Happy Tools

You always hear about people telling you to love yourself and to have respect for yourself but I don't think I really understood how to until recently. I realised that part of the reason that I used to feel quite unhappy was because of the kind of people I was surrounding myself with. I often went after or let people in to my life who were not empowering me and didn't walk away because I didn't know my value and didn't think I deserved respect or to be treated in a particular way. From my experience, sometimes, when you don't value yourself, it can lead to letting people into your life that might not necessarily be the best for you or accepting poor behaviour from others, when that's never really something that should be accepted. It's taken a while, but now I am at a stage where surrounded by such a great and supportive social support network who are so encouraging and genuinely care about me. It helps me to feel a lot more confident and empowered. I...

I got myself into a situation a little while ago where I became very self-conscious and worried about what other people thought of me. I became so paranoid and convinced that other people were judging me that I just couldn't be free and I couldn't be myself. It was here that I realised how much value I was placing on other people liking me. And there came a point when I felt like some people had turned against me or that they were judging me for certain choices and decisions I had made and it hurt me and bothered me. But that whole experience made me realise that I know who I am in my heart. I know that I have good intentions and thoughts. I do make mistakes sometimes, but so does everyone. Whatever people think of me - it doesn't define who I am. Since that experience it's made me cherish the people I do have in my life and the people who have stood by, even during the bad times. It's brought me closer to the people that I need to be close with rather than people...

I've been thinking lately about the difference between being positive and just sugar coating things that are really not okay. I've trained myself to try and be a more positive person but I started to realise sometimes my attempts to be positive were tipping over into sugar coating things and denying when things were not going right... The time I noticed this was when I would feel anxious and unhappy on this inside but would portray an image of smiling and happiness to everybody on the outside. This started to make me internalise my problems and avoid finding the solutions - making the anxiety even worse. It also made me feel quite artificial. So having thought about this some more. I think positivity isn't about portraying an image of being constantly happiness on the outside. It's a feeling of contentness and acceptance. It's about accepting your emotions and feelings, happy or sad, and knowing that you can handle it no matter what. It's about knowing that ...