#SpeakingTheUnspoken Hello to my younger self, I know that being a teenager is hard but let me just tell you that even so soon as your early twenties you’ll be looking back with fondness and nostalgia at all the things you got up to and all the things that you managed to get through. I…
The truth about ‘self-care’ As far as I can see, self-care is too often pitched by sleek, photoshopped instagram models telling us that merely drinking more glasses of water and putting on face masks are the steps to a perfect life. In reality, self-care is actually far less glamorous. Self-care is described as ‘the practice…
Finding meaning in words I find a lot of solace and constance in words and the English language. It’s something I’ve always loved, and English was always my favourite subject at school, so much so that I’m studying it at university. I find it so liberating that we have the power to express ourselves in…
I have been quite guilty of rolling my eyes at ‘inspirational quotes’, seeing them as cliché and pointless; the same empty words constantly regurgitated. To a certain extent, I think this is possibly a valid way of seeing them, as quite often they don’t really seem to hold any meaning. The flip side of this,…
Creative self-expression can be a positive emotional outlet for feelings of anxiousness. When we do not know how to explain what we are feeling, we can express ourselves through creating. This could take the form of writing, painting, crocheting, sculpting, cooking or anything else -it doesn’t have to be perfect or even make sense! What’s…
Stretching my comfort zone at university I have been seriously stretching my comfort zone ever since I started university (which you can read about here), but the past couple months have actually seen my comfort zone double in size, maybe even triple. I’ve found an amazing group of friends at uni and I’m feeling incredibly…
Remember how it felt at school, when a teacher would ask a question that you had no clue how to answer? So many of us have felt the sinking feeling of being picked despite our best efforts to appear invisible. (I’m talking shrinking down in seats, avoiding eye contact with the teacher- the best avoidance…
It’s fair to assume that if I have something coming up that I’m worrying about, I’ll be thinking of a thousand different ways things could go wrong. Because of this, situations often seem like they’re going to be worse than they realistically could ever be. Like a vicious cycle, the anxious thoughts can increase. However,…
Rattle the stars Hundreds and hundreds of books overflowing from my bookcases show that I’ve always been a big reader. You can usually find me in the middle of reading something. I find it to be incredibly safe and familiar with my head in a book. The fact that I can escape to other worlds,…
One girl, a gap year, a university, and a whole lot of fear. That’s the run down of things right now. Let me explain… Things don’t always go to plan My intention was to start university last year, straight from college as most of my friends were doing. I was a mix of excitement and fear….
When you experience social anxiety, social gatherings can seem endlessly daunting, and it can often feel as though the safest option is to gracefully bow out and avoid such situations. I know this because I have done it countless times, and I know I probably will do it at least a few more times in…
Three years ago, I had just finished secondary school, and one of my friends asked me to write a guest post for her blog. Naturally I said “yes of course”, and then spent the next few weeks thinking “I have absolutely no idea what I’m going to write about.” I found myself thinking a lot…