Mind Over Body

I have felt in relative harmony with myself the last few days. I've rode the waves of my mind and as I’m typing this, have received the good news that my new job will be permanent as opposed to fixed term temporary. This means I won’t just be tossed onto the open road after a short ride like a creepy hitchhiker *does celebratory wiggle*. As a result of a busy albeit, chilled few days, I haven’t bothered too much with making myself look like anything other than ordinary. I always make sure I look sort of presentable because it makes me feel neat and in case I happen to bump into Channing Tatum (the internet tells me he lives in London so it could happen, don’t ruin this for me please). Since reaching my twenties, I very rarely entertain negative, hateful feelings towards myself and my appearance, nor spend a great deal of time dwelling on it. I think, as we grow, most of us learn how little importance it has. I have met a lot of people and none of them have heaved upon sight of me so hopefully I don’t look like the evil queen in Snow White upon her transformation to an old beggar woman.

Of course my comfortable attitude towards my appearance isn't bulletproof.  Put into an example, I do wear some very basic make-up to the gym (ridiculous I know), but I have also worn the same, ugly tracksuit bottoms and jumper to work out in for the past two years and I like to think that the two cancel each other out. Likewise, I am guilty of holding the occasional pity party. I usually give myself the pleasure of unwrapping feeling fat or thinking I’m ugly, thoughts of which when I do have, I know to dismiss because they aren't important or true. In my mind I can see hundreds of human heads, male and female, nodding in agreement from an imaginary audience that are reading this and have felt those things too. As I hear this negativity from many people, very regularly, this post is a reminder that being self-depreciating and hating how you look is pointless and unproductive. The excessive importance that is placed on appearance brings nothing but artificial, temporary happiness. You are born into your body and you’re always going to exist in it (claustrophobic thought). If the way you look is something that violates your mind more than you’d like it to then I’d entertain this thought. Based on their physical beauty, the most attractive flowers may be the ones that are picked first and displayed in a glass vase in the middle of a room. They are also the ones that get a week to exist until they wilt, die and rot.

Focusing too much on the way you look is like slowly sawing off your arm (can’t recommend). It’s painful and self-destructive. A cool thought came to me today, and as this blog claims to be a place for cool things, I felt it somewhat appropriate to share. I found myself thinking about how being the owner of a strong mind is invaluable compared to anything else. If you explore your mind and challenge it you’ll find out that it’s a large, expandable sponge that can bring you ridiculous, long term happiness. It let's you wear your kindness, your imagination and your confidence. If you use your mind as your most attractive feature then any insults you give yourself and that others give you about how you look won't have effect because you’ll reach a point where your mind will be like Thor’s hammer. Very powerful and controllable by no-one except you. If you love yourself and your appearance then let’s share a high five, but if you’re in that uncomfortable zone of not quite knowing then remember, mind over matter. I will leave you with a little treat from Tyrion Lannister of Game Of Thrones, who, through being that someone who is constantly ridiculed for how he looks, really knows his shit.

Middle Earth

In case it isn't already obvious enough, I love Middle Earth, the place where The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit are set. I’d happily trade in Northampton to live the rest of my days in a hobbit hole with a vegetable patch and some peace and quiet. If you're sitting there thinking, 'Oh how sad', instead of hating on my new, perfect life, come and share some scones and ale with me. It'll be really beautiful I promise. Until the Nazgul come on horseback and I tell them that you may or may not be the owner of a specific ring. I am so eager to see The Hobbit: There and Back Again, part three of the trilogy, which comes out in December this year in the UK. The first two parts were fantastic. Over the past few days I've been searching around for some inspiration for my blog and as I was reading through the March Edition of my Women's Health magazine I found an interview they did with Evangeline Lilly who plays a woodland elf called Tauriel in part 2 and 3 of The Hobbit films. She came across as a very real and free spirited woman and it just made me happy and love her character even more. If like me, you like to know every detail about every actor/actress in your favourite films (keep telling yourself that's a cool thing Sarah) then you should go and read it. Now, I was quite tired a few nights ago and something happened. Hopefully you will enjoy my weird experiments but if you do not, then I highly suggest that you go back to the shadow.

Testing On Animals

When my mother was younger, she spent time out of her life contacting major cosmetic companies asking them a very short, very simple question. Do you test on animals? Back in the 80s legislation protecting animals from cruelty wasn’t as advanced and successful as it is today. My mum has always loved animals and been horrified at the idea of mindless animal cruelty; today she was telling me about a conference she’d been too in her 20s in a well off area in London, where Joanna Lumley was appealing against the culling of seals in Canada. Little did I know, she also wrote many letters to many people appealing for animal cruelty to be stopped and today we managed to find them. Reading through page after page of responses to her letters makes me a very proud daughter (my mum is awesome). 

As you can probably guess, from the existence of this blog post, both of us share the same ideals. This is not meant to be a judgement of those who do use products that may be tested on animals, or to those who aren’t aware or don’t care about it, or an effort to make myself seem like a perfect, angel child, it’s merely my insight into something that I think is of great importance.

As you probably are aware, animal cruelty stretches very far into many dark corners of the world and the immorality happens in an endless list of ways; if you watch the news you’ll have seen the continued effort to protect against poachers mindlessly killing elephants for the illegal trade of ivory and how the unnecessary use of palm oil is causing rain forest habitat loss and orang-utan genocide. Today I saw a man yanking at a dog that had a thick metal chain round his neck, he was shouting obscenities at it and to me, that’s cruelty.  Whether it’s a critically endangered orang-utan or a laboratory rat, it’s still cruelty. I think animal testing for cosmetics is an appalling practice of absolutely mindless cruelty.

Europe has banned animal testing for cosmetics which is fantastic, but it doesn’t make it impossible for companies to test on animals outside of Europe. The thing that irritates me the most about animal testing is that it isn’t a legal requirement for companies to put ‘This is made by a company that tests on animals’ on the front of their products. It is a problem of supply and demand and if everyone opened their minds to the ethics of the companies their lipsticks or shower gels come from, maybe they’d think twice about buying them. It sounds extreme but it happened with the sales of cigarettes, you don’t see a packet without a dramatic, health warning of a blackened lung splayed over the front. Or that colour wheel of calories and fat in our food; another effort to solve a problem.

When I go shopping, which is relatively often (I have needs), I love to find products that I know are made in the RIGHT way; that don’t require caged rats or injections into rabbits. There are so many companies that ARE cruelty free. I urge you to give it a go. Next time you go to buy something, check the back and see if it’s cruelty free (you’ll most likely see a bunny logo). You can't deny, animals are awesome and so is protecting them, so let's all be beautiful AND kind. Live long and prosper. 

 LUSH Fresh Handmade Cosmetics and Bomb Cosmetics both make adorable, animal friendly products. As you can see from this small segment of my very large collection - I LOVE their bath bombs.

Life After University

I graduated from university in July of 2013 and as it’s now a good half a year past that time, I thought it might be helpful to others to share my story of life after university. How I thought life would be and how it turned out. It’s also a little nostalgia/reflection for me too. This is my personal experience and won’t be yours, unless you are me from a parallel universe, mimicking my life, which if you are, come and find me so we can expand the list of twin super heroes.I studied Biology at university. I absolutely adored doing my degree and came out the other end with a really good result. You’re welcomed into a place full of (mostly) like-minded people, where you grow confidence, get to sculpt yourself into your best version, with little responsibility, a bank of government money and high hopes for the future. That’s how I saw it anyway and on graduation day I felt elated.

How did I expect to feel after university? I hoped to have made new friends, experience cool things and that I’d have a clear idea of what type of career I’d jump into, obvious things, two of which I did do, however, I am not a marine biologist or a clinical molecular geneticist, so something went a little bit wrong along the way. Whoops.

So what I actually experienced after leaving university was a very horrible, very real feeling of being lost. I had no clue what I wanted to do or be or achieve - “You should have prepared more, you had three years”. Throughout studying I saw careers advisers, spoke to my friends, family, lecturers and scoured the depths of the internet for inspiration. Nothing captured my heart or mind. Since July, I’ve been in and out of jobs, which some, though albeit, were related to my degree, I took because I needed the money. I can't do something if I don’t enjoy it and because of this, it has been a very hard year for me. I’ve gone from feeling absolutely fantastic to feeling low and anxious, and then right back to fantastic; so expect a colour wheel of feelings after university.

Although I sound miserable, the past half a year hasn’t all been a hopeless horror story, maybe more like The Shining where the mother and child escape at the end, all the better off for the psychopathic father’s death. Half a year is a long time to find out more about yourself. I didn’t know who I was when I was at university; I hadn’t had the time to work out what was best for me. Since university, I’ve found happiness in being kind to others, focused on my physical and mental health, found myself in weird, outstanding situations, discovered the things that I enjoy doing and identified the strongest parts of myself. Through experiencing different fields, I know the jobs that I don’t want to do and this is very valuable.

I am now employed in a new job and have a lot of different, little life projects pending, which is very exciting. I will never regret going to university and the best advice I can give to anyone, however obvious it sounds, is to really think about what you want to do for a career, before and during your studies. If it doesn't go to plan, don’t worry, because if you are like me, you’ll probably never know what you want to do and that curse will give you valuable opportunity to explore life and your abilities (plus you get to be a lovable fuck-up). Though finding a pathway in life is important, so is happiness, and the latter makes the former a lot more easier to achieve.