Someone Touched My Wobbly Bits

Before the heartfelt sympathy starts pouring in, no, I have not been physically assaulted. I know I've had a few run ins with the police force recently, but this is a nice thing.

I want to talk about a spa treatment, bought for me by my generous older (though questionably not wiser) sister Lucy. She treated to a magical full body massage (The Comforter? Treatment) at LUSH Spa Kingston. I use the adjective magical quite literally, as there were bubbles in the little, darkened room and music from Willy Wonka playing. It felt like I was in a mini, pleasantly scented spaceship.

First of all I must credit LUSH as a company on how the entire day was delivered. I am not a self conscious person, but I did have my realistic reserves about how the treatment would take place. How naked is full body? Will I cope with someone seeing my wobbly bits? Shit, I need to shave my legs/wear suitable underwear...ETC. Don't laugh. We all have our moments. OH HOW WRONG I WAS.

On arrival we were sat down and we had a cute chat with our therapists. We were offered a drink & shown to our massage rooms. The spa area itself was like someone's living room who has incredible talent with home design; beautiful colours, smells and ambience. We were told exactly what would happen and what products would be used where. When we'd stripped down to the bare minimum and had snuggled into a heated duvet spa bed, we rang a little bell so the therapist would know to begin. Through this whole process, Aquarium by Arthur Fiedler was playing which made my mind feel gooey. If you aren't familiar with this piece of music, educate yourself...you won't be disappointed.

The treatment itself was a hot chocolate exfoliating body scrub and a rose scented medium pressure massage of the arms, legs, chest and back. It was bewitching. When she hit my lower back...good god. My skin still feels soft and healthy and the whole day made for a fantastic memory.

Word of the day: SATISFIED. I would recommend the LUSH Spa to any human being I know. It is no gimmick; just blissful. I am over analytical and anxious by default, so trust me.

My treatment is priced at £75. If you're looking to REALLY treat a best friend or family member to a day of infinite indulgence, I would whole heartedly get on this website and splash zee cash; https://www.lush.co.uk/products/treatments-0

Thank you for listening to my selfish post! :) and I know there's not many pictures on my blog to accompany the words, but we're all adults and to be honest you should know how to enjoy a wonderful chunk of writing by now.

A Healthier Lifestyle

Hello woman and men of the world.

Yesterday I looked at myself, as a whole, not purely on a physical basis. Now, me? I like me a lot and think that everyone should love themselves. Even though we can all get lost in clouds of self pity and put downs, I am a believer in the mantra of self love; the body is a temple etc etc. However, one thing I have been neglectful of as of recent, is my health and fitness. 

I have a very random, unorganised approach to keeping healthy. I go through bouts of awesome motivated fitness where I'm feeling wonderful and putting all the good stuff in and bouts of terrible eating with no physical activity whatsoever where I might as well be a sleeping elephant. Both can last months and for the past month or so I've been a big, big pig (most likely due to cake, crisps, fast food and the enjoyment I get from sitting down...). All those things are great in moderation but apparently I've never heard of that word before. I weigh more than I have in over 3 years, which doesn't bother me, but I know I'll feel happier if I look after myself more than I have been doing. 

So, boys and girls, I woke up today and told myself to get back on looking after my body. It's MY body and I am the only one responsible for how HEALTHY it is. I am not bothered about looking slim, I just want to respect my body, give it muscle again and enhance my mental well-being by changing my lifestyle. This afternoon I bought some awesome, new Reebok running trainers which feel like marsh-mellows and went to the gym and I feel great.

The plan is to drop fat, gain muscle, drink more water and eat PROPERLY. Maybe I will do some health and fitness themed blog posts? I know anything posted on the internet regarding 'getting fit' can be super annoying/intimidating/disheartening to those who either aren't interested in health and fitness or who want to make a change but have yet to do so, but I think it'll be fun to share some tips and techniques that work for me, with you. 

So for now, I love you, and for later, I love you just as much, if more. Have a lovely weekend.

Projects

Good evening world (or on the contrary, the few people who read what I write). It's verging on 11pm on a cold, windy Sunday in May and my mind is fired with electrifying ideas that more than anything, I want to kick into force. In this present moment I linger between a state of anxiety and excitement; anxious about my job and excited about a conversation I've had with my boyfriend about side projects I want to start. I hope that your minds are in relative harmony tonight. If they aren't, let’s decide to cling onto the more positive thoughts that are wandering around the caves of our minds shall we? Leave the painful, negative ones to fester alone without our company. If you can't do that, then read on and feel comforted that you aren't the only person who holds hands with their demons.

Stress is something I am trying to reduce in my life at the moment. For me it's heightened because of many things, those of which won't simply vanish through a regurgitation of their life histories. So I'm not going to do that. I'll just say that I'm looking for ways to handle pressure and negativity better. I was given techniques to cope with anxiety which I've mentioned in a previous post 'Relax' back in March. These do work but were 'clinically prescribed' and are very general to stress. They don't target individual stresses but work well to calm down physical symptoms. I'm trying to whittle down the anxiety I feel into a smooth spear that I can then use to wound the part of me that enjoys worrying. If I find out anything ground breaking along the way, any tips or techniques, then I'll let you know and we can both take part in a boot camp for people who worry excessively.

The emphasis of this blog is going to be the importance of having variety in life. Variety in daily doings and goings on. That's why I'm trying out new things. Blogging is still new for me. I'm still finding my feet and still tripping over rocks. I've developed this theory that having multiple projects in life can reduce the stress and anxiety that someone feels over a negative aspect of their life. E.g. writing a book and training for a marathon can help reduce the pain that a mind-numbing 9-5 job can cause. I think by splitting your efforts and attention into different shapes and sizes, you can feed off the enjoyment of certain projects and shrug off the shit from the less enjoyable projects. Imagine your job that grinds you down and stresses you out is a heavy, brown growling hound with spit dripping from its enlarged canines and red glowing in its eyes. It's howling at you and prowling around you with menace and anger. THEN let's take your favourite pasttime, so mine could be blogging. My blog is a spirit bear (Google it), standing tall but very still, with kind eyes and a serene demeanor. Which one do you feed? Which one do you neglect? We should not face only the hound, because it runs the risk of becoming the only thing that we focus on and something that causes us only regular pain.

It's the keeping of a busy mind that's the key. New things are also FUN. My weapons of choice here I won't fully disclose, because I want to keep them as my own little projects, but if they become, shall we say, hobbies, then I might tell you.

I hope you are becoming comfortable with the way in which I write and the things that I write about. I want this to be like visiting a friend who you will likely never meet, but who can help you and hopefully make you laugh (sometimes). Take time to focus on the great things you are blessed with in life and don't panic or be sad. Try new things that enrich your existence because life's not permanent.

Helpful Life Hacks

1. Don't make eye contact with anyone that's male, over 40, really muscly, big, or scruffy looking because they WILL attack you

2. Don't let anyone know any details about you, don't tell your doctor, your friends, change your name and move country

3. Don't buy a drink for anyone because you will be imprisoned for attempting to drink spike

4. Never eat anything that has any fat or carbohydrate in it because you'll gain too much weight and everyone will tell you that you look like an elephant

5. Quitting signifies laziness and irresponsibility 

6. Don't get enthusiastic about diet or exercise because you'll become obsessive and develop anorexia

7. Don't follow your dreams as they're pointless and you'll get absolutely nowhere

8. Don't buy candles because you'll develop a sleep disorder and set your house on fire

9. Any friendship with someone of the opposite gender will result in marriage

10. Worry all the time because any bad outcome that you haven't properly played out in your mind will happen in real life

11. Become a vegan and slowly starve to death

12. If you don't travel regularly and let people know about it on social networks then you have a boring, empty personality

13. If you see someone young with kids then the pregnancy wasn't planned and they will be on benefits

14. Save all money you earn as in the future you'll need it to fund emergency medical care and a new house because yours will burn down

15. If you live with your parents past the age of 20 you are overly attached to everything and likely inbred

16. Always believe everything you're told and never have an open mind

Happy Star Wars Day!

Nightmares

I never have nightmares, I only ever dream of good things and I've rarely done that since a year or so ago. A few recurring dreams I had when I was small were of laser tag in underground tunnels that were built under fields and of being able to levitate on the upstairs landing of my house. Weird, just like me. I've had a bit of trouble with anxiety this year and this, twinned with trying to find an enjoyable job upon graduating has resulting in me standing on mountains of stress and worry (no sympathy, it's sadly self-inflicted). I'm slowly climbing down as I finally have a job I enjoy and am coping a bit better with the evils in life.

This past week I've had 3 terrifying nightmares, and this, for me, is very unusual. In the first, I woke within the dream. I stirred in my bed and felt someone watching me. My covers were then thrust over my mouth and a hand went over my throat, so I couldn't breathe. It felt SO real and I remember screaming through the duvet for help. Now this was so terrifying because I could feel the skin of the hands grasping my neck and my nose being smothered, allowing no air in. The second dream was reminiscent of Noah's Ark. The Earth had flooded and it was in an apocalyptic state. The world was gradually drowning under this mass of water and houses were filling up so that people had to flee their homes. I remember searching for a helicopter or a boat to save myself and wondering where I would live once the flood had wiped out the human population. Whilst searching for my family I looked up in the landscape and was face to face with a ridiculously tall tsunami wave of water and that was pretty much it for me and I woke me up. Yesterday's nightmare was absolutely awful and yet I can't remember a thing, which I'm not too upset about (all hail Buddha). I probably had snippets of memory in the morning but by first break at work it had gone.

The only positive of the nightmares was the HUGE, warming relief I felt after I woke up. This especially from the strangling nightmare which made waking up seem blissful. I don’t know if I believe in the meaning of dreams but mine seem appropriate. I've smooshed the verdicts of a lot of different sources into some meaning. Choking and strangulation allegedly mean suppression of emotions you don't want to confront, or having someone keep you from expressing your true self. Tsunamis and flooding reflect being easily overwhelmed by unresolved feelings and an experience of sadness and emotional stress in life.

To all those who make the magical decision to read my blog when I post something new, don't bottle up any feeling before you sleep. I think that's what I'm doing because of these frequent nightmares. Deal with the unorganised, annoying scraps in your head before you rise into a new day because you have, have, have to look after yourself and relieving stress is self-medication. If I can try then so can you. No one wants to wake up every day with a list of exaggerated reasons to hate their life. Enjoy it as best you can cus a meteor/asteroid/earthquake/alien invasion/zombie outbreak could happen at any time.

"You're The Happiest Person I've Ever Met"

I have always found it difficult to know what happiness means. Does it mean a period of uninterrupted joy surrounded by rainbows and cake? Or is it more of an acceptance of circumstance? Is it something subtle that you only realise on reflection or is a mad bliss where everything goes as you want it to? I write because I do not know the trick to it. I think trying to be happy all the time often leaves people in a state of dissatisfaction because of how hard it is to pinpoint its whereabouts every single day. Is it possible to live in a stable state of happiness? I don't mean to sound like a dramatic twat with this topic. If i'm honest, I just find it really, really interesting. You get these people that are deeply religious or spiritual who believe that happiness can be achieved long term and that minds can be moulded to achieve it. What do you think?

Since starting school I've always been labelled a happy person and it hasn't really changed since. I remember someone in my class telling me I was the happiest person they've ever met and although that's clearly a lovely thing to hear (and harshly untrue - i'm a right bitch), it made me question other people's perceptions of happiness. I talk and I'm confident in public as a reaction to stressful situations, it's my coping mechanism which has built itself into my character. I smile and laugh because things definitely do bring me joy and because that's what I look for in other people. I find it so interesting that someone thought that I was 100% happy in my life because of my body language. This is why I think that there’s synthetic happiness and natural happiness. Synthetic happiness is when I cheer myself up by watching a video about an octopus climbing over a rock on YouTube (watch below for a minute of pure joy), when I eat pizza and when I passed my driving test. These things are awesome. Synthetic things are like health packs in a zombie apocalypse that temporarily boost your well being and state of mind. They are good things!

Natural happiness is the difficult thing I think people are always trying to find. The cure in the zombie apocalypse. That stable state of mind that's impenetrable by the one ring and the dark side of the force. We know other emotions like anger, sadness, pleasure and jealousy so well, but not this. I think the curse of being the most advanced species is that we won't ever TRULY understand natural happiness, but we will always be trying to. This is why I think true happiness is a state of mind AND is complemented by but completely separate to synthetic things like Ipods and nice hair. Cleopatra, the beautiful Queen of Egypt, endowed with power, induced a snake to bite and kill her. Kurt Cobain took a shotgun to his head and ended a successful career as a rock singer. René Favaloro, a heart surgeon who pioneered the process for bypass surgery shot himself in the heart. These are people who had HUGE synthetic happiness in their lives, yet ended them. You get the idea. 

There isn't a switch that makes humans happy all the time and there will always be pain and you know what, that is absolutely fine! Be cool with it. Make peace with the fact that so many people don't understand how to be 100% happy all the time too.The irony of this blog post is that I feel incredibly happy today and that's the only reason I wrote this. I also will apologise for writing the word happiness so much. I actually wrote it 12 times which is so excessive and don't worry, i've annoyed myself too.

I love you for reading this post and I hope you live your lives with happy minds surrounded by happy things. 

Relax

I have a question. Are you relaxed? I mean, in your life, do you feel relaxed and free from stress? I am going to go on a hunch and assume that the answer is no. When you live and grow older, the responsibilities you have only really expand. That’s how it’s been for me anyway. The only stress my younger self had to deal with was deciding what I wanted from the ice cream van and now all of a sudden I have to find a bullshit career path and know exactly what I want to do with my life. Thank you very much universe maker but I gratefully decline. I think if life had a difficulty mode, it’d be automatically set to expert and to change it you’d have to fight a hundred bosses, defeat a hundred hordes of zombies and rescue a hundred princesses. That said, I think that making mistakes and encountering obstacles is normal and healthy. Stress comes in many guises. Work, education, family, relationships, children, self-image, health, housework, money, the past, the present and the future. You’re probably able to pluck out a good few of those.

Now I think that the things that make us stressed can also make us happy. I think they can be controlled or changed to become less stressful. That sounds dumb and obvious but I often find myself really upset over things that I know I can control. Instead, I almost always choose to distract myself and go with ignorance. I’ll throw you back to this time last year, when I was stressing over getting my dissertation finished (I became an irritable, miserable Cave Troll). I knew that if I chipped away at it, day by day, i'd get it done but, contrary to my sound logic, I only did it when I wanted to, and was sitting at this same laptop on the night before due date feeling hateful, crying and i'm certain I nearly vomited. I remember feeling dreadful. I learnt my lesson and although I think it’s hard to be pro-active about conquering stress, it's worthwhile. 

Basically, on top of that, I think every Earth-dwelling creature should spend more time relaxing. You are allowed to do it, no matter how busy you are. Life treats humans like droids, like we have unlimited stamina and no emotional response. Knowing the difference in how you feel when you’re stressed and relaxed is really worthwhile acknowledging. Separate work and play. Try taking time out of every day to calm down and relax. Could be relaxing at breakfast before the day starts, on your lunch break, on a drive home or when you’re lying in bed at night. Sounds pointless, maybe boring, but it really isn't. Lie down, sit down, stick on a film, close your eyes and just stop everything (not breathing - counterproductive). I’m a very anxious person and a total stress hoarder and taking time out to actively slow myself down and recognise when I’m relaxed feels great.

I thought I’d mention a few, great techniques that were recommended to me that calm me down. First one, 7-11 breathing. Obvious, yes, I know, but it actually works. If you feel tense, breathe in slowly through your nose for 7 seconds, hold the breath briefly, and then exhale through your mouth for 11 seconds. If you repeat this 5/6 times, or as many times as you need to, you’ll notice that your body slows down because the sympathetic nervous system is stimulated. A bonus to this is you can do it basically anywhere. Another technique is progressive muscular relaxation. This one is odd but fun. It works on the premise that tensing various parts of the body can help you separate and enjoy the feeling of relaxation from that of stress. Sometimes when I’m stressed or nervous I can get an irregular, uncomfortable heartbeat, stiff muscles and my throat can tighten up. Tensing and releasing areas of your body can draw tension away from the problem areas and will, again, slow you down. Give them a go.

I’m not a doctor but I know stress is bad. I also know that relaxation is good. Seeing others stressed makes me stressed so how about you all do me a favour and just relax. ✩

Pancake Day

Happy March 4^th, Shrove Tuesday and if you are greedy like me, Pancake Day. I’ll be honest, I only realised Pancake day was today because it had been written all over websites I look through when I’m waking up. Something that I feel morally obliged to quickly share before I go into pancakes, is the video circulating around the internet of John Travolta introducing Idina Menzel on stage at The Oscars. She's played Elsa in Disney’s Frozen and Elphaba in Wicked and is hugely talented. The following video made me laugh so, so much and is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen (I spent a good half an hour replaying it which put me in a state of enlightenment). I won’t explain further, the 30 seconds below does itself justice.

The pancake excitement began after I had visited my new job, which went super well and I am thrilled because they’re pushing my start date back even earlier (no sarcasm, I need the money). I had this annoying excitement going on that I get on special occasions like Christmas or Halloween (my favourites). If the occasion means food, then the excitement moves into another league and basically, I'd told myself to be healthier a few days ago because I'm packing on the pounds and today was just a lovely excuse to do precisely not that.

Upon arrival back home, I found my musketeers and three of us got all the stuff we needed for our pancakes. We went for a ‘Traditional pancake mix’ from Betty Crocker, who does the tastiest ready-made icing which I really do recommend if you like to bake (her vanilla butter cream style icing is the best icing I've ever tried). Our treats to go on top were all unhealthy (who’d have thought) and we had syrup, strawberry sauce, lemon juice and ice-creams. One of the musketeers is Canadian, can you guess what he chose? 

Obviously it all went to shit once the pans were heated.  We produced some balls of uncooked batter, some of which we then dropped on the floor (adds flavour). The good ones we managed to make were either misshaped, soggy, burnt or really, really small. My sister Lucy's favourite one was very round, thin and crispy, like a small jellyfish left in the sun too long. Soon after making her small 'pancake' and holding its limp body in one palm, she got really freaked out and unfortunately it is now in a better place (the bin). This one looks like a slice of human brain. I would apologise for the terrible quality of these very dull photos, but an artist is only as good as his tools. 

The finished product was presented on a very expensive, plastic Kung Fu Panda plate that I bought on a whim in a sale. Luckily the pancakes all tasted okay with toppings on and we are now digesting them. It is safe to say that a lot more than one spoonful of sugar helped them go down. I felt really sick after my experience of Pancake Day this year and as I type, I am hoping this is due to my greed and not food poisoning. I hope that we can share many fatter, even more special occasions together. I think I will try and give up watching the John Travolta video for lent. I'd like to thank every single person who has taken the time to read my blog. I'm finding it so therapeutic and enjoyable and the most uplifting thing is hearing that others are enjoying it too. If I could make you all a pancake to show you my appreciation, I still wouldn't. 

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.

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.