'Silent' reflection

'Sister Elizabeth Pio, 41, has begun using Twitter on behalf of the Sisters of Bethany, an Anglican order who spend hours each day in silent reflection.'

How is this silent reflection- she's tweeting and she's preaching?

I

Weird music video...apologies!

Someone knows too

There is a notable difference between being alone and being lonely that is too often overlooked in our fast-paced, well-connected, western world.

Tea whore

Today I am tired. Quite tired. That kind of tired when your neck and shoulders slump like a lanky teenager. And because I have a pretty healthy diet, sugar seems to effect me energy wise quicker than most. All that slow burning carbs stuff- bollox.

PB and J pitta- holla at my mouth.

Dentist in two weeks- I'm sure I'll need a filling...

ANYWAYS

New blog coming soon...

Borough Starbucks man 20-6-12

Hasn't been there for three days...

Niiiiiice

Agreed agreed agreed

Insomnia blurb

If you're curious.

Fat fetishes and anti cancer methods

I don't know what I'm more livid at, paranoid people suffering to be healthy, or developing a career out of obesity!...

I've been watching Channel four's 'My Big Fat Fetish', where woman gain weight on purpose to fulfill mans fantasy as well as their own body image preferences. I'm shocked, curious at how many stretch marks they have and also slightly in awe at how they appreciate their bodies just the way they are- something which most slim woman deprive themselves of daily.

I feel angry and confused when I hear their thoughts on their size. I think about all the articles I read on nutritional ways to be healthy, many of which are written by people who are avoiding cancer again or fighting cancer- that scary disease which seems to be the new aids or bird flu. How can so many people make positive life choices to avoid health scares when there are individuals out there throwing their health away for fried chicken?

The opposition,  are those seeking fat have a healthier mental health rate than those prioritising the right food choices, vitamins and exercise? I wonder who is less stressed and pressurised.

Little man

You tube have blocked the album versions. Either way spotify it and ENJOY!

Applicable to anywhere

Any city (town, countryside, middle of nowhere?!... e.t.c) can turn like this, lets generalise here.

'Those spots, your spots, the ones that you so willingly shared with that first person you loved in this city, are now poisoned.'

I do agree; that cafe spot, the tube station you would awkwardly wait at, the places you find amazing and show them for their first time, even those that you end up exploring together.

Or, maybe we should just treat them as places. 'Tis funny what our brain associates with the happy and sad. Personally, well if you focus on the good times you had from the places that cause the nostalgic twinge- surely the beauty now is passing on all of your delights to the other companions in your life.

Infatuation of learning something new

It's articles like this why I love love love Thought Catalog. Times like this, being now (why would you waste it?), get off your arse and go, do it, run around...

Here's a quote from one of my favourite films, Almost Famous:

'Who needs a "crowd?"  You're unique.  You're two years ahead of everybody.  Take those extra years and do what you want.  Go to Europe for a year!  Take a look around, see what you like!  Follow your dream! You'll still be the youngest lawyer in the country.  Your own great grandfather practiced law until he was 93. Your dad was so proud of you.  He knew you were a pronominally accelerated child.'

It's your adventure.

These words probably describe best where I am with mine right now. I wish I could should be writing like this:

'I think it’s why we love cities. Living in a town just big enough to be cripplingly small, I thought it would be impossible to be in one for more than five minutes without falling in love with something. And we do, for a moment. We fall in love with our strange new neighbors who make more noise as two people than your entire neighborhood did before, with the smell of cigarette smoke, with the way crusty bread feels when you tear it off at a new restaurant — all things that eventually slip into the grating or the prohibitively expensive but which are, for a few moments at a time, wonderfully infatuating.

And we see things in our cities that we hate, almost as many as we love. We keep a tally of all the ups and downs of being in this big new place, wait until the negatives spill over into every part of our life, and then we leave again. We get sucked into a lovely little daydream, standing in front of beautiful architecture and breathing in the smell of rich, warm food, where we feel that this is everything we were looking for. And then a group of obnoxious teenagers walk by, spitting and throwing their cigarettes on the ground. There is only so much a city can provide, and we can either keep moving from location to location, or we can find something new in ourselves to enjoy. A book, a hobby, a new group of friends in a brand-new bar.

We are constantly running, looking for the perfect combination of being alone and being together to make things always feel good. We might need to be in love to see things the way they’re meant to be seen, but not necessarily with a person — just as our city can’t save us, neither can being with someone simply to fill the silence. Sure, to fall in love with a person would be nice, but when you are actively searching for romantic love you’re almost destined not to find it. You can’t waste your time, your youth, your beautiful surroundings waiting for someone to validate it. I would be happy with just being in love with a good book, an opera, a philosophy I overheard in another conversation and turn around in my head until it settles like a fine dust over everything I believe.

It’s hard not to feel sometimes like you’re running around in circles, trying to distract yourself with a new partner or a trip to somewhere fresh and exciting, like you can’t ever stand still. I want the infatuation of learning something new, of discovering something about myself, the thrill of the small joys that don’t cost anything and don’t require anyone else’s presence. I want to be infatuated with myself, to feel like I am enough, and I so rarely do.

I want that falling feeling, that obsessive interest with all that’s around me, with all that I’m capable of. And most importantly, I want that infatuation to come from not where I’m standing, not from who I’m standing with, but from just how beautiful my life is on its own, from how wonderful it is to be alive, how much I am worth just by myself.'

If you like sambos...

Take a pick out of all of these!

A sandwich for every state.

The ice is breaking

"Depression is the flaw in love. To be creatures who love, we must be creatures who can despair at what we lose, and depression is the mechanism of that despair. When it comes, it degrades one's self and ultimately eclipses the capacity to give or receive affection. It is the aloneness within us made manifest, and it destroys not only connection to others but also the ability to be peacefully alone with oneself.

Love, though it is no prophylactic against depression, is what cushions the mind and protects it from itself. Medications and psychotherapy can renew that protection, making it easier to love and be loved, and that is why they work. In good spirits, some love themselves and some love others and some love work and some love God: any of these passions can furnish that vital sense of purpose that is the opposite of depression. Love forsakes us from time to time, and we forsake love. In depression, the meaninglessness of every enterprise and every emotion, the meaninglessness of life itself, becomes self-evident. The only feeling left in this loveless state is insignificance," - Andrew Solomon.

Addictions and self control

The things we do to 'get back on track'...

Addictions form a paper-thin protective layer between you and the world around you. They enable you, however briefly, to cope, to feel normal, to just freaking deal the way everyone else around you manages to do without chemical or edible assistance. “It is the thing you believe is keeping you safe, alive, contained,” writes Hornbacher of her eating disorder. “And in the end of course, you find it is doing quite the opposite.” Never do I feel more paradoxically invincible than when I am demolishing the entire contents of my refrigerator (the Great Uncooked-Brownie-Batter-Pickles-and-Kidney-Beans binge of 2007 was particularly memorable) and washing it down with a bottle of Bacardi. The blackouts on the bathroom floor, the half-remembered ambulance rides, the shaking hands of a palsied eighty-year-old, the muscles crying out in anguish at years of abuse, the brain set loose upon itself in a devouring fit of madness — all these seem inconsequential, for in the moment the combined effects of solid and liquid courage (in a caged match, I could probably triumph over the Bacardi but not the brownie batter) seems your own personal Armor of Achilles: impenetrable. You are Okay. You are untouchable. You can almost hear the “Super Mario Brothers” invincibility-star theme song playing in your head as you rip up the back of your throat with your fingernails.

If you’re so Okay, then why are you crying?

I said in the moment. These are important words to the addict. All we know is the moment. All we operate in is the moment. Addiction can practically be defined as short-term satisfaction with long-term consequences. The idea that one can act opposite to one’s emotions is utterly foreign to the eating-disordered/alcoholic/addict brain. So on this, my second full day without purging or drinking, I have discovered that half the battle is conquering the moment. We — not just addicts, but people in general — are creatures of many and fickle emotions. The jeans that fit me perfectly well yesterday, even when I know damn well they fit me perfectly well yesterday, absolutely categorically do not fit me today because fat is oozing out of my every pore and oh my god I am beginning to bear a striking resemblance to the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man AND NO ONE WILL EVER LOVE ME AGAIN AND I AM GOING TO DIE ALONE WITH CATS LISTENING TO MY NEXT TO NORMAL SOUNDTRACK.

This is all probably not true. In fact, I will go out on a limb here and say it is almost definitely not true. The empirical evidence would suggest otherwise. I am (a) probably not going to die alone — people won’t even leave me the hell alone even when I want them to — and (b) am five-feet-seven-and-three-quarters-inches and 108 pounds, so probably do not markedly resemble the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, the Pillsbury Doughboy, the Jolly Green Giant, or any other brand representative of legendarily mammoth (or green) proportions. I have in fact gained weight the last several weeks (up from 100), but I still have a BMI of 16-point-something (well below underweight), and on my trip to New York a week ago I zipped into a size 00 at the Gap with room to spare. (In other words, the smallest adult size they make for human people.) So from a rational standpoint, it’s not only an egregious overstatement to say I’ve gotten fat, it’s beyond f-cking absurd. I know that. I do. I KNOW that. I am smart and self-aware enough to recognize that after I eat 450 calories (my entire breakfast, including a Mountain Dew Amp, this morning), I feel sick as hell and am going to be pacing in a frenetic panic for the next several hours. But once those several hours have passed and I’ve digested and forgotten about (okay, not forgotten about — never forgotten about) the Greek yogurt or whatever the hell it was that was causing me such existential angst, I WILL BE OKAY.

I just can’t trust the workings of my own head in the moment, or operate on my own feelings. And when you’ve grown up heeding Polonius’s bullsh-t advice of “to thine own self be true”, what do you do when the one person you can’t trust is — yourself?

My kind of writing

I love thought catalog.

Sap.

Hi mum!

You smell, of poo! As I'd always say.

Wish you were here now, I could take you out for that bloody good steak I always owed you. Our last London experience together was dinner at Carluccio's where I was given food poisoning- yuck!

Here's some pics of us being stupid in my third year uni house, that night I may have made you roasted peppers which weren't quite roasted enough- crunchy peppers and brown rice (your fave, haa haa...)

You won though, you brought sticky toffee pudding for dessert.

Chow! (forever will I spell that word that way)

your daughter xxx

The song my sister played and it depressed me

But I kinda love it

OCD

I think my job has encouraged this side of me to come out.

We need order!

One of the worst things is if you offer a spoon of something (usually food, yogurt or dessert e.t.c.) to someone (likely bf or gf) to try, and they don't eat the spoon clean! I don't want your mouth leftovers!

Notting Hill night

'After all... I'm just a girl, standing in front of a boy, asking him to love her.'

Tricks are for all of us

Some nice tips to help improve the day, your life. Feel awesommmmme!

1. Wash your hands and face, and brush your teeth. – The simple act of cleaning these parts of your body is both reinvigorating and relaxing, and gives you that ‘fresh start’ feeling.
   
2. Change your socks for refreshment. – It’s an odd trick, but it works.  Bring a change of socks to work, and change your socks midway through the day.  You’ll be amazed at how much fresher you’ll feel.  This trick is especially handy on days with lots of walking.
   
3. Call a close friend. – Sometimes a quick conversation with someone you care about is just what you need to boost your mood. Am trying to do this more instead of hiding away!
   
4. Stretch. – When you feel yourself getting stressed, get up, reach toward the sky, bend down and touch your toes, twist your torso from side to side – stretch it out. Whether it's in the work toilets or just as I wake up in the morning, this tip is gooood.
   
5. Go outdoors. – Getting some fresh air outdoors is always a good way to rouse your senses and clear your mind. Even if it's just popping out for milk or a cheeky kit kat in your lunch break (get out of the office!)
   
6. Take a light exercise break. – Do a few sets of jumping jacks to get your blood moving, or take a walk.  Even the slightest bit of exercise can reduce momentary stress and re-energize your mind.  (Read The 4-Hour Body.) Walking to M&S Moorgate to get weekly bananas, nose at shoes and stare at some over priced fruit.
   
   
   
7. Dress to feel your best. – When we know we are looking our best, we naturally feel better. Am trying to do this more everyday instead of leaving the house thinking 'this outfit will do'.
   
8. Listen to your favorite music. – If it’s not too much of a distraction, listening to your favorite upbeat music can be a great way to boost your spirits. ALWAYS!!! I couldn't live without music.
   
9. Watch or read something that inspires you. – Sometimes all you need is a little pep talk.  Watch a motivational video or read something that inspires you. Blogs blogs blogs!
   
10. Have a good laugh. – Watch a funny video clip or read your favorite comic strip.  A good chuckle will stimulate your mind, giving you a renewed sense of optimism. Scanning through old and recent photos :)
    
11. Take a few really deep, controlled breaths. – Deep breathing helps reduce stress, a source of fatigue, and increases the level of oxygen in the blood.  Techniques can be as simple as inhaling for five seconds, holding your breath for four seconds and exhaling for four seconds.  You can also try more elaborate techniques which require different positions.
    
12. Clear your stuffed nose. – If allergies have your sinuses blocked, you may be feeling more tired and cranky.  Rinse your nasal passages with saline solution.
    
13. Cook a tasty meal. – Even if you are by yourself, preparing a tasty dinner, setting the table, and treating yourself to a wonderful culinary experience will lift your spirits.  Sharing it with someone you love or respect will make it even more nurturing. Eating for pleasure and not for comfort.
    
14. Walk away from energy vampires. – Energy vampires are people who always have something to complain about, or a problem that needs to be fixed, and they’ll drain your energy by making you listen to them about their problems or by giving them attention.
    
15. Complete an important piece of unfinished business. – Today is a perfect day to finish what you started.  Few feelings are more satisfying than the one you get after an old burden has been lifted off of your shoulders.  (Read The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.)
    
16. Work on something that’s meaningful to you. – Engage yourself in a meaningful personal project.  Or pull the trigger on doing something you’ve wanted to do for a long time, but haven’t yet had the resolve to do.
    
17. Assist someone in need. – In life, you get what you put in.  When you make a positive impact in someone else’s life, you also make a positive impact in your own life.  Do something that’s greater than you, something that helps someone else to be happy or to suffer less.  I promise, it will be an extremely rewarding experience.
    
18. Think about your latest (or greatest) success. – Think about it for at least sixty seconds.  Taking in your success as often as possible will help you reach it again and again.  Quite simply, it reminds you that if you’ve done it before, you can do it again.
    
19. Act like today is already an awesome day. – Do so, and it will be.  Research shows that although we think that we act because of the way we feel, in fact, we often feel because of the way we act.  A great attitude always leads to great experiences.
    
20. Notice what’s right. – Everything that happens in life is neither good nor bad.  It just depends on your perspective.  And no matter how it turns out, it always ends up just the way it should.  Either you succeed or you learn something.  So stay positive, appreciate the pleasant outcomes, and learn from the rest.  (Read How Full Is Your Bucket?)
    
21. Take a moment to acknowledge how far you’ve come.

You can't hurry love