential social media can actually be - big shocker, I know. It’s no wonder that our generation of young women often struggle with extremely negative views of their own bodies - we literally get indirectly (and sometimes directly!) attacked regardless of how we look.

Naturally skinny? Honey, you’re anorexic.

A few kilos overweight? Babes, you are obese and if you don’t stop eating, you will die!!!11!1

Very curvy? B*tch, I know you’ve had work done.

Not curvy at all? Sweetie, you look like a boy.

In other words… we can’t win, and I’m sick of it. Recognizing that I would most likely (definitely) be somewhat affected (completely destroyed) by these beauty standards and peace’ing out early from Instagram is hands down the best choice I’ve ever made in terms of building my confidence. I can definitely say that due to this choice, I can now look at other womens bodies and appreciate the beauty of them, without letting it undermine my own beauty by cOmPaRiNg ThEm.

Who knows - maybe I’ll rejoin Insta one day, now that I know for sure that these illusions of perfection won’t get to me. I’ll keep it real though… considering I can barely manage to post regularly on here/my other socials, it’s probably a no.

2. Ensure that all changes you make are for yourself, and yourself alone.

This is a bit of a sticky one, and I appreciate that not everyone will agree with me on this. Luckily for me, it’s my blog and I can say whatever the hell I want.

Regardless of what your insecurity/insecurities with your body and appearance are, I’m a firm believer that you are 100% entitled to deal with this insecurity in any way that you see fit. This should be a no brainer - you’re the one dealing with the distress of whatever you’re insecure about, so why should you care what anyone has to say with your coping method?

The way I see it, it’s not the actual notion of doing whatever you want to feel secure in your body that causes division, but the actual coping method in itself. On one hand, we have those that are in favour of using ‘quick fixes’ (i.e. surgery) to achieve the body/features you want to have in order to feel secure. On the other hand, we have the gym goers and body positivity activists that adamantly argue that using invasive methods to change your body is a) not body positive at all (some even go as far as saying that surgery has to imply severe body dysmorphia and self-hate), and b) that not opting for changing your body through exercise and a hEaLtHy DiEt is lazy and implies psychological weakness.

Now - I’m really not here to argue about which one is the “right” or “wrong”, because I honestly believe it isn’t as simple as that. It’s important to remember that we’ve all had different experiences in life that have led to our confidence levels being as high or low as they are, so I really don’t understand why we feel the need to comment and judge other people on how they choose to combat their issues.

Do whatever the f*ck you want with your body - as long as you’re doing it for yourself and not for anyone else's satisfaction/validation.

When I say ‘someone else’s satisfaction/validation’, I mean letting yourself be policed by other people’s thoughts and feelings about your body/appearance - or altering your body/appearance in a way for someone else’s benefit than just your own. Yes, completely shutting other people's opinions out when you’re considering making changes is easier said than done - but the earlier you learn how to do this and understand that people are going to have their opinions regardless of what you do, the better.

Personally speaking, I often feel a little sad that I spent most of my teenage years/early 20s worrying so much about other people’s opinions on what I did with my body to boost my confidence - and not even just in terms of working out/staying in shape. The amount of tattoo/piercing/hairstyle/hair colour ideas I felt I had to shoot down because of fear of what my parents, friends, colleagues and mEn would think genuinely breaks my heart a little. I think it’s because I can look back on it and see how my obsession with how others perceived me ended up overtaking my own happiness and self-confidence.

Luckily for me, I now associate myself with likeminded people that agree with and encourage people’s individuality and autonomy over their bodies. The notion of doing whatever floats yer boat and makes you feel good about yourself in this life has now become the centre of attention in all aspects of life - and that includes doing whatever you want to do with your body. I’ll drink to that!

Anyways. Devise a 20h/week workout plan and low carb diet. Save up for the surgery. Cut and dye your hair. Get the piercing that’s always intrigued you, and take it out 2 days later if you don’t like it. You get the point. As long as it’s your life, your body and your appearance, do whatever the f*ck you want, because life really is too short to risk lying on your deathbed and wishing you had taken the opportunity to do something for your own satisfaction while you had the chance.

“But Liv! Telling people to alter their appearance to feel better about themselves isn’t body positive at all! How can you promote such?!”

Again, this section isn’t about blindly accepting your body for what it is if you’re not inclined to do so. Whilst we all ideally would be confident enough to leave our bodies in their natural state and not care, the sad reality is that it is actually really hard for most to just accept it. My point is that we should do whatever we want with our bodies to feel happy and confident, because life really is too short to hate the skin that you’re in and care about what other people think. ¿Entiendes?

(Of course, you should always care about what professionals (e.g. doctors, dieticians, surgeons) have to say - but I’m sure you get that. Do your research and stay safe before making choices, because if you come crying to me I won’t be listening.)

3. There is something very empowering about embracing your “flaws”.

I think everyone can relate to letting their “flaws” and insecurities hold them back in any type of way.

It can literally be anything - not wearing certain outfits/not having your hair parted a certain way/not doing certain makeup looks/not wanting to show a certain body part because someone at some point gave you the idea that it’s uNfLatTeRiNg when you do it, either directly or indirectly. Either way, it is up to you to determine how you react to criticism of this sort. Most of us (myself included) fall into the trap of just blindly accepting it and doing everything within our power to hide/conceal whatever the thing is - no questions asked.

This is where we’re all going wrong, because why do we care so much about what other people have to say about our natural appearance? Why do we let others dictate how we should present our bodies in order to be considered attractive? It don’t make no sense, luv.

I’m really saying all this like I wasn’t relaxing my hair every 3 months, using tons of makeup to conceal my deep set eyes, wearing clothes that didn’t cling to my stomach or hating how hench my thighs and shoulders are, because I wasn’t conventionally beautiful - at least not in the way that Swedish society dictated at the time. Spending a large time of your life convinced that you are ugly and trying to change things about yourself that make you unique is incredibly hard to break away from - but it is definitely possible and I have made amazing progress with this, and I hope you can too.

Basically, you need to force yourself to let go of all notions of what is considered beautiful and start from scratch with your own body as the bench-mark for beauty. You need to regard your appearance without any kind of input or influence from an external source. Without anything to compare to, how can you not find yourself beautiful? It really is that simple.

I’m definitely kidding, by the way. It’s really f*cking difficult - but it gets easier over time. It’s all about how willing you are to be uncomfortable with your appearance for a while until you’ve gotten used to it, and can work towards loving it. For example, when I decided to cut back heavily on makeup, it took an insane amount of time to get used to seeing my chubby face without painted on cheekbones and perfectly angled eyebrows - now I actually prefer my face without makeup. When I decided to start ignoring that my belly is pretty much visible regardless of what I wear, it took so long to stop trying to subconsciously cover it up, but now I wear whatever the f*ck I want - and look sexy af while doing so.

Etc, etc. You get the point.

The way I see it, letting go of the media’s/society’s notion of what beauty is, forcing yourself to get comfortable with the body you’re born into by any means you see fit and learning how to embrace your “flaws” as something positive that makes you unique are the main keys to becoming very confident in your skin. Of course, everyone has different notions of what body confidence entails, and I’m not really here to dispute anyone else’s theories.

As long as you’re learning to love what you see in the mirror, not letting your body be policed/criticised by irrelevant audiences and not trying to make changes for anyone else but yourself - I definitely reckon you’re on the right track to loving yourself in the way that you deserve.

Finally - showing how confident and in love with yourself you are has a positive effect on everyone around you, attracts more positive energy and empowers others to love themselves - this is literally a win-win situation, and I really hope you take the time to build this for yourself.

Love,

Liv

#selfhelp #selflove #Empowerment #goals #opinions

THE CONFIDENCE CHRONICLES PART I - CONFIDENCE IN THE WORKPLACE

First of all… yes, I know I said I’d spend more time writing and have this out a week after my previous post. But to be honest… I say a lot of things, and a lot of those things are pure rubbish. I’m here now, stop crying.

I’m joking, before anyone gets triggered. Life really just kept getting in the way - word to my girl Gabriella Montez. There’s been a lot going on that has had me in my feelings, and as mentioned in earlier posts I don’t particularly like writing when I’m feeling like I want to get hit by a bus. But hey, on the bright side it’s given me loads of topic ideas to write about at a later stage, so, you know… silver linings and that.

Anyways. As mentioned briefly in my previous post, I have decided to do a series of posts entirely dedicated to building your self-confidence in different aspects in life. The series will consist of five slightly shorter “bite-sized” posts, that will outline various methods, mindsets, exercises and thought processes to apply to everyday life - all of which have been crucial to myself in my own confidence jOuRnEy.

I’ve decided to do this series for a whole load of reasons, the main ones being the following:

1. For the first time in my adult life I can genuinely say that I am getting to be comfortable with who I am, what I’m doing and where I’m going (for the most part) - a feeling that I genuinely want others to experience as well.

2. Unlearning years of self-hate, constant self-criticism and your brain telling you that you’re not worthy enough/smart enough/good enough to achieve what you want to achieve is a disgustingly long and heartbreaking task. I really wish I had something to guide me along the way, but I think I’ll find comfort in knowing that someone might read this and not feel as alone during their own process.

3. Although we all have insecurities about different things, that sh*t can really isolate us and make us feel abnormal and alone. I’m hoping that writing about how I overcame/am in the process of overcoming my insecurities will aid in destigmatising these kind of feelings as a whole.

With that being said, my first post in this series will be about confidence in the workplace. Starting with the easy stuff, so to speak.

I realised recently that it’s been quite a while since I’ve given any kind of indication of how work is going, which is actually one of the main reasons why I relocated to London in the first place. My previous posts discuss a lot of the anxiety leading up to it, and my post about giving yourself accolades (again, read it here because it’s some of my best work) discusses how I forced myself to cast my humility aside in my job interview to appear more confident. This post will kind of be an elaboration on this, as I have settled in to my role and have developed this confidence further.

I’ve been at this job for a little over four months now, and a lot has changed since I was sat there in that interview making myself come across as I had Kanye levels of self-confidence and like I wasn’t absolutely bricking it. Despite it probably being the maddest test of my resilience to stress and pressure since exam season in 3rd year, I really am enjoying it in the sense that I am being challenged on a daily basis, I have a lot of freedom in terms of how I organise my work, and I have excellent means to stay motivated to keep working towards a promotion. As far as what I was rambling on about in my interview goes - this is exactly what I wanted from my new role.

However - as I should have anticipated, expectations almost definitely always significantly stray from reality. I think that the largest reason for my confidence wavering a few weeks into the position was definitely due to the shock of how different it was from the expectations I had conjured up in my head, and there was a period of a few weeks where I seriously started to question if I was cut out for this type of work. Consider your girl humbled.

I think the biggest shock was how fast-paced, loud and energised the working environment was - this is obviously a good thing, but considering the way both my mental state and general energy levels have been these past few months I think it’s all just been quite overwhelming, and probably ended up making me feel like I didn’t have the drive and motivation required to be successful within the organisation.

In other words… I was having a bit of a weak-b*tch-with-an-inferiority-complex moment. How embarrassing and sauceless.

Anyways, that’s all over now - I’ve been able to reevaluate my approach to the role and how to tAkE cOnTrOl of my situation by establishing a few things to be mindful of while I’m at work - small things that have really made a big difference for me, and might be able to help you feel more secure and confident in your role, too.

1, Remember that everyone there has been in your position.

So you all know by now that I’m a sucker for clichés - because they’re always true. On my first day at my new job I felt so intimidated by the size of the office, the amount of employees, the fact that my senior sales manager literally sits two desks away from me… literally everything felt so overwhelming. Not necessarily in a bad way, but my mind was definitely in overdrive from the vast amount of information. That, along with my insecurities of being the New Person™ and not knowing anything about the lingual services industry - and having to have a 1on1 meeting with the regional director within 3 hours of being in the office.

What got me through that first week of awkwardness and feeling like a complete idiot was constantly reiterating to myself that I’m definitely not the first and definitely not the last to be in this position, that I will learn tHe RoPeS over time and that we all have to start somewhere. I know this doesn’t sound like a ground-breaking epiphany, but as someone that is used to understanding/catching on to to things very quickly, not knowing what the f*ck was going on definitely swayed my confidence at the time. I used to proper hate being the only person not knowing how things work, and constantly having to ask for help - but I’ve managed to flip it around and make it a confidence booster, instead. This, in the sense that I’ve acknowledged my drive and determination to not be the clueless new person, and to excel within my field by asking loads of questions and forcing myself out of my comfort zone. Doing this successfully has definitely made me more secure and appreciative of my learning abilities, and this confidence definitely hasn’t gone unnoticed by upper management.

This even relates back to points made in previous posts - learning to be kind and patient with yourself and learning to not freak out when you’re not in control of a situation. Additionally, I confidently leaned on one of my main selling points that I discovered when evaluating my suitability for this kind of job - my ability to learn new things fast, and my ability to adapt to a new situation.

Look at me, taking my own advice for once. You know what that is? Growth. I have to stan.

2. Eliminate tentativeness when you communicate with others - regardless of seniority.

This is definitely a psychological aspect of confidence more than anything. Regardless of if you work in a soulless corporation or one of those mOdErN organisations that swears that they don’t have a hierarchical structure, chances are you have a person or multiple people that you report to.

I began to notice that the combination of not being knowledgeable of this industry and now having to report directly to senior managers that have been in the industry for over a decade made me feel very insecure about having to ask for help or even asking questions in general, because I felt that I was wasting their valuable time with things that I felt that I should have known already. As in, really industry-specific things that would’ve been really weird if I had known them at the time.

To combat this feeling, I forced myself to remember that these senior managers - after stripping away their years of experience, industry knowledge and fancy titles - are human as well, and definitely were in my position at some point. Remembering that even the CEO was once a bumbling and confused idiot like myself at one point definitely aided me in seeing the bigger picture - that without investing in recruitment, training and mentoring of new people, the future of the company is literally f*cked. The recognition of this fact definitely almost eliminated my inferiority complex, and I was able to see senior managers as equals with a lot of valuable advice and knowledge, instead of these terrifying looming dementors that were waiting for me to mess up and fire me.

So, how does this relate to eliminating tentativeness when communicating with others?

I’m glad you asked. In corporate settings, internal communication and project coordination is predominantly done over emails, and where I work almost all communications have senior managers in cc in order to provide visibility into what is happening - good or bad. Obviously I could go on for ages about how to feel more confident in having so many high-up people within the company watching your every move, but really and truly there’s only one thing that I’ve been doing that I feel is worth mentioning:

I removed the word “just” from my vocabulary.

That is, in the context of when I’m asking a question or asking for help, e.g.:

“I’m just wondering if…”

“I’m just double checking that…”

“I just wanted to ask…”

If you read those beginnings of sentences out loud, you’ll probably hear that using the word “just” inserts a sense of tentativeness, submissiveness and insecurity in one's own knowledge. Furthermore, it makes you come across as apologetic for doing your job properly or asking questions - which is obviously ridiculous.

I’m know that removing the word “just” from my vocabulary probably has little to no effect on how upper management sees me, but that’s not really the point here. The point is that when I make a conscious effort to not utilise the word, I’m very self-aware in the sense that I’m choosing to come across as more assertive and confident - which has lead me to feel more comfortable when I’m communicating with those higher up in the organisation than me.

It’s a very small change, but it has definitely affected my confidence and assertiveness in my role. The power of a simple word, eh? The mind boggles.

3. Evaluate exactly what you want to get out of this job, and do something every day that will get you closer to this goal.

This is definitely the most important point for me. For the first time in my life, I’m in a job that I genuinely see myself staying at and progressing within - and there’s plenty of opportunities, concrete targets and support to keep me motivated enough to keep grinding towards a promotion. I genuinely want to excel within the company (at least for the time being - who knows how I’ll feel a few months down the line?), and the feeling of being sure of that has made me a lot more confident alone.

Of course, not everyone is at a stage in their career where they feel like a promotion within the company they work for is the ultimate goal. The fact of the matter is that some jobs are solely means to an end for other unrelated goals, like saving up for something or to get work experience for the job you actually want. Either way, I strongly believe that knowing the purpose for even going to work every day in the first place gives you this deep-rooted determination, motivation and resilience to workplace bullsh*t that ends up manifesting itself as confidence.

Put it this way - if you know exactly what you are working towards in this specific role, there really shouldn’t be anything that can sway you from achieving this (assuming that you want it enough). Going into work on at least a majority of days (because let’s face it, sometimes you just want to have a chill at work) with a mission of doing something that will get you closer to your goal will not only help you stay focused on completing the tasks, but will also give you the ability to not let minor conflicts and “hiccups” along the way get to you. Trust me, you won’t even have the energy to worry about what other people are doing - and personally speaking, being this set in your own lane does wonders for feeling insecure.

Of course, it is slightly difference for those who aren’t entirely sure what their next move is, and that are doing a job for the sole purpose of paying bills and staying fed. I feel that a lot of people - myself in the past included - let the lack of direction really get to them and end up in a very destructive rut of just existing without finding their purpose, and letting it break down their self-esteem along the way. However, I honestly feel that being in this kind of position can - and should - be seen as an opportunity for growth and fInDiNg YoUrSelF outside of work. Yes, figuring out what you want to do is incredibly daunting, but I think that we often make the mistake in assuming that the path we choose is the path we have to stay on for the rest of our lives. No pressure.

With that being said, working a job you don’t care about can still be empowering and confidence-boosting in the sense that you know for a fact that once you know what you want to do, you can easily just walk away from it without feeling that you’ve made a mistake. There is something very powerful in knowing that you can just drop everything and leave at any second as soon as you’ve had enough of it, and I’ve even promised myself to apply this to my current job if I ever change my mind about it. Life’s too short to do sh*t you don’t want to do.

Anyways, there you have it - three mindsets that I’ve applied to my career plans that have made me feel a lot more confident when making decisions in the workplace. Hopefully you’ve been able to take something away from it, and that you know that you’re capable of achieving anything you wish to pursue career-wise if you’re willing to put in hard work, and committed to being happy with the direction your life is going.

Love,

Liv

#selflove #selfhelp #Empowerment

4 WAYS TO HAVE A HAPPY AND HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP (AS TOLD BY A SINGLE CYNIC)

Oh hey there. I’m back at it again with the consistency, now that things are back to normal(ish). I feel like I’ve had enough of being sad and unproductive, so I’m ready to spend my free time actually writing again. You’re all welcome.

Now that I’ve actively made the decision to stop dwelling on stuff that I can’t change (after taking advice from my own posts - imagine that!), I’m pleased to say that post ideas are really just attacking me left right and centre: so I’ll be able to deliver my wisdom on a semi-regular basis at the very least. For example, next week I’m starting my self-confidence project, which will be a series of posts covering how to find confidence in different aspects of life based on my own self-confidence jOuRnEy. Cringe, I know, but definitely worth writing about and something that I feel a lot of people can take away something from.

Anyways - todays topic is going to be about relationships. Namely, how to set yourself up to have a happy, healthy, supportive, empowering, stress-free one that genuinely adds something valuable to your life (as opposed to headaches and nonsense that I feel like a lot of people are going through in their relationships right now).

I know what you’re thinking.

“But Liv! I swear all your relationships crashed and burned - how the hell does that make you qualified to talk about relationships that’ll last?”

First of all, step off my neck because I really don’t recall asking for your input.

Secondly, you do have a point - but not for the reason your smart ass thinks.

If you’ve followed my blog from the beginning, you might remember that I stated in my intro post that one of the main reasons I started this blog was for me to have an outlet for my thoughts and feelings during the healing process after a pretty bad breakup (read it here). I’ve been very open about how the breakup has affected me (and still does, to a certain degree), and spent a lot of time reflecting on the situation, what went wrong, where I went wrong and what I can take away from what happened to be able to bOuNcE bAcK from it.

All this time reflecting and critically analysing the situation leads me to believe that I genuinely have unique insight into how and why some relationships end up going to sh*t, and what not to do the next time my dumb ass decides to fall for somebody. I’ve also found comfort in realising that despite all the pain it caused me, it truly has taught me invaluable lessons about perceptions of self-worth, self-love and independence from validation from others.

Before I get to my gems of wisdom, I just want to get a few disclaimers out of the way. Firstly, I should say from the get-go that this post will be geared towards straight and bi women that have been involved with men, as that is all I can truly speak on. With that being said, I’ve tried to keep it as gender-neutral as possible, and I do believe that there are certain points that will be relevant to all genders and sexualities, so hopefully all that read this can find at least something they can see sense in.

Secondly, I would like to reiterate that all views and opinions here on The Bounce Back are 100% my own, based on my own research and own life experiences. If you’ve read my previous posts you probably already know that I’m really and truly just winging it in this life and writing about what I believe to be correct based on my own opinions. I am by no means a mental health professional or life-coach, so please apply sense before taking what I say literally. Because if you ruin your life by following advice that isn’t relevant to you…. I’m not involved. Sorry.

With that out of the way, please continue reading if you want advice on how to make your current or future relationship bang.

1. Understand that you do not need anybody.

Oh sweetheart. Did you really think I was going to do a post about how to tantalise your man/girl/wcw/mcm/fwb/love interest/potential/whatever you want to refer to them as into falling head over heels in luuuurve with you? You must be new here, or very, very delusional.

Regardless of if you’re in a relationship, situationship, happily single or have an icebox where your heart used to be (...so cold), I think it’s imperative to wrap your head around that while the thought of a significant other might be nice to some, it is absolutely not by any means a necessity for you to be happy and successful in this life. And if you haven’t figured out your own aspirations, goals and dreams, I’d even go as far as saying that relationships can be a source of severe distraction.

Don’t get me wrong here - despite how it may seem I really do love love, and I’m very romantic. It will take a lot more than a couple bad breakups for me to not believe in relationships. The point I’m trying to make is that without a strong sense of self, your own aspirations and being secure in your beliefs is a sure-fire way to risk getting into a relationship that ends up doing more harm to your mental health than good. The way I see it, the attitude to have towards relationships is being secure in the knowledge that you don’t need them, but that you want them in your life. The relationship should be a choice, and not a necessity or a psychological/emotional crutch.

Of course, it’s really easy for me to tell you to not get into a relationship until you have your mental and emotional sh*t together based on all this ~*experience*~ I now have - but trust me, I know this is so much easier said than done. Tantalising human beings really just pop up out of nowhere sometimes, and at the end of the day we can’t help who we’re attracted to (unfortunately). One thing leads to another, and boom - suddenly you’re 4 months deep into a situationship when you swore you were done with dAtInG. I hear you loud and clear.

The truth is, life really comes at us fast, and I’m not enough of a cynic to tell you to face front and disregard the opportunity to get to know someone that intrigues you. However - what I will tell you is that entering a situation when you’re still trying to find yourself (as cringe as it may sound) has the potential to be detrimental to your mental health. This, in the sense that you run the risk of placing a lot of your self-worth and self-identity in your relationship with this person, and end up having this desperate need for validation from someone other than yourself.

I can confidently say that I have been on both ends of the spectrum in this case, and I know that a lot of people in my age range can relate to this, too. Hear me out.

I think many of us have been in a situation where the person we like just seems so perfect and amazing in every thinkable way, that we end up - very unfairly - putting them on a pedestal and almost idolising them, for lack of a better word. I think this is especially common in teenage relationships, or first relationships in general. Becoming this addicted to somebody - regardless of how “good” or “bad” they are for you or how “good” or “bad” they treat you - will almost definitely end up hurting you if you haven’t established your sense of self-worth by yourself. The fear of them finally realising that they’re “better” than you and leaving, the fear of them meeting someone better than you and ending things (or worse, cheating), the way you start hating yourself because you don’t feel good enough for them. The list goes on. I feel like most relationships like these almost always end up in heartbreak, or at the very least are very dysfunctional, because why is the only thing you have going for yourself the fact that you are someone’s significant other (or less)?

I say this… but I get it. Being completely blindsided by someone isn’t abnormal - it gEtS LiKe ThAt sometimes. However, it is up to you to determine how far you are willing to let this infatuation consume you.

Then there’s the other end of the spectrum - the relationship where everything feels too good to be true. Those relationships that make you slowly but surely start visualising the life you could have with this person. They become the first person you tell good and bad news to. Assuming that they will always be there becomes second nature because they make you feel safe and secure, and whenever you’re faced with an important decision, your immediate thought is how this is going to affect them and your relationship.

If you’re into monogamy and “traditional” relationships, this would be the person you see yourself spending the rest of your life with and building a future with. In an ideal world, this person ends up moving past the significant other stage and takes on the role as your life partner - the person you settle down and have kids with, travel the world with, start a business with, grow old with… whatever floats your boat and constitutes your “happily ever after”, really.

But as we all know, this world is far from ideal. These seemingly perfect relationships that you’re convinced are going to last forever aren’t immune to f*ckeries either, unfortunately. There are infinite reasons as to why they end up falling apart that I’m not even going to get into - because it doesn’t even really matter. In my opinion, these kind of breakups are far more lethal than a simple case of breaking up over infidelity, incompatibility or outgrowing each other, simply because they’re the biggest mindf*ck.

One second you have your whole future planned out (or at the very least know that that person is going to be there), then suddenly that whole dream is gone. Aaaand cue the inevitable heartbreak.

I say inevitable, because coming out from a long term relationship and realising how much of your goals, aspirations and plans for the future were directly or indirectly intertwined with the assumption that you would last forever is genuinely soul crushing, and I’m not even being dramatic. I wouldn’t wish that sh*t on anyone. The feeling of going from having your life somewhat figured out to suddenly being alone and directionless is extremely hard to put into words: it’s just something I don’t think you can fully grasp until you’ve been through it, healed from it and learned from it. If you haven’t been through it, count yourself lucky and pray you’ll never have to.

So, to bring this back to the main point - there is no chance in hell that I will ever allow myself to be in a situation where my whole life, happiness and mental health is in any way dependent on someone else ever again, and I’d recommend you doing the same. Making sure that you have your own life, plans, goals, mental health, confidence and issues sorted out before entering a relationship puts you in a position of power and gives you something to fall back on, because you’ll know in the back of your head that regardless of how things work out - you’ll be alright.

2. Ensure you’re actually in love with yourself.

As you probably know by now, I’m a sucker for clichés, and especially this one:

You can’t love anyone else until you love yourself.

It genuinely sickens me when I think back to times when I didn’t understand this, because I now see how unhealthy the situation was. I’ve been in a position where I literally felt that I loved someone more than myself, because I put them on that previously discussed pedestal and made my entire life about them. At the time, I obviously didn’t realise how damaging this was to me because I never even clocked that all the mental health issues I was going through at the time were all linked to this very unstable and unhealthy basis for a relationship. This, in the sense that all my insecurities became amplified by the fear of losing him.

Whenever we argued about something minor, my immediate fear was that he’d think I’m tOo MuCh, and leave me for someone that’s less of a headache.

Every time his phone lit up, my immediate fear was that he was talking to some other b*tch.

Whenever we went out and saw some other girl he used to be involved with (which is pretty much inevitable when you’re in uni), my immediate fear was that he was thinking that he’d made a mistake by choosing me over hEr.

Let me stop there before I die of first hand embarrassment. Of course, now it’s painfully clear to me that I had no business being involved with someone when I was too insecure to function and my perception of self-worth was so obviously lacking. In my defence I was young and still thought that validation, affection and attention from men was necessary to survive in this life. Let’s all laugh together, please.

Bringing this back to the cliché at the beginning of this section, I can’t stress how disgustingly true this is. The way I see it, you really do have to love and appreciate every aspect of yourself - even the “bad” stuff - before even thinking about being in a relationship with someone else. If you’ve read my other posts, you’ll know that I’m a firm believer in being simultaneously kind and brutally honest with yourself about what you need to do to get your sh*t together so you can strengthen your self-love.

Of course, there are millions of ways to build yourself up to a point of f*cking with yourself 100%, and different methods work for different people and blah blah blah. You know this already. However, since you’re here reading my blog, I can only assume that you’re dying to know how I’ve built up my confidence and love for myself, so listen/read carefully.

The pedestal I’ve put countless undeserving mcm‘s on in the past is now fully reserved for myself, and myself alone.

I’ve forced myself to put myself on that pedestal, because I’ve realised that I need to fully understand that I am the prize. I am the one that people should count themselves lucky to have in their lives. I am the sh*t, and I’m way too f*cking amazing to have to deal with someone that makes me feel even a smidgen less than that.

Now, I touched on this topic in my post about giving yourself accolades (if you haven’t read it yet read it here, it’s one of the best posts I’ve ever written), and knowing the difference between confidence and arrogance - so I won’t go into too much detail here. Yes, me talking myself up and flexing on all of you might come across as arrogant, but this is untrue - arrogance would mean that I see myself superior to others, which is hardly the case. My genuine wish is that everyone reading this begins to think about their achievements and realise that they, too, are deserving of being the highest regarded person in their own lives. Celebrating successes with my equally hardworking and driven friends is definitely my favourite pastime, as well as stunting and shining. F*ck being humble, we can all win.

But seriously - I highly recommend bigging up yourself every day and forcing yourself out of the shackles of humility. It might feel weird at first, but I definitely started to notice that the more I forced myself to speak highly of myself, the more I began to realise that I am the only person I’ll literally be with for the rest of my life, so I might as well love the sh*t out of myself. I’ve come so far on this, and I can’t wait to write about it in detail during my confidence project. I definitely love and regard myself as the most important person in my life now, but I still have a long way to go in terms of being my own biggest fan. It’s definitely a challenge, but the rewards...whew chile.

Obviously, everyone has off days. There will always be the occasional moment where you feel like sh*t and doubt yourself and your abilities - however, it’s up to you to not allow these moments to cripple you and get in the way of winning. Of course, after the breakup I let myself feel like this for an embarrassingly long amount of time, and my self-worth was almost entirely based in the fear that I’d never find someone that would put up with all my “sh*t” again. It took a long time for me to realise that the “sh*t” I put people involved with me through isn’t actually sh*t at all - they’re standards.

Deep it, though. I used to feel bad about having standards, and an idea of how I would like to be treated in a relationship. Do you realise how sad that is?

Anyways - that’s definitely in the past now. I’ve gotten to love myself so much that as soon as I notice that I’m not getting the energy I deserve from someone I like, it’s curtains because I can’t come and kill myself for attention. I can proudly say that I no longer give a f*ck about who enters and exits my life, because I have myself and that is all I need.

To bring all this back to relationships in general, I’d like to bring the cliché “you attract the energy you put out” into the mix. If you’re single and are very insecure about yourself for whatever reason, I can almost guarantee you that you’ll either attract parasitic trash that will take advantage of your insecurities, or the equally bad self proclaimed “Nice Guy™” that will be all sweet to you, but secretly finds joy in drip feeding validation to women with low self-esteem. All because they can’t handle strong women. I have to laugh.

However, if you carry yourself like you know you’re That B*tch - which you are - I promise that you’ll see a difference in the type of people you attract. When I made up my mind that I’m the only person in my life that deserves unconditional love - thus changing the energy that I put out - I definitely noticed a shift in the people I associate myself with, and this is both in terms of platonic friends and otherwise.

I could definitely write a whole post about this, but I’ll keep it short. I realised that some people were only really interested in being in my life due to how insecure I was, and how easy it was to walk all over me. It’s actually quite comical, because as soon as I became more assertive, they either slowly but surely peaced out from my life or started talking sh*t about how I’ve cHaNgEd.

All because they couldn’t handle me now that I’m stronger. Again, I have to laugh.

On the upside, though, my real friends and new people I meet genuinely love how secure and confident I’ve become, and they motivate me to grind even harder and elevate even more than I already have. The bottom line is that it is this type of person you want to attract, f*ck the rest. And then when you decide you’re ready to share your awesomeness with someone else, you’ll be able to easily determine who is deserving of it.

This advice can also be applied to those of you who are already in a relationship, too. Of course, ideally you’re already with someone that motivates and elevates you, you already carry yourself like you’re all that, and you don’t even have problems with insecurities. However, let’s say for argument's sake that you do have insecurities about yourself and the relationship, and you sometimes doubt that this person is right for you.

Shift your worries and attention away from your s/o, and work on combating your own insecurities and demons - because at the end of the day, you can’t force someone else to change. When you’ve gotten to a point of higher self-esteem, I think that the relationship can go one of two ways:

1. Your s/o loves that you’ve become more secure in yourself, applauds you for becoming a stronger person without their validation, and the connection between you becomes even deeper. They love the fact that you have set yourself straight, that you have a life and aspirations outside of them, and might even find motivation to improve themselves after seeing you thrive.

2. Your s/o finds great discomfort in the fact that you’re now more assertive and secure, and subtly tries to drag you back down to a state of submissiveness and insecurity. This, because they knowingly or unknowingly need to feel that they are superior to their partner, or because they have a need to feel needed by somebody else.

Of course, this is overly simplified for the purpose of me making a point - it’s not going to be as black and white as this. All I can really say is that you need to pay close to attention to how your s/o reacts and how your relationship shifts once you become more assertive. If you notice that the relationship takes a shift towards the latter point, then I suggest you seriously evaluate whether the relationship is worth fighting for or not.

Spoiler alert: it isn’t. Relationships aren’t meant to be psychological torture, and your s/o is trash for trying to hinder your emotional wellbeing. Dump them and find someone that’s actually worthy of you.

3. Understand that you shouldn’t have to change for anybody.

I find this one rather funny, because I feel like this is definitely advice that mums in coming-of-age rom coms give their sullen teenage daughters who are crying their eyes out over some wasteman that treats them like crap. Then the next scene cuts to the girl rolling up to school wearing something ridiculous and not at all what she’d usually wear and acting different - all because she she’s in lOvE. I’m looking at you, Sandy from Grease.

I’m getting carried away, but you know what I mean. What’s even funnier is that I don’t know a single girl that hasn’t gone through something like this in real life - myself included. The amount of us that would try to dress different, act different, look different, listen to music that we hated and watch movies/tv-shows we found dumb just for some useless boy to notice us and like us back is actually astounding and extremely tragic (in my defence… he had a nose ring). If you didn’t succumb to this kind of embarrassing behaviour when you were younger, I genuinely hope you are enjoying the view from your high horse, and I’m also really sorry that your teenage years were sh*t and boring.

All jokes aside - I can’t stress enough how important it is to realise that unless you are an actual axe murderer or clinically insane, you shouldn’t have to change a single thing about yourself for anybody. I’m a firm believer of a notion that a healthy relationship should put you in a place where you wouldn’t mind making changes for your s/o, but at the same time being secure in the knowledge that they would never want you to change. Of course, if somebody you’re interested in gives you genuinely great and constructive advice on how to change something about yourself that you know needs changing, this a completely different story and not at all what I’m referring to in this case.

I’m referring to the cases in which you fall for someone who seems amazing in every way when you get to know them, to the point that you become afraid of losing them. So afraid, that when they start spewing rubbish about how you laugh too loud/dress too provocatively/talk too much/whatever other nonsense they can come up with, you allow it and actively try to suppress certain aspects of yourself to make sure they won’t leave.

First of all, this is extremely manipulative and bordering on emotional abuse. Secondly - although I fully understand the whole being so tantalised by someone that you become Ray Charles to their bullsh*t thing - you need to take a step back from the situation and ask yourself whether they really and truly like you if they’re trying to change everything about you that makes you, you. Best case scenario is that you deep that you’re obviously not compatible, and worst case scenario is that you’ve become involved with an emotionally abusive and controlling bastard that can - in the literal sense - ruin your life.

Thinking about all this makes me think about the first time I heard the poetry in the beginning of Lemonade, and how triggering it was to be able to relate to it to a certain extent:

I tried to change.

Closed my mouth more.

Tried to be softer,

Prettier,

Less awake.

Fasted for 60 days,

Wore white.

Abstained from mirrors.

Abstained from sex.

Slowly did not speak another word.

All that for a man you know, f*cking hell. I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I fasted for 60 days or abstained from anything, but it’s the general notion of subduing certain personality traits that I want to focus on here. In my case, I’m very aware that my energy, vibe and sense of humour (amongst other aspects of my personality) isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. Now that I’m older and more secure in myself I have learned to accept to not take it personally when new people I meet aren’t on the same wavelength as me, but when I was younger I really used to take that sh*t to heart. I remember being convinced that I was an annoying little sh*t, and I was constantly watching what I said, not speaking my mind and holding back my hilarity - simply because I didn’t want people I was interested in to think I was too much.

Imagine I used to literally cry myself to sleep because I was convinced that nobody would want me if I didn’t hold back my full madness. Not really sure if I want to die of embarrassment or laugh. Probably both.

Of course, now I know for a fact that I’m an annoying little sh*t, and I’m actually very pleased that I’ve gotten to a place where I can fully accept that. I’ve noticed that ever since I’ve been unapologetically myself, I’ve attracted people that genuinely enjoy and appreciate the full extent of my wisdom and hilarity - platonic friends or otherwise. I actually dare someone to even imply that there’s something about the way I am that they don’t like, and think I should change. I really, really, really wish someone would, because I haven’t had a good laugh in a while.

Anyways, I’ve definitely gone off topic. To round up this section, the point I’m trying to make is that I believe that you should never settle for someone that doesn’t love every single part of your mind and personality before you pursue a relationship with them. Yes, I’m aware that it takes time to get to know someone to that extent, and that’s exactly my point. I feel that many people (myself in the past included) often make the mistake of forcing and/or rushing a connection with someone simply due to the initial attraction that made them want to get to know the person in the first place.

This is problematic in the sense that if you rush into something with someone based on physical attraction alone, more likely than not you’ll soon realise with time that there are certain aspects of that person that you find… unappealing, to put it lightly - and vice versa. Now you’re in a situation where you either pray that the person will cHaNgE fOr YoU, or you go out of your way to force the person to change their ways to be someone that you like better - i.e. not them.

Yes - this works both ways. Just like you have the right to shut anyone who tries to make you change something about yourself down, other people are allowed to not want to pursue something with you if they realise that you’re not compatible. Shocking and upsetting news, I know. I don’t make the rules.

For this exact reason, I am personally not inclined to force or rush anything with anyone, regardless of how tantalising and sweet they may seem. My next relationship will be based on a mutual and in depth understanding of both mine and my s/o’s compatibility and personalities, as well as emotional intelligence and intellectual stimulation. That is by force, because I refuse to put myself through another extended headache, or by feeling like I’m having to hold myself back for them to accept me. Life is way too short for sh*t relationships, and this exactly why I believe that the “talking stage” should not be rushed. No one wants to be surprised by deal-breaking opinions, behaviours or mannerisms six months deep into a relationship - so where is the rush?

Anyways. The bottom line is that you shouldn’t have to change for anyone, and no one should have to change for you. There’s sOmEoNe OuT tHeRe FoR eVeRyOnE - don’t let your fear of being alone force you into something that you later on realise you don’t even want.

4. Know that if all else fails - you will be fine.

I’ve put this point at the end because I think it ties together all the takeaways from the previous point real nice-like. Of course, there are infinite reasons as to why relationships end up fizzling out, but this is even irrelevant to the point I’m trying to make.

The reason why I’ve written so extensively about how important it is to understand that you don’t need anyone else’s attention and validation to be happy, how important it is to f*ck with yourself 100% and understanding that you are amazing just the way you are is because I didn’t have anything like this to read when I was at my lowest. I really had to figure all of this out for myself, and although I’ve definitely learned a lot and changed for the better - it still took a massive and painful toll on me emotionally and mentally, and I wouldn’t wish that on anyone.

For me, learning how to be comfortable with being alone, learning how to love myself inside out, realising my immense worth and putting myself first in all aspects of my life really has given me the ability to say that regardless of what life throws at me - relationship-wise or otherwise - I will be okay. I am strong. I am smart. I am f*cking amazing, and everyone that has or has had anything to do with me is truly blessed.

My genuine wish is that my openness and honesty about how I got through a really (for me) emotionally devastating time will help others that might be able to relate to certain aspects of it, or that need empowering to believe that they are capable of building their self-love, resilience and self-confidence.

I think the main point I want to bring focus on in this section is the changes I made to my life to make myself independent of anyone else’s validation and life. When I was forced to reevaluate my life goals and aspirations (since they were very much dependent on the assumption that my ex would be in my future), I took extra care to ensure that they benefited me and me alone. Once I had realigned them and began to grind for my own damn self, I quickly realised that I’ll never be able to go back to a state of dependency or submissiveness ever again.

And that, beloved, is exactly how I know that my next relationship - whenever it comes along - will be A1. I say this with vim, because now I know exactly how I deserve to be treated and loved. I am physically, mentally and emotionally unable to accept anything less than what I know I deserve. Furthermore, all this newfound self-love has empowered me to be a better partner to whoever is lucky to end up with me. You see the motivation, support, intellectual stimulation, peace of mind and non-stop laughter they will get? Whew chile. My babes will enjoy.

So - regardless of if you’re in a (hopefully) happy relationship, happily single, still healing or looking for your Johnny/Caro - I hope that there is at least something you can take away from this post and apply to your life to be able to contribute to your happiness, confidence and mental wellbeing.

Or maybe this whole post was a waste of time and energy, because then again - what do I know firsthand about successful relationships? Zilch. I really could just be chatting sh*t - it wouldn’t be the first time.

Anyways, I can’t come and kill myself. I’ll let you be the judge of if I’m talking sense or not.

Love,

Liv

#Empowerment #selflove #opinions #love

“F*CK A FAKE FRIEND, WHERE YOUR REAL FRIENDS AT?” - 4 WAYS TO EVALUATE YOUR FRIENDSHIPS

So… These past few weeks have been a bit (a lot) of a rollercoaster.

As you know from my previous post, I haven’t been doing very well lately on the mental health front lately, and I definitely needed to take a step back from blogging - just to place my focus on sorting myself out and getting back on track again. I do feel a bit better now - the way I was feeling in terms of getting bad news has kind of worn off, I’ve let myself process things emotionally, and things have been going well at work despite everything. Things are feeling a bit more positive and I’m starting to feel like myself again, little by little.

The most important aspect of these tough few weeks, though, has been something that’s been on my list of things to write about since I started this blog - friendships. Namely, how imperative it is to ensure that the people you associate and surround yourself with have your best interests at heart, genuinely f*ck with you and want to see you win, that you know without a shadow of doubt will be there for you when times are rough, will g-check you when you’re moving mad and that will defend you when you’re not there to speak for yourself.

It’s actually a bit funny, because before this little slump I was actually going to do a post about this, but I was struggling with how I was going to go about writing this post and still keep it positive. I feel like the past year or so has left me with a lot of examples of how to not treat people you swear are your friends, and I was trying to think of ways to keep it upbeat and not… well… a petty post full of scathing and unconstructive indirects. In that sense, this slump came at a great time because now I genuinely have positive examples from my actual friends that actually care about me to draw upon. I also get to write this post as a follow-up to my previous post, which means I can put another snazzy Drake lyric as the post title. Happy days.

With that being said, the purpose of this post is to evaluate and discuss the characteristics of a genuine friendship (by my standards, that is), how to deal with fake friends, and - in true Bounce Back spirit - evaluate myself as a friend and be honest with myself about what I need to improve upon to be able to be the support system the people in my life deserve.

Consider whether you’re even compatible as friends.

This is a bit of a funny one, because it really does seem like a no-brainer. But I think there are so many aspects to compatibility as friends besides the obvious liking each others vIbE and sharing the same sense of humour.

Firstly, compatible friendship styles are extremely crucial for a friendship to work. By this, I’m referring to how “hands-on” or “hands-off” the friendship is. For example, some people like to be in constant contact with their friends over texts, calls, FaceTime, social media and then linking up every week on top of that. Meanwhile, some people are content with a monthly check in and waiting to have a big catch up when they finally have time to link up in person.

There really isn’t any “right” or “wrong” style of friendship, as I see it. The hard part is identifying and making friends with people that are the same as you, so no one ends up getting frustrated with the overload/lack of effort. Personally, I have been a very hands-off friend since I was young. I’ve never really liked constant texting and hanging out, because it rarely leaves you with anything of substance to talk about if you’re constantly in touch. I’ve always had this understanding that people - including myself - need time to themselves and sometimes are too busy to talk, so I generally try to check in with my friends every now and again or even leave them alone until we finally can meet up and have a fat catch up.

Some may see it as antisocial and me being a lazy friend, and some may see it as extreme interpersonal awareness and maturity beyond my years. I’m inclined to go with the latter.

All jokes aside, I know that this approach to friendships isn’t the best one to have - especially while growing up. I’m painfully aware that I’ve probably lost out on a lot of good friendships, and I used to feel really bad when I’d get scathing messages about not being a good friend because I “never reach out” - which at that time meant that we hadn’t spoken in two days. Shock horror.

However, as I approach my mid-20s, I definitely think that having this friendship style works for me now. My friends have their own lives, jobs, relationships, responsibilities and kids (!) to focus on, so now there’s more of an understanding as to why talking every single day isn’t optimal. Hell, I even live with one of my closest friends and we sometimes don’t speak for days because we understand and respect that space and time alone is needed at times. With that being said, I sometimes make the mistake in assuming that friends I haven’t spoken to in a while ~magically~ know that I would drop everything for them in a heartbeat if they needed me - definitely something I need to reiterate to them more often.

Another important aspect of compatibility is considering how and why you became friends in the first place - as in, what’s the common denominator between you? Also, would the friendship even still be there if this common denominator is removed?

Personally, I found that a lot of friendships that I formed in my teens and early 20’s in relation to sports, college, uni and work were almost entirely reliant on that common denominator. All conversations, banter and the occasional whine and moan would be surrounding this common denominator, too. This doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing, as long as you are clear on what it is and don’t expect things to get much deeper than that - unless you’re willing to make the effort to make it so. However, I’ve found that sometimes it’s better to just leave it at what it is - especially with friends you met in school as a kid/teen.

I say this because when I moved back to UK from Sweden for uni, I had a few friends that I genuinely considered my closest friends. For the first few months after I moved, we were skyping pretty much every day and keeping in touch on every single aspect of our lives. They even flew over to visit me a few times, and whenever I’d go home to Sweden we’d meet up for drinks and a catch up or whatever. However, as time went on and we grew up, it soon became clear that we literally have nothing in common anymore outside of us going to school together. It was quite sad when I first realised that we had grown apart, but now I can confidently say that once you understand that growing apart doesn’t necessarily mean the loss of a relationship or invalidation of the good times and memories, you won’t feel as bad about focusing your energy on people that are more relevant to your current life situation. Furthermore, it definitely doesn’t mean you have to stop talking to them - they just aren’t the first person you reach out to anymore.

To summarise, friendship compatibility is a very important thing to consider. No one likes feeling like a burden for reaching out/like a piece of sh*t for replying slowly, and no one likes the feeling of trying to force a friendship when there simply isn’t much substance there anymore. This kind of stress really used to mess with my anxiety, so take the time to make sure your efforts - or lack thereof - are matched.

Pay close attention to how conflicts and arguments are resolved (if at all).

Let me start by making it very clear that wanting to clart your friends in the jaw at times doesn’t mean that you aren’t good friends.

At the end of the day, we’re all very different people with opposing opinions, values and ideas. That’s what makes relationships interesting and blah blah blah. You’ve probably heard that before. The most important thing here is respecting each others views and striving to have a calm, collected and civilised conversation, and being able to accept that not everyone will agree with you.

It really is that simple, but for some reason people love to make it unnecessarily complicated for no f*cking reason whatsoever.

As someone that genuinely enjoys a healthy debate/argument and learning to see things from different perspectives, it honestly perplexes me when “friends” deliberately commit themselves to misunderstanding, twisting and disrespecting points that they don’t agree with. I really don’t get what someone would gain from blowing an argument or disagreement out of proportion… but to each their own, I guess. Maybe they’re just bored and want to stir sh*t for no reason.

Anyway, no point in speculating because I’ve done enough of that already, and to be honest I’m tired of it because trying to figure people out is such a task. I’ve tried so many different approaches for conflict resolution - like direct confrontation, physical/verbal altercations (when I was younger and a lot more hot-headed), blatantly ignoring the instigator and vehemently apologising for offending them to avoid further arguing - and I’m telling you now that nothing has brought me as much peace of mind as this:

Just drop it.

Seriously. Just say “Ok” and move on with your life.

The reason why this brings me so much peace of mind is because I’ve let go of the notion that there has to be a “winner” and a “loser” in an argument or other kind of conflict - because what do you actually gain from shutting the other person up besides momentary smugness and that person liking you less than they (probably) already do?

Furthermore, it’s not even about RiSiNg AbOvE the conflict, trying to come across as more mature, trying to diminish the person's argument by not giving it attention or anything like that. It’s genuinely not even about anything more than just saving your energy for things that actually matter. Having the last word, petty remarks and shade really is extremely unnecessary and doesn’t resolve anything - so I just stopped doing it.

So - what does this mean in relation to friendships and conflict resolution?

Adopting this approach to conflicts has actually made it painfully clear to me who are my real friends and who aren’t. I could go into excruciating detail about situations I’ve been in with friends in the past year to illustrate my point, but there’s really no need to even bring it back up and dwell on it because I have moved on. I’ll keep it very brief:

Real friends will respect that you don’t want to give the situation more energy, and understand that there is no such thing as “keeping score” of who “won” what argument in a friendship. Even when conflicts/arguments arise, they won’t let the disagreement spoil the connection you already have, because they know that the connection is based on mutual respect and an actual desire to be in eachothers lives. They know that a conflict isn’t the end of a friendship, nor a reason to talk sh*t about you behind your back. They actually want to nip disagreements in the bud and move past unnecessary drama.

Fake friends, on the other hand, seemingly live to have an issue with you. They’ll either be upfront about it and make you feel like sh*t about yourself for no reason whatsoever, or - even worse - will pretend that everything is gucci between you while secretly b*tching about how much of an issue there is between you to anyone who can be bothered to listen to their bitter asses. I really can’t believe that I spent so much time worrying about what these kind of people used to think of me and being manipulated into trying to change myself to be a bEtTeR fRiEnD, when really and truly they’re the ones with a problem that they’re too p*ssy to address in person. The bottom line is that people that treat you like this don’t even like you - for whatever reason.

Maybe they’re jealous. Maybe they see you as a threat. Maybe they see what you are doing for yourself and are pissed off because they don’t have the capacity to do it for themselves. God knows.

Either way, I’ve come to the conclusion that making an effort to resolve conflict with people that get a kick from causing stress and having someone to talk sh*t about really is pointless, and way too tiring to even think about anymore. Not allowing these people the luxury of wasting my time and draining my energy has worked wonders for my mental health… and may or may not have cleared up my skin. I’m not sure.

Anyways - that’s the tea on that. Love me a good chamomile.

Of course, there are exceptions to my real vs. fake friend theory - it all really depends on what you value and expect from a friendship. Personally, I find loyalty, honesty, positive energy and support the most important things from the people I associate myself with, and if I realise that I’m not getting this from someone… I just leave them alone. What’s the point of exerting myself over people that lowkey hate my guts?

I want to end this part by making clear that we’ve probably all been that fake and toxic friend at some point to someone in our lives. If it was in the past, that’s fine - hopefully you’ve matured and grown away from it. If you can g-check yourself and admit that there are people in your life that you treat like trash, then a) well done for being honest, and b) take time to think why treating someone badly makes you feel better from yourself, and consider what you can do to make your own life better so you don’t have to put other people down.

Always pay attention to their energy towards you.

I definitely think that this is the most important one for me right now. There’s been an extreme mix of good news and bad news in my life right now, and as someone who usually keeps stuff to myself I’ve really tried to be more open and tried to share what’s going on with me to my friends. I’ve definitely made some interesting observations in this process, which I will try to outline in this section.

As the heading suggests, seeing how people’s energies change when you tell them things is an excellent way to see if the genuinely f*ck with you or not.

Watch their energy when you have good news.

Watch their energy when you have bad news.

Watch their energy when you can’t provide what they want from you.

Watch their energy when money is involved in any way, shape or form.

Of course, there are infinite examples of instances where you should clock on to a change of energy. I chose to focus on the ones above because these are the ones that have been recurring themes in in my friendships in most of my adult life, and I have loads of examples so let’s go down the list, shall we?

In terms of good news, obviously your friends should be happy for you. That’s a no brainer and seemingly a simple concept to grasp. What makes it tricky, though, is that people - especially girls - have a tendency to either downplay and minimise the things that are making you feel happy in that moment by giving you embarrassingly weak accolades, or - arguably even worse - pretend to be overly hyped and happy for you while secretly burning on the inside.

A perfect example for this that I recently made my first sale at my new job. I literally told everyone I assumed would be happy for me in excruciating detail. Most of my friends came through with truckloads of gassage, love and support as always and as expected, but I noticed that there were a few that for whatever reason didn’t have much to say. Obviously, there can be multiple reasons for the lack of enthusiasm. But considering the unwavering support and hype I give my close friends, I definitely expect the same energy in return. My best advice for receiving sh*t energy is - again - to just leave it, make a mental note and to not share important things with them again because they don’t deserve to know it.

Similarly, the energy when you come with bad news is very important as well. I’ve altered between keeping everything to myself and leaning on friends for support in the past few weeks, and I definitely noticed a difference between those that genuinely care about my wellbeing, those that were prying for information and tEa, and those that were just asking to be polite and really couldn’t give a f*ck about how I was coping.

The way I knew how to differentiate between the three was simply to do with their responses and follow up questions, and the energy in the calls and messages. Anyone can say that they’re there for you if you want to talk, but there’s actually very, very few that will follow through and not make you feel like a burden or a downer for offloading. I’m actually bad for this - I try my best to help my friends when they need someone but sometimes I just don’t know what to say to make things better. I think the best thing here is to make clear that you want to listen and sympathise, but that you don’t want to make things worse by giving trash advice. But for f*cks sake - do NOT claim you are there for your friends if you know for a fact you aren’t. You’re hurting their feelings.

When it comes to energy changes in relation to a friend not being able to get what they want from you, there really aren’t many grey areas here. If they’re your friend, they’ll accept it and there will be no awkwardness or weird tension. If not, they’ll make you feel like a bad friend for not doing what they want, or even end up manipulating you into overexerting yourself to do what they want regardless of your objections.

The first time I learned this was when I was working as a bartender/FOH staff at a large nightclub back in uni. As you can probably imagine, people would genuinely harass me for free drinks/vouchers, free entry, discounts and so on. For the most part I was very strict about not doing anything that would get me into trouble if managers found out, but that’s not the point. The point here is that people’s reactions to me saying that I wasn’t going to give them free stuff vastly varied - from quietly accepting it and enjoying the rest of the night, to literally spilling drinks on my till and having to be kicked out for kicking off when I said no, followed by talking sh*t about me to anyone that cared enough to listen.

Obviously that’s a very extreme example, but the reaction people have to you telling them “no” really does show where you stand with each other. Again, when you clock negativity just because you can’t accommodate someone else's wishes - just leave it, because they don’t deserve your energy.I hope you are beginning to see a recurring theme here.

Finally and probably the most important - watch how things go in the friendship as long as money is involved.

First of all, we all have different approaches when it comes to money. Some of us are “can you send me the 26p you owe me please” types of people, and some of us adopt a “you paid for this so I have it next time” kind of mentality. Either way is okay, but again - when it comes to money you should definitely consider the points I made above about finding friends that you’re compatible with, because if you know in your heart that you are stingy, you are going to catch a headache from hanging around people that like to chop money like it’s nothing.

Personally, I have a semi-relaxed approach to money and friendships - if I consider you a close friend and know for a fact that you can pay me back, it’s really no issue if I have funds to help out with. At the same time, I avoid borrowing money from others like the plague because I know that people can move extremely mad as soon as there is money involved. There have been instances in which people I know have genuinely gotten into fights, arguments, stopped talking and indirected each other on social media (!) over money that no one forced them to lend out. I honestly don’t understand why people put themselves under financial strain just to be able to dangle it over someone else's head. It’s perplexing - but it does show people’s true colours, which is why I think it’s important to take note of how people act towards you when money is involved. Regardless of if you’re the lender or the borrower.

Once again, if you find yourself in a situation where you’ve borrowed money from someone that will make your life a living hell until you pay them back - just pay them back and leave them alone, because you’ve seen their true colours now. Even vice versa - if you’ve lent someone money and they’re taking the piss in terms of paying you back, just tough it out until they pay you back and then decide if keeping them in your life is worth the stress.

To summarise this section: decide what energy you expect from your friends, and make mental note of those that don’t provide it. Of course, you should generally be putting out the energy to your friends that you want back - so don’t come and say I told you to cut everyone off when you haven’t even been making an effort to be a good friend yourself, please and thank you.

Trust your gut.

As cringe as it may sound, you usually have a feeling when someone isn’t being genuine with you. If you’re anything like me, even the most miniscule shifts in vibes, tone and energy - both in person and over text/social media - sets of a trillion alarm bells in my head. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve had an “off” feeling about someone I’ve considered a friend, only to later find out that there’s apparently an issue between us that I had no idea even existed at the time - and this is after they’ve willingly spent time with me in my house, actively made an effort to link up, and chatting to me like we’re friends and everything is fine.

There isn’t really much you can do about this, unfortunately - no matter how upfront, honest and confrontational you are, it’s really not your fault if the person keeps insisting that they don’t have a problem when they’re secretly hating your guts for whatever reason they’ve conjured up in their heads. As someone that has always been the type to straight up ask if there’s an issue and tell people when they’re doing something I don’t like, I guess I sometimes forget that not everyone is like that and that’s why I find myself feeling like I’ve been let down or betrayed so often.

Either way - it ends now, because I’m tired of letting “friends” think that they can a) not give a sh*t about me while offloading all the crap that’s going on in their lives on to me because they kNoW i’Ll LiStEn, and b) treat me however the f*ck they want just because I’m an accommodating person. They don’t deserve my time and energy anymore, and that’s that on that.

Of course, there are many more aspects to friendships and allowing/trusting someone outside of yourself enough to be a support system you can count on. As cliché as it sounds, it is important to remember that all friendships are different and have their own little quirks and dynamics that aren’t as easily identifiable as the points outlined above. Consider this post a general guideline to who genuinely deserves your time, energy and effort, as well as an opportunity to evaluate yourself as a friend and your existing friendships.

As mentioned earlier in this post, hard times or any type of major life event tends to put all aspects of your life into perspective - friendships being one of the biggest ones. I can only really speak for myself, but I think that many young adults in my age range can agree that as life gets tougher and we take on more responsibilities there isn’t any time for petty drama, nonsense, negative energy or toxicity. Life is already hard enough as it is, so what’s the actual point of stressing out over people that aren’t even remotely close to being on the same wavelength as you? Make it make sense.

I genuinely wish I had these revelations and realised what type of friendships I deserve earlier on in life, because it definitely would’ve saved me a whole lot of ugly crying over feeling like fake friends take advantage of my kindness and treat me like sh*t for no reason whatsoever. But we move, I guess - hopefully this post gives you some things to consider next time you feel like your fRiEnDs seem to think you’re a d*ckhead.

Spoiler alert: You’re not, and your friends are trash. Do better, beloved.

Love,

Liv

#selfhelp #selflove #opinions

I FEEL GOOD, SOMETIMES I DON’T

I should probably start by saying that this post will be very different from what I’ve previously shared on here.

In all honesty, I was unsure if I should even post this at all. When I started this blog, my vision for it was that it was going to be a hub for infinite good vibes, positive energy and empowerment for myself and whoever ended up reading it to combat and eventually overcome depression, anxiety, emotionally harmful thoughts and so on. But I’m realising now that I’ve made a bit of a mistake in my approach.

So far, I’ve been writing about aspects of my mental health that I’ve already overcome, accepted and healed from - hence why I’ve been able to write my advice with so much self-assurance and positivity. Writing about things within my comfort zone and knowing that my learning from my experiences has helped people has undeniably made me feel really great lately. However - behind the scenes, to put it dramatically and in true Liv style - the past couple weeks have been really, really sh*t for me.

It’s hard for me to even write this, because it forces me to acknowledge that things really aren’t okay right now. I kept convincing myself that I shouldn’t put it on here, because it really goes against the light and fun tone I’ve been able to maintain from the start. But after much thought, I remembered something very important:

As much as I wish that the positivity and self-confidence I’ve been feeling for the past couple months could magically erase the years of mental health issues, it just doesn’t add up or make sense. Of course there will be be bad days, slumps, insecurities and irrational thoughts from time to time that manage to rear their ugly heads - it’s a part of the healing process. It makes perfect logical sense, because it’s how we overcome these times that end up proving how strong and resilient we have become.

I say that, like I haven’t been in denial that a slump has been looming for a while now. I’ve been so obsessed with this happiness and positivity that I’ve been feeling, that I’ve literally forced myself to ignore the huge red flags that everything was going to go to sh*t very soon. I tried to rationalise that the feeling of unease in my stomach was due to the novelty of moving and securing this job has begun to wear off, and that text book near-panic attacks were just due to me being tIrEd or hUnGrY.

I’ve decided to write about this, because I also want to normalise the hard and sh*t parts of healing. I want people to know that having bad days is okay, not being a ray of f*cking sunshine all the time is okay, having meltdowns is okay, that not feeling okay is okay - as cringe as that may sound. I also want to show that not having all the answers all the time, winging it and having a well deserved whine and moan is fine, too - and that’s essentially what this post is going to be about. I need to f*cking vent.

These past couple of weeks have been hell for me, to put it lightly, and as earlier mentioned, I chose to ignore every single sign that a slump was pending. When I’d come home from work with a gnawing feeling in my stomach that something bad was going to happen, I’d just binge eat a bunch of junk food and then go to sleep so I didn’t have to think. Whenever I’d be dangerously close to realising that the happiness I’ve been feeling is slowly but surely crumbling, I’d find myself forcing myself to banter and laugh about the whole situation so that I could mask how shit I was feeling about myself. And when I had two separate anxiety-attacks - which I haven’t had in ages - I forced myself to make light of them and make jokes.

Honestly. I feel like such an idiot for not taking them seriously. The first one was me waking up at my mates house after her birthday party with an insanely high heart rate and in a cold sweat. I was the only one awake at the time and I was actually really scared of dealing with it alone, so I ended up leaving. I later made light of it by saying that it was probably just because I was still drunk, that I’m a drama queen and that I was definitely feeling better after sleeping in my own bed.

The second one happened literally a couple days later. I blacked out and almost fainted on my commute into work. I‘ve experienced lightheadedness and dizziness before, but this was definitely different. My vision was blurry, I was seeing black dots around me, the music I was listening to kind of faded out and sounded muffled - like I was underwater - and my legs were shaking like mad. If I hadn’t had something to cling very tightly to, I’m very convinced that I would’ve passed out and fallen. I still can’t remember how I managed to stumble off the train at the right stop, but when I finally got some fresh air and my senses stabilised, I noticed how much of a cold sweat I was in.

Most normal people would’ve realised that they needed a time out at this point, but not I - I was forcing myself to believe that I was still happy, that everything was okay, that I just needed to ensure that I got a good night's sleep and eat something. I only told my housemate, my sister and my mum what had happened, made jokes about not wanting to go on WebMD because it’d tell me my brain is hemorrhaging… and then went about my day.

Right now I’m really torn, because I really want to internally punch myself up for not listening to my body...but at the same time I’m trying to be kInDeR tO mYsElF and fOrGiVe MySeLf for not following my own advice. Who even am I?

With all jokes aside and the background for this post out of the way, let me get very real.

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve been having this feeling of unease for a while now. This is a classic sign of anxiety - feeling that since things are seemingly too good to be true, something terrible must be coming up to ruin the peace. Since I know that when I usually feel like this it’s just down to irrational thinking, I kept suppressing the feeling and convincing myself that I was gucci.

Only this time, the feeling was real. I received some potentially life-changing news last week, that really rattled me to my core. I don’t even want to share what it is at this point, because I’m worried that discussing it openly on here will manifest it more than I already have by telling the few people I trust. All you as a reader needs to know is that it was heartbreaking and very illusion-shattering, and it definitely pushed me over the edge that I had no idea I was so close to.

The interesting thing about receiving bad news is that the way you take it onboard says a lot about your mental state. If you’re in a good place mentally - much like I was a couple weeks ago - chances are that you’ll be able to deal with it in a healthy manner and feel very assured that things will turn out fine, at least after the initial shock. But unfortunately, since I’ve spent the past couple of weeks convinced that something bad is going to happen, it’s really just sent me in this massive downward spiral.

When I get sad - like, really, really sad - my usual composed and collected self goes out of the window and my mind goes down a very irrational and self-deprecating path. My first thought when I heard the bad news was that it was my fault - I felt like I had literally spoken and willed it into existence, and blamed myself. Of course, it’s easy for me to see the irrationality of this feeling as I’m writing about it within a short window of sanity before the next emotional downswing comes. But when I let myself just be sad, I really and truly blame myself, and I don’t even know how to stop it.

The problem with me is that I struggle a lot with separating different things going on in my mind when I’m feeling like sh*t. I can never be in my feelings about one isolated thing - once the waterworks start, I really just feel sad about everything until I feel like there’s literally no point to my life anymore, and I start contemplating whether this life really and truly is even worth all this stress. The phrase “when it rains, it pours” is even an understatement, because why am I being attacked by this storm from a million different directions?

The maddest thing is that I feel like I deserve it, even though it literally makes no sense. I find myself thinking that this sh*t is all happening because I’ve made such a big deal out of putting my own mental and emotional wellbeing above my own family and friends - and now I’m being punished for it. I’m not entirely sure how or why this concept that I’m being punished has even manifested itself in my mind, but lately it’s really been taking over and literally poisoned my thoughts.

It’s my own fault that my relationship that my family is strained - I was the one who decided to move away.

My family, friends, colleagues and acquaintances don’t really care about me, or particularly like me for that matter - they just tolerate me because I’m there. It wouldn’t make any difference to them if I lived or died.

The pride, confidence and success I’ve been feeling careerwise lately is going to come crashing down any second now, because I don’t even really have the brains or resilience to make it like that. I’m an imposter, and people will soon realise it.

The immense loneliness I feel from time to time is there because deep down I know that the people I deem important in my life only see me as a background character in theirs.

I’m putting up a front that the failure of my last relationship it was all for the best and that I learned and grew from it, but deep down I know I’ll probably never fully be ok again. And even if I was to, I’d never be capable of loving them back because I’ve become too emotionally apathetic to feel anything for anyone again.

This confidence in my beauty that I’ve been feeling lately is all a scam. Deep down I know that I’m hideous, and no amount of healthy eating, working out, positive affirmations or glowing up will ever be capable of changing that.

...you get the point. It was actually really hard to type those out - as mentioned earlier in my blog, putting words to feelings you usually keep buried inside is genuinely traumatising. The thing is, when I read back what I’ve written when I’m in a good frame of mind I know it’s all rubbish. I know that my family and friends are proud of me and my success. I know that I matter. I know that the loneliness is my head messing with me and unresolved issues, because I’m surrounded by amazing friends. I know that when the time is right and I’m emotionally ready, I’ll settle down with someone on my wavelength that actually deserves me. I know that I’m very beautiful.

But the power of the mind really is a force to be reckoned with. It’s terrifying. It really has me thinking so irrationally and doubting my own knowledge, and it’s so emotionally draining. Furthermore, it convinces me that I’m the only person in the world feeling like this, that I’m some sort of emotional outcast that’s carrying this huge burden in secret. I literally feel like I can’t tell anyone how I truly feel anymore because - even though I preach about being unapologetic about feelings - I’m terrified that I’ll be judged, thought to be overdramatic or labelled as attention-seeking.

I think the horrible and most frustrating part of this whole slump business is the three states of mind I differentiate between until it passes. I’m either balanced, really f*cking numb or really f*cking sad.

The balanced part - not to be confused with actually being content - is the state of mind that I force myself to be in when I’m at work or need to interact with people and feel relatively normal. People don’t even know - or care - enough to see that I’m constantly having to fight myself to not be affected by anything that could trigger the other two mindstates.

The sadness that takes over from time to time is the hardest to deal with because it’s so unpredictable. I’ll just be going about my day at work, sitting on the bus, hanging out with friends, watching a movie alone when I suddenly just feel tears coming. Most of the time I don’t even know why it’s coming because it seemingly doesn’t even have a trigger. All I know is that it’s really f*cking hard to keep the tears back, and if I let the tears come I know it will go on for a really long time.

The third and final one - the numbness - is definitely the most scary one of the three simply because it’s so out of character for me. I’ve been a quite sensitive person my entire life - as in no stranger to crying and getting in my feelings - so when these feelings began to emerge I was worried that there was something wrong with me or that I had snapped. Well, I would’ve been worried if I had been capable of feeling it at the time. As someone that’s used to crying whenever things get hard, suddenly feeling numb, empty and unbothered by all the sh*t that’s going on is a massive red flag. The first time I felt it - in conjunction with ending things with my ex - my therapist theorised that it was my brains way of protecting and repairing itself from the overwhelming amount of sadness I had been feeling. I’m no neurologist so I don’t know if this is correct - but it would make sense if that was the case. The numbness, apathy and lack of emotion was a blessing at first, but I soon noticed that it actually makes me not even give a f*ck about my family, friends, job, body or health either - which simply isn’t me. In the long run, the lack of emotion really ended up taking a toll on my health. I was drinking very excessively at this point in time and tried other substances that I know for a fact I wouldn’t have dreamt of trying otherwise - simply because I didn’t care if I lived or died anymore.

Luckily my periods of numbness aren’t as bad as that anymore. I’d like to think that it’s because I have become more resilient and mentally strong since then, but I’m not even sure anymore. All I know is that when I lie in bed at night and try to allow myself to cry to let out all the pent up emotions, the tears don’t even come. That’s how I know that something is very wrong.

Whenever I feel myself slipping into this rotation of mindstates, I desperately try to find a way to get out of it because I’m scared of how long it is going to last this time. You might as well call me Solange, because I literally try to work, laugh, sex, joke, eat, drink, shop, clean, read, cry, sleep, pray, ignore and - as you can see - write it away. Sometimes I’m able to distract myself for brief periods of time, but as soon as the good feeling wears off I’m just back to feeling like sh*t again. I’m scared now that all the positivity that I’ve been feeling in conjunction with moving and starting a new job is beginning to wear off, and that going back to constantly having this underlying sense of sadness and loneliness will fully take over my life again.

Unfortunately, only time will tell. And much like Solange implies, I can’t keep trying to avoid confronting my problems. I’m just going to have to ride this sh*t out, hope for the best and force myself to stay positive, even though it all feels really hopeless right now. Hopefully one day I’ll be able to revisit this post and share the lessons and solutions I’ve been able to devise by going through it - after all, that’s what I’ve been doing in my previous posts. But I don’t know when that will be.

I could go on writing about this forever, but my mind tends to go around in circles when I feel like this and I feel like I’d just be repeating myself. Although the purpose of this post was for me to have an outlet for my emotions before I ended up snapping and going full on Mrs. Hyde, I hope that me sharing how I’ve been feeling can let whoever might be going through a similar period know that they aren’t alone, regardless of how lonely and alienated the sadness makes them feel.

I want to round up this post with a short list of tips for whoever can relate to this post, on how I personally try to make these episodes at least slightly easier to deal with (Because is it even a Bounce Back post if it doesn’t have tips in bullet points? I don’t think so):

Time your productivity with your emotional upswings.

If you’re anything like me, the particularly bad feelings come and go in waves. When you can feel that you’re in a good-ish state of mind, make sure you address all your responsibilities, chores and other things you need to do. Don’t worry too much about the amount of extra time it ends up taking - taking slightly longer on a task is much better than doing it when you’re in a sh*t mood and would honestly just want to off yourself. For reference, it’s taken me two weeks to write this blog post just because I didn’t want to write it while being miserable - because I knew it wouldn’t be very helpful, would make me feel worse and probably wouldn’t make much sense.

Don’t neglect yourself.

Luckily I have a full time job now that doesn’t allow me to fall into patterns of self-neglect anymore. But if I didn’t, I’m positive that I’d just be in bed taking depression naps, netflixing, ignoring everyone and either overeating or not eating at all. In fact, that’s literally me on weekends when I don’t have plans. Not healthy or helpful at all, in other words.

A shower (or even better...a bubble bath), brushing your teeth, leaving your room, eXeRcIsE, fresh air and a cheeky cuppa really does do wonders in terms of mood-lifting. I promise that giving yourself that extra push to do at least 3 of those things will make you at least feel like you’ve done something with your day so you don’t have to be so hard on yourself for being a lazy sh*t.

Keep your living space clean (!!!)

Fun fact - I may or may not have burst into tears after coming home from work the other day and seeing that there was a whole lot of sh*t on my unmade bed and on the floor. On my good days I’m usually a bit (a lot) of a neat freak, so when my living space is disgusting it really just is a reflection and a brutal reminder of how bad my state of mind is. Of course, I had no one but myself to blame for the mess but it really ended up being the last drop that sent me over the edge.

If you at the very least make sure your floor, bed and other areas you know you’re going to want to wallow in self pity in later on are tidy, it really does make a huge difference. One less thing to have a meltdown over; we stan.

Force yourself to believe that it will pass.

This is really difficult when you literally feel like you want to play in traffic. But try your best to remember other times in the past where you felt like your life was falling apart and appreciate that the lessons you learnt from that have made you slightly more resilient this time around, even though it may not feel so.

For example - regardless of how terrible I feel right now, I remember times when I couldn’t even brave leaving my bed to go to uni or work...and that was for a lot less bullsh*t than what I’m going through now. Furthermore, the more of these episodes I have, the easier it is to convince myself that it will, in fact, pass. It always does. You just have to ride it out.

Don’t isolate yourself.

I thought I’d finish with the one that’s the most challenging (for me). I’m naturally a bit of a loner - always have been. Going to other people to talk about how much I’m struggling has never come naturally for me - it’s not really until my adult life that I’ve learnt to understand the importance and benefits of talking to others. Furthermore, when my brain tells me that my family and friends don’t even f*ck with me like that, it really is a huge challenge to overcome that feeling of insecurity and reach out to the people that supposedly hAtE mE. I’d rather just stay in bed and protect my feelings by just being alone and then cry about feeling lonely. Make it make sense, please.

Of course, this is far from healthy and it is imperative to learn how to break away from this pattern of thinking. Nowadays I force myself to leave my room and annoy my housemate, force myself to grace my friends with my comedic abilities so I can at least try to have a laugh, and force myself to reach out to family members that I’ve managed to convince myself don’t really want to talk to me.

It really does make a massive difference and I promise you that you will be positively surprised. It really makes you remember that it’s all in your head and makes you more able to disregard the feelings when they come and try to attack you.

Whew enfant. I definitely feel better now. Apologies in advance for the rambling and the probable confusion, but to be honest no one really forced you to read it. I don’t really know how to end a post like this, so I’ll just finish up by reminding whoever needs to hear it (including myself) that these feelings are normal and will pass, as well as that feeling like this doesn’t imply weakness or a lessening of worth.

Keep telling yourself that until you believe it.

In the meantime, I’m going to try my best to keep my head above water and keep dishing out posts about how to get through times like this. Fear not, I still have loads of ideas that I want to share - and I’m not letting a sh*tty couple weeks ruin the good thing I’ve started.

Love,

Liv

#mentalillness #selfhelp

HOW TO TAKE CARE OF THE LOVE OF YOUR LIFE

With Valentine’s Day just around the corner, it’s safe to say that you lot are stressed right now. Stressing about gifts, stressing about outfits, stressing about your plans...stressing about whether your man is actually your man…

But I digress.

I say “you lot”, because this has literally never been - and most likely will never be - me. I definitely get clumped together with so-called Bitter Women™, because I genuinely believe that Valentine’s Day is a capitalist scam, designed to feed into women's insecurities of not having a significant other to blow money on them at expensive restaurants, spa breaks and cute gifts on the day.

I mean, don’t get me wrong. I completely understand the hype. I’ve had a few amazing Valentine’s Day in my life - who doesn’t like dressing up, spending quality time with their favourite person and getting wined, dined and 69’d (if that’s what you’re into)? My point is that this can literally be done on any of the other 364 days of the year (baecations during summer months will always be better than shivering your nipples off in a freakum dress in February) when everything isn’t fully booked, overpriced and coming with so much pressure to get it “right”. But to each their own!

Coincidentally, this is the first year in a while that I am single on Valentines Day - and happily so. (Well, technically last year was - but I don’t count that because I was on a business trip and too busy abusing the company tab to reflect on or care about how I felt about being single again. Good times.). The main reason I’m happy about being single on Valentine’s Day - and every other day of the year - is because I’ve finally gotten to a place where I can give all the love, attention, appreciation and support to someone who genuinely deserves it: my damn self.

Yes, I definitely cringed and wanted to throw up while writing that. But on the other hand, I love love… So deal with it.

I reckon that the process of falling in love with yourself is rather complex, hard to explain and definitely varies from individual to individual. I’d say I’m a little more than halfway there - there are definitely some areas that I need to work on in order to fully love myself. I think the following three points - and everything that they include - are crucial and applicable to most people’s journey’s to self-love. You just need to identify the areas that you need to improve upon.

Learn how to love your own company.

Yes. I’m very much aware that everyone and their deaf great grandmother has heard that you should travel solo, take yourself out for dAtEs and set aside time every day to yourself. I’m also exhausted of hearing it. But hear me out.

Besides the obvious benefits of learning to love having time to yourself - like not using the company of significant others, friends and family members as distractions from your emotional insecurities (T is for Triggered!) - there are some often overlooked advantages of committing to being solo dolo for a while. Most of this I learned after deciding to get my own place in uni after living in a pigsty/caucasian bando as well as after my ex moved out, and I honestly hope that everyone gets to go through this at some point in their life as it is very character building.

Firstly, putting yourself in a position where there is no means of distracting yourself from actually feeling is something that I believe is a crucial part of the process of falling in love with yourself; regardless of if it’s the first time in doing so, or simply a case of finding your way back to self-love after traumatic experiences or being emotionally led astray in some other way. It’s one of those things that will probably be very uncomfortable at first, but once you get through the initial pain of it, you’ll probably end up addicted to it. When I found myself alone again after the break up I literally went out of my way to avoid being alone by ensuring I was constantly surrounded by people, and trying pretty much every unhealthy coping mechanism under the sun. However, it got to the point where it was starting to take a serious toll on my health, so I ended up unwillingly spending a lot of time alone.

It was a really hard time for me because I was suddenly forced to confront the feelings I had made such an effort to suppress. It soon became very clear that only talking about it in therapy once a week wasn’t enough and I had to just let myself feel whatever feelings came up. I could write a whole dissertation about that specific time of my life - about coming to terms with how the breakup had forced a truckload of self-blame and self-hate on me - but this blog is about healing and positivity, so I’m going to focus on the outcome of forcing myself to confront my feelings instead.

After a while it became very apparent to me that the loneliness I felt for a long time was slowly but surely morphing into genuine emotional independence. It took a long time, but little by little I found myself treasuring every moment I had to myself to just think and reflect on my life, my past, establishing my goals and planning my future. It’s very hard to put into words exactly how much learning how to be alone has affected my life positively, but if you have ever gone through and overcome something I really recommend to just take a moment to yourself to consider how you first felt when it happened to you, and then consider where you are now.

Trust me. When you finally realise how strong and resilient you have become from all the time doing you, my best guess is that you too will become addicted to being alone and focusing purely on yourself and your peace. Partly because you’ll be aware that you don’t need anyone else to hold your hand through the madness that is guaranteed to pop up every now and again, and partly because you’ll realise that a lot of the sh*t that you used to be afraid to confront head on can’t even hurt you anymore.

Secondly and finally - solo trips and solo dates are f*cking great. Once you get past the insecurity of being alone in public - as well as realising that your company is amazing - you’ll probably never want to go see a movie with your loud-ass, annoying-ass friends ever again. Just believe me on this.

Embrace both the easy and difficult parts of #self-care.

I’d like to start off by saying that I absolutely adore this #self-care movement that's emerged over the past years. I love that I can put my phone in airplane mode, ignore everyone, spend my last pennies before my next payday on scented candles, wine and glitter nail polish, and then go home to stare at the wall for hours in a bubble bath with a face mask on and scream that it’s #self-care.

I mean… I was definitely doing all this before the movement, but at least now I have an excuse. Love it.

All jokes aside - although the above is important, I feel like people end up overseeing the actual hard part of taking care of their mental health and genuinely convince themselves that smearing mashed up banana on their faces three nights a week will magically make everything in their life better. For me, self care extends to making yourself comfortable with being emotionally uncomfortable and brutally honest with yourself. Learning how to critically challenge your own thought processes and feelings - especially in relation to your perception of self-worth - is imperative in order to truly care for yourself.

“But Liv! Isn’t criticising yourself the polar opposite of caring for yourself? How am I supposed to embrace #self-care if I’m constantly questioning myself?”

Excellent question, beloved alter ego! I’m glad you asked. The way I see it, there’s a thin line between criticising your actual self and criticising your mindset, if that makes sense. A good example of this is self-deprecation, even if it’s just as a joke. You might make one little mistake at work or say something wrong and joke about how dumb you are and then move on with your day. No harm done, right?

Wrong. At least for me, that is. I’ve gotten so accustomed to dragging myself on a daily basis as a jOkE that it never really occurred to me that constantly joking about being a dumb b*tch might actually end up with me subconsciously internalising it and lowkey believing it. I came across the video below and it really made me rethink how I regard myself.

Peak, right? I’m always very self-aware of all my faults and shortcomings but it’s actually only recently I’ve become aware of how mean I am to myself (Although not going to lie, this video is probably a bad example because I definitely talk to my friends like this, too). Hearing the stuff you usually internalise said out loud really makes you realise how hurtful it is - and immensely damaging to your perception of self-worth.

Hopefully you see where I’m going with this; Enter the Self-Care G-Check™. This is where you catch yourself thinking self-deprecating thoughts and force yourself to figure out why you think whatever thing you’ve done wrong warrants such a spiteful internal attack. Chances are, you’ll either have a concrete reason as to why you’re being so hard on yourself about it (and work on easing up on yourself), or you’ll just realise that you’re being horrible to yourself for no reason and stop. This is definitely the hardest part for me and what I need to work the hardest on, even though I have gotten significantly better at not immediately blaming myself for everything bad that happens in my life.

Another approach to #self-care to consider is literally imagining that you are in an actual relationship with yourself - which to be fair, you are. This is particularly helpful if you are or have been in a relationship before, because I reckon it will make it easier to understand - but not necessarily.

When you’re in a relationship with someone, you (hopefully) are your significant others peace of mind, inspiration, support system, biggest cheerleader and head over heels in luuurve. You also (again… hopefully) genuinely care about their thoughts and feelings, and want to make them feel appreciated, loved and to see their worth. If you’re lucky enough to feel/have felt this way about someone, I dare you to argue as to why you shouldn’t apply the same energy to yourself.

If you think about it, the concept of thinking that someone else is more worthy of all our love and support than ourselves is extremely bizarre. It genuinely frustrates me that I’ve actually felt like this before, and I really hope that whoever this resonates with takes the time to reevaluate their emotional priorities - because as morbid and cliche as it may sound, at the end of the day we only really have ourselves to depend on in this life. I genuinely worry that there are some people that will lay on their deathbeds and realise that they lived their entire life pleasing others and neglecting their own happiness, hopes and dreams.

Wow, that got dark. But you get the point, I hope - putting yourself first regardless of if you’re in a relationship or not is imperative in terms of self-care. Feel free to treat yourself to a banana face mask once you master this. You’ve earned it.

Know thyself.

So this point pretty much ties up the previous two and is self-explanatory. Based on my own experience, I can genuinely say that learning how to be comfortable alone with my thoughts and critically analysing my negative and self-deprecating feelings about myself has given me a new level of respect and understanding for my psyche. I can confidently say that I am still learning the full extent of my worth and strength, and I am becoming more aware of how mindblowingly amazing I am with every day that passes - and I really hope that everyone reading this can feel like this or are already feeling like this.

Of course, I appreciate that everyone’s process differs wildly - that goes without saying. Only you know what’s holding you back from letting you love and appreciate yourself the way you deserve, and you owe it to yourself to figure yourself out and know exactly what to do to care for you in the best way. In all honesty, these points are extremely fluid - you can definitely bend and redefine them in a way that makes them more relevant to you and your growth.

The most important thing for me is that everyone reading this comes away realising that regardless of if they are single, in a relationship or in any other kind of arrangement really and truly understand that love and happiness stems from you, and not anybody or anything else. Especially not a sh*tty and tacky holiday.

I really and truly believe that if you take the time out to delve deeper into the three points above and really get to know yourself, you’ll start to see yourself in a much more positive light. Being able to identify and truly appreciate your strengths - while simultaneously constructively addressing your flaws - is such an imperative skill to possess while being stuck in a capitalist and patriarchal society that literally thrives off of women's’ ever-growing insecurities and misery.

Hopefully this time next year - regardless of if you’re single or in a healthy, happy and supportive relationship - you’ll feel empowered enough to reject the spirit of this moronic capitalist trap that people call Valentines Day.

...If that’s what you want to do, of course. Do whatever makes you happy - but I’m not going to lie, I’m definitely taking advantage of the half-price chocolate and sweets that come on the day after. Get with the winning (and financially responsible) team, beloved.

Love,

Liv

#selfhelp #goals #Empowerment #selflove

REIMAGINING THE “TALKING CURE” - WAYS TO OFFLOAD WITHOUT GETTING THERAPY

This week officially marks three weeks since my final therapy session back in Nottingham. Considering this is the longest I’ve gone without a session for the past year and a bit, I think I’m doing exceptionally well - I’ve been able to settle into new routines, my new job and my new living area pretty much anxiety, stress and meltdown-free.

I can with 100% confidence say that I never could have managed this transition so smoothly if it hadn’t been for those weekly sessions. Having a safe space to vent, cry and have verbal diarrhoea for 50 consecutive minutes a week really has worked wonders for me this past year or so when I’ve been feeling so terrible. The long amount of time allowed me to build a very solid relationship with my therapist, which enabled me to be able to reflect on my progress over an extended period of time. However, regardless of how long you see a therapist, just having a means to simply offload on at least a semi-regular basis is imperative to be able to heal from what you’re going through.

Going to therapy really had been one of the best choices I’ve ever made in my entire life. No exaggeration. At times I even think that I probably wouldn’t even be here if I hadn’t made the decision to go. My only regret is that I didn’t start sooner - the first time I had a counselling session was towards the end of my Masters degree, after spending most of my life compartmentalising a lot of my issues.

The main reason for me waiting so long to start was because I was convinced that the things that were hurting me a lot at the time weren’t “worth” going to therapy for. After studying psychology for my Bachelor’s and reading about people going to therapy to deal with severe trauma, loss of loved ones, abuse and so on, I couldn’t help but feel like my pesky little insecurities and family issues were so vastly insignificant in the grand scheme of the world.

I definitely think that this is a key reason for why many people don’t want to go to therapy. Feeling like you’re making a mountain out of a molehill and like you’re inconveniencing everyone around you with your feelings is never going to be pleasant. But at the end of the day, you can’t help how you feel about things, and even if you feel like it’s insignificant it’s obviously weighing down on you and stopping you from feeling happy. This is more than enough reason to consider going to therapy.

Of course, there can be many different reasons besides this that make people not want to go to therapy. It could be financial reasons, a lack of time, fear of being perceived as weak by people around you, being scared of the vulnerability that comes with verbalising your feelings - or perhaps just that there are certain things you just don’t feel ready to address and discuss yet.

There are solutions to all of the above, to be honest. You can self-refer yourself to a therapist for free through the NHS. There are private practices that are flexible enough to fit into your busy schedule, and some even offer home visits if you don’t have time to travel. The fear of feeling weak, vulnerable or afraid that digging into your issues is going to uncover unwanted things is completely normal, and I can guarantee you that a good therapist would never coerce you into talking about things you aren’t comfortable with. The process of opening up to a complete stranger can be hard and a strange concept for some people, and they definitely understand that - in fact, it is encouraged to take your time and not rush your progress.

In case you haven’t noticed - I am a huge advocate for getting counselling, and I honestly hope that whoever is reading this considers it an option for a vastly improved mental health. However, I do understand that many may not find this very convincing - and that’s perfectly fine. At the end of the day, my main concern is that people find some type of outlet for their thoughts and feelings, as bottled up emotions can literally have physical effects on your body - from skin problems to stomach ulcers and coronary heart disease. Obviously we don’t want any of that, so I’ve listed four different outlets to offload emotions to that don’t involve signing up for therapy:

1.Talk to a close friend/person that you trust.

This one is a no-brainer. If you are lucky enough to have a person or people in your life that you with 100% certainty know care about you, won’t judge you and wants what’s best for you, then reaching out to them and admitting that you need some help and support shouldn’t be an issue at all. In fact, they should be happy to help - because they want you to be happy.

This alternative is arguably the best one because you get all the perks of going to a therapist without the potential costs - vocalising your feelings, getting feedback on your thoughts and feeling that incredible Zen-like feeling that comes with offloading all the pain and being vulnerable in front of someone.

However, there are some downsides to this. It is extremely important to remember that no matter how much the person you trust loves you, cares for you and wants to be there for you - they are by no means a trained therapist. You need to be conscious of how they feel, because chances are that it will be immensely difficult for them to be able to separate their own feelings from the matter - especially if what you’re going through is triggering. I’d say it’s always best to ask if it’s a good time for them to talk, and warn them beforehand if you’re in a particularly fragile state mentally.

Furthermore, make sure that you are emotionally capable to be there for them as well when they need it. One-sided friendships are never healthy in the long run for either party, and although a good friend would never make you feel like a burden, I’m here to tell you that constantly unloading all your personal problems onto someone and not even checking up on them from time to time is selfish and extremely unfair. Personally, I find that having a healthy give-and-take relationship with my friends actually makes me feel better - listening to others issues help me get my mind off my own problems and remember that I’m not alone in my feelings.

If you’re not in a stable enough mind state to be able to take on your friends’ issues as well as your own, that’s perfectly fine and normal, too - just that this method may not be what is best for you. As previously mentioned, I feel that bringing someone emotionally invested in on your problems and not offering anything in return is way too much to ask for, and should definitely be saved for a trained professional. If you still don’t want to do this, then see the remaining alternatives below.

2. Utilise mental well-being/counselling apps.

For me, this was a good alternative while I was waiting to be referred to a real therapist. There are hundreds of apps out there that can offer communities of people that are going through similar things, and that offer one-on-one chats with listeners when you just need to offload things, or even get reassurance that you are not alone. What was helpful here was that you can be completely anonymous, and since you don’t actually know anyone personally, you won’t feel as guilty about dumping all your feelings on them.

I tried out loads of apps, and my favourite one is called “7 Cups of Tea”. The free version offers access to the communities where you can find support and advice, as well as being able to refer you to a “listener” - volunteers on the app that specialise in different areas of mental health. You can be as consistent or inconsistent as you please: some listeners are there whenever you need them, and some will offer a specific time each day or week in which they are completely dedicated to listening to you and offering advice. If you opt for the monthly subscription option, you’ll have access to their extensive mental health tools and real mental health professionals. They can set you up with daily or weekly session as well, and work exactly like real therapists - except it’s all in writing.

I never used the paid version because I’m cheap as hell, but the free version was enough to keep me mentally stable until I started real counselling. The fact that it’s all done through a chat definitely had it’s pros and cons, though; it was good in the sense that sometimes it’s easier to write your thoughts and not have to actually talk to anyone. Also, if you just want to vent and feel seen and heard, without any input, it is definitely a great alternative. However - when you’re just typing out your problems, you miss out on the human interaction of getting a chance to receive feedback, and to be challenged on your thought processes.

With that being said - I’d recommend this as a short term solution to have an outlet for your feelings. Or if you find that not talking to someone face to face is an easier option for you, then you can definitely utilise the monthly subscription option - however, it is $150 a month, so… there’s that.

Download 7 Cups of Tea here.

3. Do a bit of cheeky “rubber ducking”.

If you’re sceptical about talking to a complete stranger, then you’ll either love or despise this alternative. My father works in IT and web-development, and taught me that a lot of programmers utilise a method called “rubber ducking”. This basically entails that the programmer has a rubber duck next to them on their desk while they’re debugging code, and make themselves verbally “explain” to the duck what exactly it is they are doing. By explaining what they’re doing out loud, they’re allowing themselves to actually hear what is being done, which can help them identify problems and solutions.

I’ve found that adopting this method as a means to deal with your mental health can be exceptionally helpful, since you are vocalising your feelings and hearing them out loud. Of course, it doesn’t have to be a rubber duck. It can be any inanimate object. Or nothing at all.

Talk to yourself, is what I’m saying.

Yes, it might sound mad, but hear me out. Although mental health issues are (usually) significantly more complex than codes, verbally expressing your problems out loud - and actually hearing them - is a partially triggering and partially healing experience. The way I see it, it is very easy for us to keep dark, damaging, spiteful and taboo thoughts locked up in your mind - and letting them eat away at you - but fixing your mouth to say them out loud is a lot harder. I think that it’s because we’re taught from such a young age what is deemed “acceptable” and “unacceptable” to say (well, most of us with manners at least). Bypassing those mental barriers can be extremely challenging.

I have to warn you though, if you’re not fully ready to admit certain things to yourself then this can be quite a mildly traumatising task. I definitely put pressure on myself to verbalise things that I wasn’t mentally ready to deal with, back when I was far less resilient than I am now. There are a lot of things in my life that I used to blame myself for - things I’ll probably never share on this blog - and while it was so easy to go for over a decade with a lot of self-hate in my mind, actually hearing myself express this hatred was definitely one of the hardest things I’ve ever done emotionally. If I could go back, I would have probably gently eased myself into it more, instead of plunging myself headfirst into the deep end. However, it ended up being the final straw for me to suck up my pride and register for therapy - so I don’t regret it.

But seriously. Make sure you are ready. I cannot stress this enough.

4. Find a creative outlet for your feelings.

As already touched upon, sometimes the thought of opening up to someone (or something!) might be incredibly daunting and scary. Maybe you don’t feel mentally ready to talk about it - or maybe you’re just simply not a talker.

Regardless of the reason, channelling negative thoughts into something creative is an excellent way to indirectly remove some of the weight of the issues, and helps you reflect on things in a less confrontational way than the other methods.

There are infinite ways to do it - songwriting, poetry, art and keeping a journal are the first that come to mind for me. What’s positive about this is that you are given the power to choose whether or not you want to share your creativity with others, so it takes away a lot of pressure into opening up if you aren’t ready.

As you might have guessed, my favourite method is to write. This blog definitely wouldn’t exist otherwise. I enjoy putting words to my feelings, and writing enables me to critically analyse and reflect on my thoughts. I’d highly recommend keeping a journal or a blog (that you can password-protect if you wish) to keep track of things from time to time. The best part is that there aren’t any rules: you can opt for bullet points, mind-maps or just simply brainstorm if essay-style writing isn’t for you. At the very least, you can start a private burner Twitter account to quickly offload thoughts if need be.

I feel that having a creative outlet is a good way of slowly becoming comfortable with acknowledging and accepting that you have issues you want to address. I think that it’s a gentle and kind way to ease yourself into getting professional help, and I wish that I had had some kind of creative process before forcing myself to accept that I needed therapy.

I really, really hope that this post has given at least someone an idea of what outlet suits them best, that expressing their feelings is an important part of overcoming trauma/issues, and that whoever needed to know it now knows that their feelings are 100% valid if it affects their everyday life and capability of being happy. In all honesty, I’m hoping that at least one person becomes confident enough to sign up to therapy - because really and truly, I doubt that relying on telling all your innermost feelings to an inanimate object for the rest of your life isn’t that healthy either…

But to each their own.

Good luck!

Love,

Liv

#mentalillness #selfhelp

YOU DESERVE ACCOLADES!

For those of you that don’t know, I’ve finally started my dream job in London after a long time of umming and ahhing. It’s still very early days, but so far everything is going amazingly well - I’m being challenged, I get to work with something I actually care about, and I’m finally being valued as a human being and not being treated like an imbecile despite doing most of the work. Shade definitely intended.

As I’m still getting used to actually enjoying going to work in the morning, I’ve been reflecting a lot on the process I had to get through to even get to this point. I had to get through three phone interviews, trek all the way from Nottingham to London for two separate face-to-face interviews and two one-hour online assessments. The whole recruitment process ended up taking two months.

Two. Whole. Months.

Of course, I was applying for multiple other jobs in the meantime because I’m not a simpleton. I went for a few face-to-face interviews and had loads of phone interviews, whilst secretly hoping that this job would work out. After a while I clocked that I really, really needed it to - because all I was getting from other jobs were endless rejections.

Even the best of us would get disheartened from constantly hearing “no” all the time. I became so immensely riddled with self-doubt and anxiety that I almost withdrew my application, cancelled the whole move to London and was fully prepared to stay at my old job in Nottingham. However - when the momentary madness subsided - I realised that if I really and truly wanted this job, I’d have to change my whole outlook and approach. So I did, and… it worked. Obviously. I want to share how I changed my thinking so hopefully someone else can be blessed like this, too!

I want to make clear that although I used these thought processes for the sake of acing my interview, it can definitely be applied to improving self-confidence in general, giving yourself constructive criticism and - most importantly - giving yourself the accolades you know you deserve. I think taking the following points into consideration will aid you in quickly nipping insecurities in the bud when they rear their ugly ass heads.

1. Force yourself to speak highly of yourself.

I feel like a lot of us - especially women - have been taught from a very young age to remain humble and modest, and that coming across as arrogant is immensely undesirable and considered almost rude. In theory, I agree with this - knowing when the appropriate time to speak up on your selling points is important - but I also think that these teachings have been blown out of proportion.

The unfortunate truth is that modern society literally feeds on our insecurities like leeches, and this has arguably resulted in a stigmatisation of people that display high amounts of self-confidence. We’ve all probably at some point in our lives looked at someone that shamelessly promotes themselves and been… offended, for lack of a better word. I can definitely admit that I’ve felt almost annoyed at people in the past, when they’ve entered my timeline with their businesses, creative side hustles, achievements etc. Definitely had the nerve to mutter “who the hell do you think you are?!” in disgust to myself.

Stop doing this.

As if they had a slightest ounce of interest in the negative opinions I had about the successes of the projects they had been grinding so hard for. How cute (pathetic).

I genuinely feel ashamed of myself for thinking like this now, but at least I have forced myself to start unlearning this kind of behaviour. Because if someone is genuinely confident in what they are doing, who am I to come and criticise them? Jealousy and bitterness are even worse traits than arrogance anyway, in my opinion - and confident people really couldn’t care less about what jealous people think of them putting themselves out there. Furthermore, people that allow themselves to be constrained by societal expectations regarding humility and modesty definitely end up blocking a lot of their own blessings...so I decided to join the winning team, and you should too.

If you have ever been to a standard job interview, you know that they will almost definitely ask you what your biggest strength and weakness is. I know for a fact that my biggest strength in my field is that I am exceptional at building a rapport with potential clients and maintaining positive professional relationships, and I was always praised for this at my old job. But since I was still figuring out the fine line between self-confidence and arrogance at the time, I found myself being extremely tentative in job interviews, starting sentences like:

“I think that I’m good at…”

“I could use some improvement, but I think I’m ok at…”

“I’m alright at…”

Disgusting and sauceless. No wonder I wasn’t hearing and good news back, to be honest - I feel that recruiters can smell insecurities from a mile away.

Luckily, by the time I got around to doing face-to-face interviews for this job I had already clocked that I was underselling myself, and made a conscious effort to not list my strengths following words like “I think”. Instead, I forced myself to start sentences with:

“I am exceptionally good at…”

“I definitely excel at…”

“I am very confident that I can…”

After each interview during the process - when the recruiter would call me and recap the interview and how I did - I always got the feedback that they were impressed with my assertiveness and self confidence (even if I did end up blurting out “not to be arrogant, but yeah” after most questions. Old habits die hard, I guess).

The bottom line is: you have to remove the fear of believing in yourself 100%. Because if you don’t, who else will?

2. Big up your achievements instead of focusing on your L’s.

If I had a penny for every time I cussed myself out for being 2% away from a distinction on my Masters degree, I’d literally not even have had to apply for this job. I’d be retired on a yacht somewhere in the Caribbean, laughing at all my broke friends having to work for a living. It still annoys me to this day, because I know exactly what I could’ve done to boost my final grade in the subject that dragged my GPA down. Internally kicks self.

However - I really could’ve used all this energy to instead focus on that I have two whole degrees. I slaved for four consecutive years and made it through alive and with (most of) my sanity intact. Plus, on top of that, I was fighting a lot of internal battles and issues, that very nearly pushed me to the point of dropping out.

But I didn’t. Because I’m a Boss Ass B*tch™.

I truly believe that many people would have folded if they had to go through the same things I was dealing with at the time, and reflecting on how resilient and strong I was when I was still going through it definitely makes those pesky 2% off my final grade seem insignificant - and this is exactly how you should regard your achievements in life.

Your achievements obviously don’t have to be academic; I’m just one of those people that likes to measure my success through receipts and certificates. The deal here is to truly reflect on everything you’ve done in life, and celebrate any and all obstacles you’ve overcome - and learn to do so without feeling that you’re coming across as arrogant. Because if you know that what you’re giving yourself praise for is true and you can back it up, you’re really just being confident in yourself and there is nothing wrong with that.

If you’re struggling to think of achievements, they can literally be anything - regardless of how small they may seem to you. Consider different aspects of your personal life that mean a lot to you - e.g. fitness, a hobby, your friends/family, your mental health - and try to break them down into different goals that you have reached, or are very close to reaching. For each achieved goal you can think of, give yourself an accolade.

Managed to improve your 5k running time? Accolade.

Finally got the promotion? Accolade.

Saved enough money to buy yourself something you’ve wanted for a long time? Accolade.

Overcome a mental health issue? Accolade.

Given birth to a healthy baby? Infinite accolades because...wow.

As previously said, it can be anything - it doesn’t necessarily have to be something that you can big up in a job interview. As long as reflecting on it fills you with pride and gives you a rightfully earned ego-boost, it counts. The goal is to become so (healthily) obsessed with celebrating your achievements and pushing yourself to do better, that you stop beating yourself up over mistakes and failures that you can’t do anything about and that are holding you back from appreciating your abilities.

In terms of job hunting, I often made the mistake of drawing the attention to that I was sOoOo close to getting a distinction, which might have affected my chances at getting other jobs. I don’t know why it always ended up coming up - I think I was subconsciously worried that I’d be labelled a fraud if they ended up hiring me based on my degree and later found out that I was *gasp* 2% off. But when I applied for this job, I made the conscious effort to place the focus on that I have two degrees, and on the knowledge that I got from them. I think that when they heard how mindblowingly intelligent I am, the grade didn’t even matter!

Finally, if you’re anything like me, your L’s usually aren’t even that big of a deal at the end of the day. No one gives as much thought to your mistakes as yourself - the severity of the mistake is almost always unnecessarily amplified in your head, usually because you’re obsessing over how you could’ve done things differently to avoid it. Once you let go of this obsession, and just learn to accept that what has happened has happened, I think it will be a lot easier to focus on the positives.

3. Acknowledge your areas of improvement.

Notice how I prefer to use the term “areas of improvement” as opposed to “weaknesses”. The word “weakness”, to me, means that there is something inherently wrong with someone that cannot be improved upon or changed - which is rarely ever the case.

As earlier discussed, anyone who has ever been to a job interview (like, ever) will know that the interviewer is guaranteed to ask what your biggest strength and biggest weakness is. If you’re anything like me - extremely self-critical and almost painfully self-aware - thinking of a “weakness” is probably quite easy, because chances are you’re thinking about them every day and trying your best to not let them get the best of you.

I have a method to deal with these areas of improvement that has greatly benefitted me in my private life, but I am also convinced that this approach is one of the main reasons why I ended up getting this new job. Hopefully you can use it for your self-improvement, too!

Basically, I start off by acknowledging the area of improvement. I’ll use the ones I brought up in my interview: the anxiety I get when doing presentations in front of industry/topic experts, as well as struggling to know when I should take a break from solving a problem.

When I say I’d rather die than do a presentation to senior management or take a break when I feel like I’m close to resolving an issue, people think I’m exaggerating. I really am not.

However - instead of simply stating that I’d rather perish than do these things - I took the time to consider where these feelings stem from. I definitely think that I suffer from impostor syndrome - meaning that I have this constant internalised feeling that I’ll be exposed as an impostor or fraud. Namely in an environment where I’m surrounded by experts that can smell bullsh*t from a mile away. Furthermore, I know that I become obsessed with minor details during projects and find it hard to tear away from it because I’m worried that I’ll lose my train of thought - when really, what I actually need is a break in order to come back to the project later with a fresh mind.

After finding out the root cause of the area of improvement comes what I consider the most important part: solutions to eliminate this area of improvement. For me, I was able to state that my fear of public speaking can be combated by preparing presentations long in advance and ensuring that I am extremely confident and knowledgeable of the material I am presenting. For my inability to tear myself away from work that I’m stuck on, I said that I am working on not being so hard on myself and allowing myself to take breaks to refresh my mind.

Of course, this process - acknowledging the issue → understanding the root of the issue → finding solutions to the issue - can be applied to a lot of different instances in life. However, I feel that it is especially helpful in terms of self confidence and putting your best foot forward in a job interview scenario, mainly because it gives you an advantage over other interviewees: proof that you are a problem-solver.

See it this way - yes, being able to provide a few “weaknesses” shows that you are self-critical and self-aware, but also explaining on how you plan to overcome these weaknesses in the same breath?

Whew. Amazing. The future CEO jumped out.

4. Make use of constructive criticism.

Although self-celebration and self-confidence starts with you, having supportive people on the same wavelength as you that genuinely want you to win comes as a close second place in terms of the most important things to have in your life. Regardless of if they are family or close friends, having people that see your drive, passion and hard work is extremely important - because it is these people that will be brutally honest with you and give you well needed kicks in the right direction on your off days.

Again, this really applies to anything you venture into, whether it’s a creative side hustle, hobby, new job, music, your own business...you get the point. Of course, whilst the praise and positivity is important as well, having those people that will tell you straight up when you need to do better for the sole purpose of them wanting to see you succeed is crucial - even when it’s hard to hear sometimes.

This blog is actually a perfect example - I always send the link to my friends + other people who I know will be honest with me in terms of feedback as soon as I post it, because I trust that what I hear back will be things that I can improve upon for future posts - and this is because I know they know how important this blog is to me. In terms of getting the job, my parents and a close friend of mine helped me with polishing my cv to perfection (mainly by telling me to “stop f*cking waffling about things that aren’t relevant to the role, Olivia!”) - and look where that got me!

To reiterate: surrounding yourself with people that won’t beat around the bush when giving you feedback on what you’re striving to achieve is one of the most important parts of succeeding in this life. Of course, you are capable to do it alone too, but having a support system makes it so much easier to tackle bad days. Usually because they’ll tell you to get your sh*t together and stop the crying.

(Of course, there are unfortunately people that will pretend to want what’s best for you while secretly hoping that you will fail. This is inevitable, especially when you’re doing big things in life. I’ll be doing a blog post about this at some point, but until then...apply sense. More time you know who these people are if you think about it.)

So, in conclusion - forcing yourself to be confident about your strengths, being unapologetically proud of your achievements so far, having an eagerness to improve your weaknesses and surrounding yourself with supportive people that are on the same wavelength as you are all imperative parts of you celebrating yourself and your accomplishments in life. I’ll definitely delve deeper into insecurities revolving around self-promotion at a later stage - but for now, hopefully you can take away some of the tips and apply them to acing an interview, presentation, first date, meeting your significant others’ parents… any situation that calls for a substantial amount of self-assurance and pride in who you are, really.

Good luck, I have confidence in you and you should, too!

Love

Liv

#selfhelp #empowerment #selflove #goals #opinions

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