I Didn't Write a New Years Post.

This year I had a big post planned out for the first of January: it was about the new year, new beginnings, letting go of the old and looking to the future for the new. Here we are in the second month of 2015 and there is no such post. I wrote this post. I looked at it. I edited and rewrote it and added pictures and changed my tone, deleted the pictures and changed my title- and then I eventually deleted it.

Why?

If I am absolutely honest with myself I deleted it because I was terrified this year would be terrible. I was scared that I was setting up my expectations too high and that I'd just look back on that post at the end of 2015 and I would be disappointed.

Over the last couple years I got into this very very surreal and weird head space. Failure at anything was the end of the world, change terrified me, people's opinions because everything and even when I was happy I was stressed about something else.

This school year I set myself up with the mindset that I wasn't going to do that ever again, that I was going to enjoy this year no matter what- that I was actually going to live my life a little rather than thinking in the past and future, agonising over everything but the present. I am so much happier.

Yesterday evening was probably the highest point of my happiness in a long while and my head is still reeling from that feeling in the best possible way. However you feel about valentines day, whether you love it or hate it I am about to spill a little about mine so if you hate it skim this part, and if you don't then keep reading... It was warm and quiet and so lovely, I had a perfect afternoon in with my boyfriend- food, dumb videos, great company and the most beautiful flowers. I felt unbelievably spoilt and lucky. I got home to my family and we had dinner and laughed and talked about random stuff, we watched the office back to back and I talked to my best friend to discuss the worlds latest gossip. I was awake about 2am still thinking about how funny it is how life turns out and thinking that coincidence cannot possible exist because there's no way you could love people this much by chance. It's very cheesy and cliché but it's days like this when I am at my very happiest and it's because of the people around me and my choice to switch off and enjoy it.

It was actually my perfect day- I didn't worry or stress about anything, I was just enjoying the moments in my life. It's really easy to forget to do that in this day and age where everything is instant, every stage in your life is just preparation for the next one and things all move in fast forward. I like to take one whole day off worrying at least once a month to keep my head in order and let my body have time to recuperate from this crazy western lifestyle we all embrace as normality.

It's little things. I realised last year that there were a few things that held my attention in the moment and kept me grounded when my head was spinning from the 101 things I had to do. One was when I let people in, let them be affectionate and was affectionate back- this is so so important if you want to move yourself out of a weird head space. It's your choice whether you push people away or let them in- letting people in is so freeing and just makes everything else seem lighter on your shoulders. Things like coffee with my best ones and really cuddly dates, my beautiful little cousins keeping me occupied with their funny little sayings and make believe games- these are all moments that held my full attention and where I started feeling like myself again. Cultivating that feeling and holding onto it, trying to find it in other things will make you feel 100% better.

I know that life is never ever going to be perfect, but last night it felt pretty damn close. You are never going to have everything, you are never going to be able to be happy forever and ever-it's just not how life works, But life is a series of moments, some are better than others, but if you ignore the beautiful moments and how they make you feel, and just focus on the bad ones- then are you really learning anything? Are you really living? Or are you just trying to move through life to get to the next moment and the next?

I didn't write a new years post because I was terrified of letting myself be set up to enjoy my life. I didn't write one because I thought my hopes and expectations were too high- that was stupid because my expectations of this year have been exceeded several times already and it's only February. You attract what you put out into the world, if you put out bad energy it's going to come back to you and if you put out good energy then that's what you are going to get. Wonderful people are drawn to other wonderful people, entrepreneurs are drawn to the innovative and focussed people in this world. We are always putting something back into the world around us, effecting the people around us and it's so important to put something good back.

I think I grew up more in the last year than in the last 5 years put together and a lot of that was overwhelming and scary- I failed a lot and let myself lay down and let it make me feel worse. I am not going to do that any more and I am going to have high expectations of life because I know the way that things are going now, that I won' be disappointed by 2015, because it's already made me feel amazing.

Real Talk: Riding the waves.

Recently I have been checking out the whole mindset of being 'mindful' to help me deal with any issues or anxieties I am having about my school work, social or home life, to try and organize my issues and various situations into more manageable chunks. As someone who does tend to panic, worry and generally get very anxious about stupidly small things, I feel like some of the techniques I use and some of the thinking I've been looking at might help other people in a similar position.So if you are the sort of person who has difficulty dealing with their anxieties and huge amounts of jobs then keep reading...

So here we are with the real talk: Sometimes it gets hard.
Sometimes life gets really overwhelming and real and important, and when that happens, everything seems to happen kind of at once. Nothing important or stressful happens by itself, it is always accompanied by other important or stressful things. I know, it sucks- but cest la vie!
Sometimes there will be periods of time when it feels like nothing is ever going to be okay again.
Everything goes wrong, everything hurts, and the number of things that need to get done start to have an almost physical presence in your life.


1. Let me start by saying you are not alone in that feeling.
That weight, and that stress- that anxiety that keeps crashing into you like a wave, someone else has felt that way. In fact, many other people have felt that way.
So you should take comfort in the fact that your inability to handle and process everything that is happening to you, is something that we have all felt at points in our lives- you're not alone.

2. Breakdowns are human.
We are taught we need to be strong to be successful, this is not untrue. You need to be strong enough to chase your dreams, to be knocked down and to get back up again.
But it is an entirely human response once in a while, to sit down and feel sad- to be overwhelmed, to be emotional. Letting your sadness wash through you, letting the struggle hurt and addressing the fact you're angry or frustrated or upset is actually very healthy. human beings are not designed to be happy or strong all the time, we are not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, We are flawed, it is a fundamental feature of our existence. It doesn't matter how pretty, or rich, or successful, or funny, or smart a  person is- they will have flaws. They will have too short a temper, be too harsh on themselves, be too harsh on others, fear relationships, test relationships, have issues with authority, have issues without any authority. The fact is no one is perfect, and the acceptance of our flaws and moments of weakness is okay.

3. Drowning.

Being overwhelmed is a horrible feeling- it's like everything you need to and are expected to do suddenly washes over you when you least expect it. You turn your back on the sea that is your responsibility in life and suddenly you're caught up in a strong salty woosh of horrible things. Jobs pile up, and the more there is the harder that wave hits you- and if you let that wave wash over you and drag you down it feels like you're drowning.
In this instance you have to hold on to something that will keep you afloat. This can be in the form of many things, the least healthy but arguably the easiest of which is people: good, kind, constructive people in your life will help you float to the surface of the problems you are having, by giving you advice and support to get you through.
This is highly effective, although you need to be careful how regularly you do this because those people, for whatever reason, may not always be there to bring you back up, leaving you to cope for yourself. So use people to stay afloat very rarely.
Alternative ways to keep yourself afloat include routine: have a set time to do things, go and sleep, make a little time for yourself, for your family, friends, extra curricular activities. But have them in a regular and achievable routine. This will help normalise your issues, or regulate the waves you feel. Organising yourself to the point you know when those waves or that intense pile up of jobs is going to happen will help you to prepare for their impact. Trust me, it helps.


4. Physical effects of drowning (ie: panic attacks and anxiety)

To deal with the physical effects of your emotional or mental "drowning"in your worries or anxieties it's really important to think about how the effect you physically. The most important is breathing:
breathing slower and more deeply is going to pull your body out of a sense of panic and shock, and once your body starts to stop freaking out, your head should automatically follow. It's like an anchor. Think about how you're sitting and if it is going to make you feel more light headed. Do not sit paralysed, movement helps to get the blood pumping round your body in a non-panicky way. Make sure you move, but as you do make sure you are doing things deliberately with force and focus: this way you don't feel like you're treading water and more like you're swimming to shore. The more you make a conscious effort not to panic and try to improve whatever situation you're in, the faster these overwhelming thoughts and issues can be resolved.

So there we have it, some real talk about how to deal with anxiety on a small and personal scale. I hope you find it helpful, and I'd love to hear anything you have to say about this or anything else I post!

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