Friendly Inspiration

Today I was thinking about my friendships and how different but sometimes alike my friends can be. I can count my good ones on one hand but it was the first time I sat down and really thought about why they are my friends. They all have different qualities that make me proud to call them my friends and inspire me to be a better person, so I’m writing this as a thank you to them as they motivate me to be a better version of myself and have helped me realise that I can overcome almost anything that comes my way.

Letting Go Of Your ‘Story’

One friend of mine has faced a lot of trials in her life. For somebody to have seen and dealt with the things she has had to in her life you would expect or even understand if she used them as excuses when things aren’t working out, but she doesn’t. She has accepted the cards she was dealt and doesn’t appear to hold any grudges. In turn it has made her a strong and independent woman who isn’t afraid to stick up for herself and the people she cares about. She is also happy to tell you the honest truth, which is something I really appreciate. So many people in the world would be a lot happier today if they could let go of their life “story” and just live today for what it is.

Self Motivation

Having battled with my weight for a while now another friend of mine is an inspiration as she found a way to be self-motivated and lose the weight she wanted to. She looks amazing and most importantly is healthier for it, and I admire that she has made it a lifestyle change not just a fad diet. If I could bottle some of her motivation I would be a lot fitter for it, you wouldn’t see me heading to a workout at 4:30 in the morning or even awake at that time for that matter. She is also a working mum and I think it is great how she can juggle her job, son and her home life.

Sacrifice & Honesty

Although some might say she is a bit too honest, a friend of mine encourages me to be a more open person and not worry about what people think. Because she is so truthful she has me laughing a lot of the time at the random things she says, and it is refreshing to know there are still people out there who don’t have walls up. She has also sacrificed a lot to be where she is today, things that many people couldn’t have given up. But she did it all for a happier life with her children and husband. She is also a working mum. She tries to see the good in everybody, even if it isn’t really there sometimes. Because of her I’m able to write my blog and be honest about who I am and am trying to be. 

Being Grateful

A few of my friends are inspirational to me because they are single mums or have husbands that work away a lot of the time. They don’t have a husband who comes home of an afternoon to help feed & bathe their kids, and talk to about their day, they have to do most of it on their own and don’t get the daily assistance that I do. They are great mums and make me feel grateful for my husband’s help when he is home.

 

Passion & Compassion

There are many of us, myself included, that take our lives, rights and planet for granted. We assume we will always have the animals that inhabit this planet, along with our necessities like food and clean drinking water. Lucky for us there are people out there who don’t live such sheltered lives and are out their fighting for people rights and the conservation of animals and our planet. I’m fortunate to have friends who are passionate about their cause and through them I have become more aware of what is happening in the world around me. Because of that awareness I make a conscious effort to do something to play my part. It may only be a small donation, or posting something on Facebook to make others aware there is an issue but every little thing counts. I could definitely be doing a lot more, and I think it’s great that people give up their own time to shed light on such important issues. Their passion and compassion for people and animals makes me proud of them and I know I need to do a lot more than I am.

Being Less Emotional

This is a big one for me, and probably a lot of people can relate as it is so easy to get lost and carried away with emotion and blow something small completely out of proportion. Although when I’m in that state it drives me nuts, my husband is calm and doesn’t let his emotions take control. He is completely content with his life and us as his family. I spent a long time telling him he needs to be more emotional until one day I realised it was the other way around, it was me who needed to be less emotional and see things for what they really are.

All of my friends also inspire me to want more out of life, travel and be the best I can be. These are just some of the wonderful traits of some of my friends, and although there have been times when we’ve had our differences I will always remember these inspiring aspects of who they are. I just hope that in some small way I inspire them just as much as they do me.

A Smile Is Contagious

A fan of reality TV I was watching Big Brother recently when I noticed a popular theme in the house appeared to be being a ‘positive’ person.  It got me thinking about the amount of people that say they are positive these days. So many people are trying to be positive, but are they really happy or is it all an act?

I’m one of the people trying to be more positive or as I call it ‘the best version of myself’. For me being a positive person isn’t about being happy all of the time or telling myself that I am a better person than someone who doesn’t see the world in the same way as me. Being a positive person is realising situations I am in are in part or sometimes in full, my own fault due to choices I have made. Then after recognising this I make the decision to accept that moment or situation for what it is, followed by a plan of action to make any changes I feel need to be made to better the situation. Being positive is also being aware that people perceive conversations or circumstances in different ways, depending on past issues they may have had and their current mood. Also, it is knowing that not everyone has to react in the same way I do.

A big part of being positive for me is having compassion for others, even people I don’t know. There was a time when I was so caught up in my own world that I didn’t see how I was affecting the people around me or that they might be having a hard time themselves. I don’t believe it is necessarily about trying to find good in everything that happens to you, but about accepting it has happened and that negative reactions won’t make the situation any easier or better, sometimes they even make it feel worse. I try to walk in other people’s shoes and see things from their points of view, keeping in mind I don’t know their life story and therefore can’t tell them how they should be feeling in any particular situation. No one is better than anyone else; we all have different dreams and aspirations.

Being positive all of the time might not even be possible as my emotions and past experiences always tend to affect how I react to certain things. Many times I have found myself going completely silent mid rant and apologising, realising I was completely overreacting and perceiving the situation the wrong way or in a negative light. It does make me sound a bit crazy at the time, but I think the more I catch myself out being irrational and over emotional, the easier it will be to stay calm and rational the next time a situation arises that might make me feel that way. Also, I believe that making a conscious effort to keep an open mind can only lead to good things and a happier peaceful state of mind.

It’s been said that a smile is contagious and I also think that people who are genuinely positive are too. When I was younger I didn’t have the confidence to smile at a stranger, but in the last year or so I’ve made a conscious effort to smile at people a lot more, and when you can smile at strangers and get a friendly smile back it makes your day feel all the better for it. You can tell you’ve been around a positive person when you walk away feeling happy, even empowered and the conversation didn’t take anything away from you.

Sitting back and making a conscious effort to see the world around me in a more calm and peaceful or positive mindset makes me feel so much better than when I react with anger or fear. No, I’m not perfect! I still get upset and frustrated even angry sometimes, but just by being aware of myself, and remembering how much better it feels to be cool, calm and collected, I don’t stay in that frame of mind for very long at all. Any conflicts I have disappear quickly and I can move on with my life without any resentment.

I’m not saying that you need to smile at every person you see and don’t ignore your feelings and pretend to be happy all of the time, just realise that you decide how you feel about any given situation and be aware of your reaction and how it makes you feel.

Depression

There is so much pressure on the individual to conform, be a certain way and live a certain way, is it any wonder that so many people experience depression at some stage during their life? Everyone wants to fit in and be accepted, but what is fitting in exactly? Buying a big house, being thin and beautiful, owning “things” that are perceived to add to who we truly are. Only problem is we are all so different, it is obvious by just looking at one another, yet so many of us try despite this. Then, when you feel like you haven’t achieved these goals or self-doubt creeps in you can find yourself in the deep dark hole of depression.

Anyone who has experienced depression at any level knows how helpless and worthless it makes you feel. That then slowly changes your perception of reality and it isn’t long till you see the negative in everything around you to the point where you alienate yourself until you feel completely alone in your worthless world of self-loathing. Why would anyone like me? I’m worthless, nothing! These negative thoughts slowly consume you to the point where some people can’t take it anymore and feel that the only escape is to end their life. Others get to a point where they have enough of feeling this way and start the steep ascent back up towards the light. It’s not an easy climb and there are a lot of slips and stumbles on the way up, but eventually the light glows brighter and brighter bringing a new, more positive perception of yourself and the world and people around you.

This is how it felt for me as a teenager and into my early twenties. I never reached a point where I thought I could take my own life, but couldn’t imagine how that must feel after experiencing the lows I have faced. It’s hard to understand the feeling if you haven’t been there yourself, and even harder to be compassionate and patient. But I’m hoping shedding a little light on the subject may give someone who is either experiencing some sort of depression or knows someone who is, hope and encourages them to start that climb back to a more positive life.

To be completely honest, I could never put my finger on a single moment or situation that started my depression. I don’t think I even realised I was depressed until I started turning my life around. The little voice in my head was ever present, and not realising at the time that I controlled it, it didn’t control me, I listened to every hurtful, painful thing it would say to me. Sometimes the voice was so loud I couldn’t focus on or think about anything else. This made me feel frustrated, then angry and it would get so unbearable that I would do something that defied common sense. I would use a razor to cut myself. This in turn would make me feel even worse about myself and once my “sane” mind came back and I realised how senseless I had been it would begin the spiral of self-hatred again.

I would wear jumpers in summer to hide the cuts on my arms and one day even passed out on my way home from school because it was so hot. To make things worse someone who I saw as a good friend of mine noticed one day and told our friends I was an attention seeker who pretended to try to kill myself. This just made me recede deeper into my depression and put up a high, thick brick wall to keep everyone out. My internal nightmare wasn’t noticed by people around me in the most part, as I had become very good at pretending to be the happy, go lucky, party girl who just wanted to have fun. After the embarrassment of people finding out about my cutting I did it a lot less but for years after, even up until a few years ago, whenever I got over emotional or angry the urge was there.

I couldn’t tell you what made me start? Where the idea came from? And it’s hard to explain why it was a release for me at the time. It was as though instead of being addicted to alcohol or drugs I had been addicted to cutting myself, as it gave me a feeling of release I wasn’t able to find in a healthier way at the time.

As the years progressed I realised that the answer wasn’t finding some kind of release for my depression and anger, it was finding a way to dissolve those feeling all together. Slowly I realised that the negative world that weighed me down was a story I had made up in my own head. You wonder why you would stay in such a horrible state of mind but just coming to that realisation started my steep climb back out of the dark hole that is depression. Getting to the top doesn’t mean those feelings are completely gone, and it’s easy to fall back into old patterns but being aware of myself and my emotions makes it easier to detect these feelings before they get out of hand and control me instead of me controlling them.

This story is one that I have only told my closest family and friends up until now, and I know actually posting this will be difficult as it is always hard to admit and face that you effectively put yourself through such hard times and did things you wouldn’t rationally do. I still have scars on my arms and legs that serve as a reminder not of how low I had been but that I got the courage to overcome my depression and anger and become a better version of me. That’s why I’m sharing this story; you can’t fully change and grow from things you don’t acknowledge and accept happened. And you can’t be your true self if you are trying to hide parts of your past. If you think a friend is struggling reach out, let them know you are there to talk to. You may think they haven’t listened and it won’t make a difference, but that little positive seed could be enough to awaken some sort of change in their thinking and maybe they won’t feel so alone anymore.

Who is ready to get out of their comfort zone? I Am!

I’m ready to try new things not only to get myself out of my comfort zone but to get out of the house more, with and without my family. At the moment the most exciting thing I seem to do is take the kids to swimming lessons for half an hour one day a week.

My resolution? A “motivation” box.

No, it’s not a box full of quotes and sayings that make you smile and then you go and sit back down on the couch or continue folding the washing, it’s a box full of ideas and inspiration to get me doing things I haven’t done before or need to do more of. During the first week of each month I will draw one idea out and give myself the remainder of that month to do what it says.

My motivation slip for last month would have said “start a blog” because putting my ideas and creations out there for anyone to see is definitely something I’m not completely comfortable with. But like many other things that made me uncomfortable in my life I’m guessing the more I do it the easier it will be. My first job as a receptionist I wouldn’t answer the phone for the first week or so because I was scared and wasn’t confident enough to do it, but after a serious word from my manager one phone call at a time it got easier and it wasn’t long until it was second nature. Every job I’ve had since has included answering the phone and I don’t even think twice about it anymore.  

This is my theory behind the motivation box, the more I push myself to do things now the easier it will be in the future.

So, during the first week of each month for the next six months or so I will pull a piece of paper out of the box and it will tell me what I have to do that month to get myself out of my comfort zone and out of this house. There isn’t anything too crazy in there as I am a beginner and also don’t have enough funds to do anything too crazy, but with the help of google I’ve come up with some cheap and achievable ideas.

Feel free to join me if you feel that getting out of your comfort zone is something you need to do yourself.

If you like you can join my facebook page: Elle-Jay Creations and share your experiences with me and the rest of my facebook friends.

Being the second of the month I have decided to pull out my very first Motivation slip today and it says… “Put on a bbq for your friends”. Simple? Yes! But being social is definitely something my husband and I both need a bit more of in our lives. Looking forward to it.