Taking a break from Blue Jay
A couple of week ago I published a blog about wanting to quit. At the time of writing, I really believed I was past the feeling. The day after the post went live however, I was hit by a wall of exhaustion and the feeling came back stronger than ever. I go into more detail in the video below, but essentially it was like the culmination of blogging and sharing…
Seedling Ep 20. It’s OK to go slow
In this episode I want to talk about feeling as if you’re wading through treacle when everyone else seems to be running past you effortlessly. I want to encourage you to get to know your brands of treacle and, if you can’t change them – accept them – and if you can change them, wash it off. So if you find you’re constantly comparing yourself to others and feel like…
Self-care for activists
The word activist can be pretty loaded and some of us don’t feel entirely comfortable with it. Even if the word activist doesn’t ring true for you, if you consider yourself an advocate or you discuss highly charged topics like social justice or mental health regularly, then this post is for you. While I don’t think of myself as an activist, I do feel like an advocate and try to…
Easing work-related stress
I’ve written about stress here before about how in some situations and in moderation, it can be good for us. It can give us the boost we need to get things done. The key word here though is moderation. For many of us, stress comes at us like a tidal wave, overwhelming us. Stress can come from lots of different places, but here I want to focus on work-related stress.…
Seedling Ep 11. How to cope with overwhelm
As we’re getting closer and closer to Christmas I really wanted to dive into the topic of overwhelm on the podcast. So, this week I’m talking about a recent experience I had, some steps you can use to cope and finally when to seek help because overwhelm can quickly spiral into burnout. I hope the pointers in this week’s episode are helpful, I’d love to hear your thoughts over on…
Seedling Ep 10. Creativity as an act of self-care
On the podcast this week I’m talking about creativity – how it benefits our mental health and how it can become part of our self-care routine. I share some science behind why creativity is good for us, how it can get tricky when your job involves being creative and how to make creativity a bigger part of your life. If you always struggle to make time for creativity or don’t…
Seedling ep 4. finding your motivation for self-care
This week on the podcast I’m delving into the topic of self-care and specifically how we can find our motivation to practice self-care. In this episode I break down what self-care really is and share my journey with self-care. I talk about the way self-care impacts those around us and our work-life. Then I share an exercise to help you uncover your self-care motivators, because, without that interior motive, creating…
Seedling ep 3. building self-awareness
When it comes to personal development and growth, I consider self-awareness the gateway drug. It really is so necessary for all the other work we do in this area. In this week’s episode of the podcast I’m telling you about an experience I had when I lost touch with my sense of self-awareness and how that impacted my mental health. I’m also sharing some of the self-awareness tools I now…
When self-care hurts
Self-care is often seen as something soft, nurturing and even fluffy at times. It’s a warm bubble bath on a Sunday evening, a cup of tea in the garden, a gentle yoga practice as the sun sets. And it certainly is all of these things, but it’s also so much more. I’ve always considered self-care to be anything that helps you feel calm and refreshed. An act or practice that…
How to make time for self-care
I honestly don’t know how this blog post hasn’t been written before. It’s one of those subjects I talk about so much, I guess I just forgot to actually articulate it here on the blog. If you follow me online, you’ll know how passionate I am about self-care. After struggling on and off with my mental health over the years (from an eating disorder in my teens to anxiety more…