The Magic Of Mindfulness

So, I recently read a magazine article on the practice on mindfulness and decided to give it a try. Based on the Buddhist concept of mindfulness in meditation, it is the focusing of attention and awareness. Now don't worry if you are religious, although this comes from Buddhist roots, mindfulness is often taught independently of religion so you can still give it a try!
Put into layman's terms, mindfulness essentially gives your brain a rest and it can ease feelings of stress and anxiety.

The aim of mindfulness is to teach you to focus your brain on tuning out distractions and it claims that the easiest way to do this is a five or ten minute breathing exercise in the morning. In quite a similar setting to meditation, the idea is to sit with a straight, relaxing back and feet flat on the floor. Gazing straight ahead or with eyes closed, bring your attention to your breathing and wherever you feel it most. When thoughts crop up, which they undoubtedly will, refocus your mind onto your breath.
The great thing about this is that there isn't a specific way in which you have to do it. Experiment with the time of day that works best for you. Which room do you prefer to do it in? How long can you last before deciding what's for tea really can't wait any longer?

At first I will admit that this was impossible for me to do for longer than about 30 seconds but it does get easier and I can definitely notice the health benefits. The thing to remember is to just take it at your own pace, start at 2 minutes and build it up.

Some other ideas you can try, if you're finding the meditation-type mindfulness difficult, are:

• Have a mindful shower- Focus on the warmth of the water, and appreciate the smells of your soaps and shampoos.
• Take time to enjoy your lunch- Eat slowly, enjoy the tastes and focus on what you're eating rather than checking your computer or phone. 
• Savour a cup of tea and just relax. 
• Before you go to sleep as you lie in bed do a mental tour of your body. Focus on different feelings and areas of tension, imagine your breath soothing them. Doing this can lead to a better nights sleep! 

So there you have it :) I hope you enjoyed this and that it was helpful! Let me know if you try it and if it works for you. 

Thanks for reading,
Charlotte xx

My Hair History!

Hello Lovelies :)

I recently had my haircut and went for something a bit drastic, something that I didn't think I would have the guts to do. I chopped off all my hair! I always wanted princess locks for as long as I could remember, the kind that you could sit on y'know but I surprised myself the other day and when my step-mum asked me what I would like done, I replied with, "Take it all off!"

In celebration of my new hair cut, which I don't like by the way, I thought I would look back over my hairstyles that I have had over the years and share them with you.

So here goes..

1. Here I am aged about 14 (I'm on the left by the way). My hair is completely natural here and I believe that I was trying to grow it. I really liked this colour and wish I could go back to it now but I'm not sure how hard it would be to get there.

2. In this picture I am about 16 I think. This was taken on Christmas Day 2010 and it was my baby brothers 1st Christmas. I really hate my hair here and I'm not entirely sure what I was thinking haha. The majority of my hair is still it's natural colour but I decided to have blonde put through my fringe and front sections of my hair. Personally, I don't think the curls help matters haha. 

3. I'm 18 in this photo and I was going through a bit of a rebellious stage with my grumpy pose and lip ring. This is where my hair was at it's longest and I think if I could redesign my hair starting from scratch now I would have it this length and in my natural colour. However, here I have recently dyed all of my hair in what was supposed to be a purple colour but turned out more of a redish-brown. 

4. I very quickly got bored of my long hair after someone told me it made me look a lot younger than I was and so I cut a good majority of it off. It's still a redish-brown colour but I now have a short bob with full fringe and I do like this hairstyle a lot. I think I am still 18 here. 

5. As my hair grew out of it's bob, I started to train my fringe into a side swept style. I then dyed it a very vivid red and this is pretty much still the colour that it is today. 

6. This photo was taken just before Christmas 2013. As you can see I let my hair grow out of any style and was trying to grow it long again. It's still a vivid red but doesn't appear to have any real shape at all haha.

7. And here I am now that I've had all of my hair snipped. This is actually a bit long than it really is as after I had had it cut I decided that I wanted more off and so both sides are about an inch shorter than what you see here. I tried to take a picture of it again but I couldn't get as good a representation as this one. It is still red and although I would love to go back to my natural colour, I also know how difficult it is to get red out of your hair. I have tried several times to grow my colour out but after about an inch of brown roots, I just have to dye it again haha. 

Anyway, thank you all so much for reading and I hope that you are all having a lovely week!

Thank you and I'll speak to you soon :)

Charlotte xx

Let's Catch Up!

Hello lovely people!

I can't believe that it has been an entire week since I last posted! Even I'm in shock! I'm sorry that I haven't been very present on here recently, I have an awful lot of things going on all at once. So I decided what better way to sort through everything in my head than to stick it on here for all of you to read about.

So, although I work part time at the moment as a Carer, I am looking for something full time as, quite frankly, I need more money to live on. I have had a load of different ideas in my head about what I might like to do and I truly believe that any one of them would make me happy and so I have applied to about a million jobs and am now patiently waiting for replies. I have a couple of interviews lined up and I am quite excited for them but nervous also. Alongside this I have, of course, been carrying on with my current job and that takes up even more of my previous blogging time.

I have also been going crazy trying to find a good intensive driving course for myself. I now have the money in order to complete a driving course, buy a car and insure it, and all that is left to do is find a good company. If any of you know of any then please let me know below! I ideally need to sort this out before I start one of my prospective jobs as after this, I won't necessarily be able to get the time off work in order to complete the course which would be a huge let down!

On top of all this there is the usual. Cleaning, tidying, taking care of the animals and finding the occasional moment to throw in some yoga or reading my book! I am so grateful for everything going on in my life right now and I do love how I always have something to get on with but I do sometimes wish that I could find time to fit in yoga every day :)

Anyways, I hope this didn't bore you haha, I just wanted you all to know that I haven't forgotten about you and I will be back very soon with hopefully at least 3 posts a week for you to look forward to.

Thank you for reading and I'll speak to you all soon. Hope you are all doing great and having a lovely day,
Charlotte xx

Anxiety.. You Can Control It.

There are hundreds of different types of anxiety but lets face it.. They're all crap. And, as a matter of fact they ALL stem from the same place; thinking too much.

Now before I get too far into this subject I want to say that no, I do not have any special qualifications nor am I a councilor so everything I am going to say here is from my own experiences. Ok, now that's out the way, lets get started :)

None of us want to admit it but most of our anxieties are our own creations, we make them up in our minds and let them become bigger than we ever wanted them to. It's a horrible thing to admit, that we do this to ourselves, but the fact that we do is actually a good thing; it means that we can rewrite those thoughts and make them into something less scary and more useful.

As anxiety sufferers we definitely feel as though anxiety runs the show and dictates what we can and can't do. Whether it's leaving the house, making that important phone call or trusting someone close to us; anxiety helps us to manifest the worst scenario and stops us from even contemplating doing the most simple of tasks. The most important thing to remember is that it doesn't have to be like that and that you DO have the power to tell your anxiety where to get off!

A little bit of anxiety is human, it helps us to distinguish between things we are comfortable with and those we aren't, but some of us let our anxieties run into every aspect of our lives and that's when it's time to stand up.

Anxiety is most common in those with creative minds but do not use that creativity to it's fullest potential. By doing this you are giving your mind the opportunity to use all that beautiful brain power in other ways, e.g. over-thinking EVERYTHING. So, the best advice I can give you to conquer your little anxiety demon is too drown it with creativity. You have to keep busy ALL THE TIME. And not just by doing the housework or by going food shopping because that doesn't engage your mind, you have to do something that completely blocks out any thoughts other than those that are focused on the task at hand. Learn an instrument, write/read an engaging book, design your own spaceship, create some handmade jewellery, do some baking, redesign your entire house, start a blog.. The list is endless and all of these things require creativity and complete concentration on your behalf.
The key is to not let your brain have ANY time whatsoever in which it can wander onto damaging thoughts. 

A lot of people who suffer anxiety find it useful to plan out their days. Doing this means that you shouldn't have any time during your day in which you're just standing around, staring into space, and therefore doesn't give you any time to over-think.
If you spend a lot of your day at a dull, uninteresting job this can be the time where anxiety strikes hardest. However, again the secret is to not let your mind wander. Either focus ridiculously hard on your work and make yourself do it to the best of your ability so that your completely absorbed by the task, or think about your new creative outlet that you have going on at home; come up with new designs and plans, research new recipes, try out your ideas on your colleagues. Just don't get into trouble!

One of the most important things is that you absolutely have to admit that the reason you have anxiety is because you put it there. I'm aware that that may be hard to hear, some of you may have had horrible events occur that you believe triggered your anxiety, and that may very well have been the case, however the event itself would not have been the cause, your reaction to the event was. You see, as long as you believe that you're not the cause, the longer your anxiety will control you, once you admit that you are the reason behind your anxious thoughts you can immediately regain control over your anxiety demon.

STICK TO IT. It will be hard and you will have bad days where you think that all your hard work has been for nothing but trust me, choose to change and stick to it. Imagine anxiety as a snowball (bare with me). Anxiety can be triggered by one sentence, sometimes even a word, and this is where it starts, as a pea-sized snowball. The more you dwell on it and think about it the bigger your snowball gets, rolling down a hill and getting bigger by the second until you have no room in your head for anything other than your snowball and you essentially get a metaphorical avalanche. When you become aware of an anxious thought popping into your head, kill it immediately. Actually say to yourself, "NO" and then consciously focus your thoughts onto something else. You have to have conviction and you have to work at it EVERY single second of the day. Stopping the bad thoughts and swapping them for good ones. It's hard work but it will get easier and pretty soon you'll be doing it without even realising it.

The last point I have is to do with medication, particularly if you are on anti-depressants for your anxiety. I want you to know that you don't need them. You are completely capable of conquering this without the need for meds, and you will feel so much better for doing it on your own. Let me ask you this? Have you ever actually looked at the little sheet that comes with your medication? The one that says that the side effects of your anti-depressant meds is depression and suicidal thoughts? I'm not a doctor so I'm not encouraging you to bin your anxiety related meds however, what I am saying is by tackling these issues on your own you will soon find little need for them and be shocked by how much they're hindering your progress as apposed to helping. I suppose what I'm getting at is, if you are yet to be offered anti-depressants I strongly advise that you think long and hard about it as it's very easy to become reliant on the pills and you are less likely to be willing to help yourself.

Simply put, in order to control your anxiety you need to:

1. Admit that you're the cause. 
2. Decide, with conviction, to make a change. Choose to fill your life with creative outlets and fulfilling distractions. 
3. Stick to it, no matter how hard it gets. 

Please don't think that I am trying to have a go at you, because I truly am not. I know that some of you may feel attacked or that I don't understand what you're going through or else I wouldn't be saying the things I have. Let me remind you that I, myself, have anxiety and have had it for about 6 years. All these tips and tricks are what have gotten me to where I am today, where I am finally able to keep my anxiety under control. I'm sorry if I have offended anyone but to those of you who are able to see the sense in what I have said, I sincerely hope that this helps you. Please feel free to ask any questions and approach me with any messages at all.

For those of you who are interested, here is a post I did earlier this month about GETTING POSITIVE IN 2014.


Thank you for reading and I'll see you all soon,
Charlotte xx