Candy Store by Me (Audio)

How to be happier right now. (In 13 simple steps)

 

Step 1: Find music that makes you feel happy and excited. there is a lot of catchy, meaningful, and good music in the world. However a lot of them may have sad, angry or offensive lyrics. I'm not saying only listen to clean lyrics. But song lyrics really can influence your behaviour and outlook on life. This is why it is important to make sure that most songs you listen to, are songs that really make you feel good. Music that inspires you and really makes you feel happy about life. Therefore next time you've had a bad day you can put in your headphones and zone out while listening to cheerful, uplifting and happy music.

 

Step 2: Write a gratitude list: Write a list of 10 great things that have happened in the day. Or the week if you are struggling. Try and do this often, even daily to make sure that you are aware of what you have to be grateful for. Give thanks for the little things. Just the fact that you woke up this morning is a cause for celebration.

 

Step 3: Get creative. It doesn't matter whether you do something that you're good at or not, just do something. Draw, write a song, poem, short story. Do something that will capture your imagination. If you're struggling for inspiration then try step 4 first.

Step 4: Watch a movie, something that will open your mind. Fantasy may be the best bet for getting your imagination going. Comedy if you want something that's going to make you smile/ laugh. Don't be afraid to watch a kids/family movie as they seem to always leave a smile on everyone's face.

 

Step 5: Exercise, go out, play a sport, go to the gym. Perhaps do some yoga or put on some music and dance around your house. Once you've got you heart rate up your mood should go up with it. The key is to just do activities that you enjoy. Make exercise about fun, above all else.        

Step 6: Get out of your house don't stay at home for too long. Get out and about, go to the park if its not raining, go and explore an area that you've never been to. Go over to your friends houses, go for a walk or to the cinema. Don't stay at home for extended periods of spare time. why ? when there's so much to do. You could even do some volunteer work,  to get more involved in your community and meet new people. Spend time in nature, find a nice park or head to the countryside. Sit in the grass and relax while listening to the birds sing.

 

Step 7: Have a morning routine. get up a bit earlier in the morning so you can prepare for the day. Listen to music, groom your self, exercise. Write a to do list. Do whatever you want really. When you wake up earlier you don't have to rush, so you can ease into your day rather than throw yourself into it.

Step 8: Groom yourself, of course everyone grooms themselves in the basic sense.  Spending a little more time to make sure you look great, can really boost your confidence. This however doesn't mean you should judge yourself and compare yourself to other people based on looks. But when you like what you see when you look in the mirror you will probably feel more confident throughout the day. Take time to pick out your clothes. When it comes to hair most people feel most confident when their hair is out of their faces. Therefore I would advise that people with long hair keep their hair out of their faces. There are many ways to do this. You don't have to tie it all up.

 

 

Step 9: Drink water and eat good food. don't skip breakfast. This is important.

 

Step 10: Stand tall, smile and be nice to others. Even if your not having the best day or feeling so good. Smiling and being kind to others will help you lift your spirits, rather than treating people badly because you aren't in a good mood. However if something really is bothering you then it could help to talk about this with somebody you trust.

 

 

Step 11: Tidy and de clutter your surroundings. Personally my surroundings reflect my mood. If i'm stressed and confused my possessions will be scattered and when I de-stress then I will tidy. When trying to unwind and de-stress or simply lift your mood, it can be very useful to clean and de clutter your surroundings. I usually do this while singing or listening to music so it seems less of a chore. When you take your time to look after you possesions and clear surroundings then this can really calm your mind, helping you to think more clearly.

 

Step 12: Overcome moods and challenges. Every time you continue to be happy, despite a misfortune you become an over all happier person. The way to do this is, to believe you can. You are in control of yourself and you can think outside of negative circumstances, situations and people.

 

 

 

Step 13: Always remember BALANCE: Do the opposite of what is making you feel unhappy. If you feel too busy then stop, take time out and relax. If you are bored get busy, find something to keep you busy.

 

 

 

 

Mindfulness : Monday thoughts

Some people hold everything in and some people tell everybody. I would guess holding everything in, is the fast track  to mental  illness. To me there's a kind of shame associated with silence. (Thinking that the truth is too embarrassing to talk about.)

I don't even know if I should take it slow or just take my life in a direction. Any direction ! This is the part where I write about my confusion, while I try to make it sound, great, poetic, interesting. Writing here, because my diary is too heavy to carry. I am too tired to drag myself to Harrow. This is probably due to the fact that I am momentarily feeling this cosy feeling that I haven't  felt in a long time. Where I'm not trying to do anything. Just feel peaceful, just being in the world.

Life can be made more complicated, when you feel like you always have to be moving. Always need to be on the run. You might just over do it sometimes. When truthfully there are so many things that can be done while sitting still. Books written, books read, conversations had. Don't  be so busy on your feet that you run past everything beautiful in your life and in the world. Without giving it so much as a second glance. Sometimes the moment you've gone silent is the moment when you know exactly what to say.

 

People ask you questions, that they could answer better than you ever could. You do the same, when you ask questions. As hearing your truth come out of someone else's mouth, makes you feel approved of. It was their idea not yours. Even though you knew your own precise thoughts and wants before you blocked them out and decided you couldn't believe in yourself. Maybe fear took over or someone said something. But now someone says you can do it. What do you think about that ?

 

 

 

 



The Need To Feel Special

One of the reasons why I started this blog was to make myself feel special. So that whoever read it, would hear what I had to say and then conclude that the best thing to do, would be to worship my awesomeness. Lol.

I'm not some sort of life expert. I just live, learn, think and research a lot on personal development. I am a 19 year old Sociology student, who has been through things, which forced me to stop and say hey. How can I help myself to have an amazing life? As well as a mind silent enough to actually enjoy it and a heart sensitive enough to actually feel it. I have learned things and I can only tell you what I know.

I know the more we learn, the more questions there are. Always. I also know that, there are people who will want to hear what I have to say.

There has been a lot of things that I have learned this year:
1) No matter what I do, I'm pretty important, since I am (literally) the number one main person in my life.

2)Not everyone has to love you, for you to be lovable. There are so many people in the world and people are soo different. Popularity isn't love, it's just being widely noticed.

3) I can keep things to myself, people don't need to know my business and I don't need to entertain everyone.

4) Everyone has the right to some privacy and I don't have to share anything that I don't want to about myself.




This realisation that I can still feel happy and not be the centre of attention, is still relatively new to me. Therefore I have been hesitant about what I post on the Internet. I guess I do fear violation and humiliation. This is why I haven't posted recently. I tend to be too much of a perfectionist when it comes to writing. So in the end I am left with Dozens of drafts and no posts. I know most of my fears probably won't even come into existence. But we all face fear, it’s normal. Sometimes fear shows us that what we are doing is worth doing. Some risks are worth taking. I try my best to control my fears in order to achieve things that are important to me. We all benefit from getting into the habit of facing our fears.



I watched 'Fault in our stars' recently. I loved it. The film made me realise that, I don't need to do something crazy. For example fly to the moon, without a space suit, in front of a crowd of cheering people. (Although that would be cool, crazy, funny and memorable at the same time.) I could live a simple quiet life (if I wanted to). That wouldn’t make me less of a person.

As a human being I'm not more or less than anyone else. As long as I know in my heart that I've done what felt important to me and met some great people along the way. Then I've done enough and I am enough. Of course I want to achieve, but that doesn't mean my self-worth should depend on it. After all life is a journey, I can't just magically appear at every destination.

There’s always people out there who can relate to some parts of you and your situation. Therefore you are truly never alone. Sometimes you just need to find these people and hear their stories. I found this cool website/ app where you can do, just that. ‘MeToo -The Experience Project’ (which I will link below this post). You can write about your experiences and opinions or just comment on other peoples. You can simply just be yourself. You will be surprised how many people feel exactly the way that you do.

Voluntary work can be fun. I have been Volunteering to gain work experience this summer and I like it. I'm having fun, helping out and meeting new people. You should try it .

Don't waste time on people who don't really like you. For real, you may need to avoid a few people. But your peace of mind is worth more than pleasing them.

Either everyone's special or no one is. So is the glass half full of half empty? I'm going to go with everyone is. Just look at human potential, look at what we can do, with our willpower. We are creators, we can practically make magic. This means we are magical, even the people who haven't noticed it yet.

So believe or at least keep your mind opened :)

Links: -

MeToo -The experience project
Site - http://www.experienceproject.com/
App - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.kanjoya.experienceproject&hl=en

Volunteering in the UK -

https://do-it.org/

 

 x

 

Insights From Nature

On Friday I went to the park after a long hectic week. I haven't been for awhile, but the sun was out so I said hey, why not get some insights? When I go to the park, I always take a pen and paper to write down the insights and intuition I receive from nature. I would recommend doing this on a dry day, while sitting on the grass if anyone needs to clear their mind or receive guidance. Anyway I did receive some good insights so I'm going to share them with you.   

 

Insights from nature: Park Lessons

1) People put so much emphasis on having other people around, whether it is friends, family or their soulmate. People want someone else to be everything to them, which basically means for them. You want someone else to be your everything, so that you don’t have to.

2) Success is dependent on what you feel you need to achieve. You could be satisfied doing something fairly simple while someone else will be completely bored. Same goes when it comes to having fun. This leads on to my next point about friendship.

3) The best people are the people who you can do many things with, including hanging around and doing nothing. Spending time with friends and family should be almost effortless.

4) How come as humans, we feel calm when we hear the birds sing, even if we can’t hear what they’re saying? This is because we know that they are satisfied with their lives, as they do not reject what they are.

5) A common theme in romantic movies/ books is that two people will do whatever it takes to be together. We may dream about this romance, but what about our relationships with ourselves? We should love ourselves and do whatever it takes to make ourselves truly happy. We should want the best for ourselves and strive to achieve our dreams.

6) Right now I’m sitting in the park. I remember why I love parks so much, because it’s just me. Me in the world, that is all there is. Forget about the people, the troubles and the obstacles. Right now I have all that I need.

Things to remember
· Don’t judge yourself, by the same criteria that other people judge you by.

· The only standards you need to live up to, are the ones that you set.

· Forgive yourself, your worst mistake, probably wasn’t even a mistake.

· Things aren't just good or bad, black and white, there are many in between. We should know, as we all lie among these colours.

· There is no corruption that can overpower our minds.

Death In The Morning

This morning I woke up to a feeling. To chatter and speculation. People asking ‘what happened?’ I did not know the victim, but I saw the body being carried away. I heard the screams from next door. My neighbour died and it wasn’t natural. The body was pulled out the shed while the dog barked and whimpered. People are talking about suicide. I would rather not talk, it’s none of my business. But here I am writing a blog post, because I don’t know what else to do. My family and our neighbours aren’t close (they don’t like us). I feel something has come over me. There’s silence I can’t hear anything. A strange feeling lingers in the air. I am not used to death. I have never lost anyone close. I feel a dark, morbid, sickly feeling. I felt this as soon as I woke up, before I saw anything.  

Then comes the rush of the nosy neighbours. My grandma talking about death and autopsy’s before the body was even brought out. My sister looking out the window at the police and detectives taking pictures inside the shed. Me, refusing to look, hoping that I could wake up. Hoping that everything and everyone would be ok. But knowing that life doesn’t work that way. Everyone seems willing to accept, that there was a mysterious death this morning. My mum (who is on holiday) even suggesting over the phone, that we head over and find out what happened. While I feel physically sick. Death is not exciting or entertaining no matter how much it’s televised. This is real life. This is next door, right now someone’s family will never be the same again. It makes my head hurt and my eyes water.         

RIP
 

Was that God? The Messenger : Joan Of Arc

When someone says they have received a message from God or Intuition from the Universe. How do you know that isn't just their conscience? Perhaps their existing thoughts cloud, or dilute any intuition that comes to them.

This post has a more serious tone. It’s not about disregarding religion because I am spiritual person myself and I have had my own fair share of religious experiences. But how come so many different people hear God saying so many different things? Whilst some people, never experience divine intervention or recall having any divine intuition.

I recently watched The Messenger: The Story of Joan of Arc which is and great film (A historical war movie based on her life). Afterwards I did my research and what scared me was that (in my opinion) whoever or whatever she was talking to was not God.

I believe God does not punish people for the pure sake of punishment. Whatever punishment you receive is a direct result of your actions. God does not tell people to kill each other (even if it is war time). But people do!

It seems there are 2 different main interpretations of God:

1) An all loving and forgiving God who wants us to change and grow so he does not intervene.

2) A God who critically judges us and wants us to be under his control, so we can carry out his will.

Again this idea always makes me think of the Lego Movie (A Must Watch!) because it is about Change vs. Tradition.  

I feel that if god meant to control us then he would have! Therefore I agree with the first interpretation of God. People talk about divine intervention and being inspired to change their lifestyles for the better and help others. So would the same god who invented forgiveness, decide that some people are just hopeless and tell “his people” to go and kill them?

There have been numerous people e.g. leaders, terrorists etc. who have claimed that they were told by God, to kill a certain group of people. It’s easy to just say 'well they probably made it up' or 'oh they are just crazy'. But simply labelling people as crazy is just an easy explanation. 

Is there just God?
 
If people can communicate with or receive intuition from God, angels, the divine, the universe etc... Then perhaps they can also communicate with other entities as well. Whom they could mistakenly label as god. Not every idea is a good idea and if there are energies outside of us, then perhaps there are energies that match every feeling, thought and belief we have, including the bad ones.

When someone goes into an angry rage. They are so filled with anger that they temporarily lose control of their actions. (Sometimes this is referred to as temporary insanity). They have lost control to something else. Their emotions have somehow attracted a power that exists both inside and outside of themselves that temporarily took over their actions.

That's what seemed to happen to Joan of Arc. During battle, she was convinced that she had not personally killed anyone. That is because her conscience couldn't handle it. She probably wasn't in full control of her actions whilst fighting for France. Her trauma and anger from seeing her be sister killed and violated by English solders caused her to do it. As a child she frequently asked for forgiveness multiple times a day. It seems her pre-existing ideas about a strict demanding God, combined with trauma and her tendency to see visions produced and altered these ‘visions of God’. Whether or not these visions existed outside of her, or just inside her head. They were still strong enough to make her demand to and successfully lead the French army with no prior military training at 17. Before she allowed herself to be burned at stake for wearing men’s clothing at the age of 19.  

Her idea that God wanted her to fight in battle clashed with her idea of killing people being a sin. Before her death she said that the voices (God and the Angels had turned on her). That she would rather die than live with these voices for the rest of her life. Yes these voices may have been real but from my experience God would never tell someone to go and do something that they secretly wanted to do, but their conscience couldn't handle (sin). Then turn on them afterwards!

We Interpret God

If everyone is 100 % sure about what God is then why would we need religions and holy books to teach us? The reason is because people want to check that whatever they feel, hear, or experience, is in line with what they expect from God. To me that surely means that any other concept we can think of also exist somewhere out there.

Our own thoughts, beliefs and strong emotions can sometimes prevent us from seeing what’s right and block divine intuition, if we are not mentally in a good place.   

This confirms that we really do create our own realities. Sometimes we just hear God saying what we expect him to say. We see what we expect to see! That doesn't mean that there isn't more out there, but remember, we as humans can only experience what we can interpret. If most of us cannot even understand what the birds are saying. How can we fully understand a God beyond our own existence?

I would advise people to clear away their existing beliefs when looking for answers. Focus on unconditional love, because that is what most of us need. Then pray, meditate, ask questions and pay attention to what ideas come though.