So Turns out I'm Still Alive

 

Hello hello, sorry I dropped off the face of the earth. Life is kinda up in the air right now, a quick recap for whats happened since we last spoke, I managed to go to Croatia last summer with my best friend and I felt so lucky to be able to get away and enjoy some sun and relax without thinking about anything to do with normal life and university. In July time I got kinda ill with something which really wiped me out and I really struggled because I held a lot of my identity linked to how much I worked out and when I got ill, I couldn’t work out and I found that really hard to not push myself and take it slow getting it back into the whole workout thing. I started back at uni and I felt so unbelievably lucky to have the housemates that I have this year, the lockdown 2.0 was amazing we did a weekly come dine with me in pairs and my pair won (whoop whoop). Christmas was interesting with all the changes to lockdown and tiers within the UK, I’m now back at uni which is a bit strange as not all my housemates are back but its so lovely to see my friends again and be back in Bristol.

So, a little bit of a wellbeing check in;

• ·       Make a list of self-care ideas, whether these are emotional, physical, practical, social, or mental, I came up with a few and they were things like, going for a walk, doing yoga, do skincare, baking, journaling, meditate and facetiming friends.
• ·       Take time for yourself, carve out time in your weeks to spend time on yourself, this year I promised myself to “date myself” once things finally open, I want to spend time loving myself and taking time to embrace myself.
• ·       Journaling; I just started writing in a well-being journal and I find that it is helping me reflect on my days and keeps me in a more positive mindset rather than dwelling on the negatives each day, the one I use is by a company called lovendu.co.uk.
• ·       Move your body, I have changed my mindset with working out I used to think that I needed to be working out hard every day, but now I make sure that I prioritise my recovery and each day I try to simply move my body whether that’s going for a walk, doing yoga, doing a workout, or simply just stretching. Just moving your body can help so much to reset your mind and mental state.
• ·       I have always found that planning out my week really helps me because I can see what I have ahead of me, and I know what is going to happen each day.
• ·       Eat food you love! Life is too short to spend it eating food you don’t enjoy; I make an effort now to only eat foods I know I will enjoy and want to eat. Food for me hasn’t always been something that I have looked forward to and enjoyed it has been something I had to do to fuel myself, I’m happy to say that now that isn’t the case and I enjoy the food I eat.
• ·       I got a habit app, I don’t know about you, but I find that if I go through a mental low then I struggle to complete my normal daily tasks so now I have an app of my phone that sends me reminders to make sure I drink water, read my book, meditate, exercise and all things like that.
• ·       Read a book or listen to one; I love to immerse myself into another world and just forget about the world we’re living in. Being able to escape this world is one of the pure pleasures I try to read a chapter a night and when I have free time I try to read as well.

I know that in times like this everything is so unsure, and no one know what next week holds, I struggle with this, but I have been working on accepting what I can’t control and concentrating on what I can control. Just know that this time will pass and hopefully soon the world will get back to normalcy. I hope that however you are feeling right now is supported by the people around you and that you feel accepted and understood, because whatever you are feeling is valid and you deserve to feel that way. If you aren’t in a good place then know the storm will pass and after that will come the blue skies. And though my housemates might tease me about it I’m going to finish off how I always have; remember to smile today, smile at people in the street because you never know it could make their day.