Tag Archives: Life

What life skills do we need and which books can help us develop them?

Posted in Reviews by

Photo by Negative Space / Public Domain

In life, there are many different skills that we need in order to live at our best. These can be developed organically through experience, but sometimes we need a little extra help. Activities like chatting to friends and acquaintances, life coaching or even taking personal development courses can all go a long way towards helping us succeed in our goals to develop those skills. However, reading books can also be an effective and fun way to develop our life skills. Continue reading →

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Subtle ways I’m actively changing my life

Posted in Health & Wellbeing, Reviews by

2018 has been the year of change for me. Not big changes; I haven’t moved house, got a new job or traveled the world but it’s been the year of subtle changes which ultimately, have changed my outlook and in ways… my life. You don’t need a grand gesture in order to change your life – despite what “gurus” may tell you. Traveling the world isn’t feasible for everyone. Moving to another location isn’t as straight and to the point as some people say it is. Circumstances, mental health, physical health, money and a whole variety of other factors can stop us from making these big changes we’re so often told we need to make in order to change our lives. But it’s bollocks. 

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BOOK REVIEW: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

Posted in Non-fiction, Reviews by

Format: Library book
Links: Goodreads | Amazon UK
Blurb: At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, the next he was a patient struggling to live.

When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a medical student asking what makes a virtuous and meaningful life into a neurosurgeon working in the core of human identity – the brain – and finally into a patient and a new father.

What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when when life is catastrophically interrupted? What does it mean to have a child as your own life fades away?

Paul Kalanithi died while working on this profoundly moving book, yet his words live on as a guide to us all. When Breath Becomes Air is a life-affirming reflection on facing our mortality and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a gifted writer who became both.

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50 little things that make me happy

Posted in Other, Reviews by

I’ve had this post in the notes on my phone for a while now, adding things to it as soon as I experience something new that makes me happy that I’d like to add in the post. I keep all my blog post ideas in the notes on my phone, so it’s an easy way to just delete them once they’ve been written. I also categorize them into months but that’s for another post altogether (categorizing… that’s one thing that clearly makes me happy!) Then I saw in March, one of my favourite bloggers Hello Bexa actually did a post more or less the same. Great minds think alike, I say. She’s cool with me doing a similar type of post so here we are, my usually miserable self about to share 50 little things that make me happy!

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Why am I in such a rush?

Posted in Other, Reviews by

You would have heard me talk about it time and time again, how I’m addicted to productivity. I have this incessant need to be doing something productive 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. I work for myself and I work from home, so I know that has certainly impacted this shift in me because if I don’t work and work hard… I don’t get money. I can’t afford to slack. I can’t afford to have down days. But I also can’t afford to burn myself out by pushing and pushing and pushing myself. I’m well aware that we all need down-time and a period in our day to relax. I know that. So why can’t I implement that for myself?

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The importance of looking forward to things

Posted in Mental Health, Reviews by

There was a time in my life where I felt like I was looking into a black hole of nothingness. I wasn’t depressed (at least, I don’t think I was) and I certainly wasn’t suicidal. It was a time where my anxiety was at it’s absolute worst. Not too long after it started, when I didn’t know what it was or how to cope with it. Besides, before October 2011, I didn’t even know what a panic attack was. I didn’t know what anxiety was, let alone what it felt like. I was a girl who pranced through life, going out as much as she possibly could, meeting people and literally – literally – didn’t have a care in the world. 

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Poetry

Posted in Other, Reviews by

I don’t write poetry. I don’t usually “get” poetry and it’s never been one of my favourite creative methods to both write or read. Can I blame it on school? On having that dreaded poetry anthology thrust upon us all in Year 9, in schools all over the country? Possibly. School certainly didn’t make poetry a fun experience; having to dissect every line, every word almost, constant analysis and notations. We were never really allowed to just read it, enjoy it and make of it what we wanted to – if anything.

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Things I would tell my future child

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Although I’m 25 (26 this year, oh dear God), I’m in absolutely no rush to have children. It’s in my life plan, I’d absolutely love to have a little one running around some day and it’d also give me a genuine excuse to watch Disney movies all day. Not the good old, “I wasn’t feeling 100% so I decided to take a self care day”. Amiright? With the world in the state it’s in, it genuinely does scare me to think about bringing a new child into it. I know that sounds lame but with so many social, political and environmental problems, what are we setting the adults of the future up for? However, I think our generation are fantastic role-models, advocates and hard-workers. Are we going to send our children into the world un-prepared? Hell fucking no.

* Clearly this elegant, beautiful child in this photo is me, it’s not some random kid

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5 things to do when you feel a little lost

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It’s inevitable that at some point or another, all of us are going to stop what we’re doing and think, “huh?”. Wonder where our career is going, whether our dreams are possible or if we’re getting real deep, what the meaning of it all is. I certainly have found myself in that situation more than once; most notably, right before I started blogging. I’ve never once had a more intense feeling of, “what’s the point” than then but fortunately I was pulled out of a dark, lost place by books and blogging which eventually got me to where I am today with my own business and a successful blog. Yay! However, I’m not naïve to the fact that I will probably get those feelings again. In the meantime though, I wanna share some of my own tips on what to do when you’re feeling a little lost in life.

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There’s got to be more to life… hasn’t there? 

Posted in Mental Health, Reviews by

Phew, this post has been a long time coming. Again, it’s another one of my word-vomit, spontaneous, horribly written posts which I’ll look back on and realise it doesn’t make much sense at all but it’s a topic which has been firmly on my mind for well, fucking months and one that I need to talk about. For no other reason than to just get what I’m feeling off my chest, in the hope that it might make me feel a bit better and maybe, just maybe, someone reading this will feel the same and offer some insight. 

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