Week 34! Wow this year is definitely going quick. Right now life really isn’t were I expected it to be and for so many reasons but I have also learnt a lot along the way, who I am, who I need, what I need and trying to life as positively as possible. Your body, health and lifestyle is completely up to you. Self care is something that I practice daily and will forever more. It is so important to me and helps me to live the life I want to, with a few adaptions along the way.
Every week I bring to you all, a little update on my little life as Melanie Kate, a UK fashion and lifestyle blogger aged 29. I also unfortunately have a condition that effects 1 in 10 women worldwide. That condition is endometriosis, something nobody loves but has to life with. This is where self care comes into me life. There is no cure as of yet so its tough luck and you have to stick with it.
Self care for me and this should be for anyone, isn’t all about the daily showering, the healthy eating and the exercising. Those are things I implement but self care has so much to offer and explore that may sound stupid to you but work wonders with your mind and body to bring the best life you can live!
Positivity is something more than ever I need in my life. There are always things in life that try to bring the worse out in you, pull you down to their level or destroy your chances of the best. It’s a real shame really and for the people around them that really push for the positives. A positive can be found in everyday even its something as little as I made it out of bed. You just have to think of them over the negatives.
How has your week been? Full of good, bad or ugly days? A mixture of them all? To be fair a mixture of them is probably a really good week. You aren’t always going to run a smooth, plain sailing life! There will always be one thing or another that gets in the way, or doesn’t go to plan. That is ok as long as we focus on the positives.
For me, my week has been ok. It’s been good but at the same time bad. Hard to explain really how and why but I will try by best too. Sometimes you just want to do what you want and other times you are forced to do something you wouldn’t choose to do.
I write these out on Friday’s for you all to read on Sundays. So lets start off with the weekend, something I miss of the weekly updates near enough every week! Motivation is something I lack most the time, if I am tired or feeling unwell whatever it maybe. But Saturday I woke up super motivated. My friend was coming over just after lunch because we took a girls weekend away in Suffolk.
Housework in general is something I don’t like doing but I have to do it, not only to be clean but it makes me happy to walk in the front door daily to a clean inviting home. So Saturday morning, Alexa was playing Capital FM, I did a full flat of housework, top to bottom. Filmed 2 videos for the week we are just finishing and packed. It is amazing what you can do in a few hours if you put your mind to it!
Driving is something else I don’t like doing but would be lost without it. I am better driving where I know that not knowing but I offered to drive to Suffolk and it was totally fine. Sometimes a break even just for 1 night is something that is needed. Refresh, have fun and chill. Cheap and cheerful was this one night stay.
Fish and chips on Aldeburgh beach on Saturday night, cosy old airbnb for the night and goat yoga on Sunday morning lunch and home. It was just so chilled out, we didn’t really plan anything other than goat yoga and we just went with the flow. This is the kind of self care I mean. Taking a break from a manic life to escape simply for 1 night, chat, eat and have fun or facing fears for me. I am or was scared of goats.
During the week I have been at work everyday. Monday – Thursday mid morning we didn’t have a system though. Luckily for me I had a bid to work on but it gets boring and you get lost without a system. Its like driving you don’t like it but you are lost without it. So it’s been a long week, drags out and I was so lucky to have Friday off. People wished for time off and to make it up when the system was back on. But who really wants to work extra next week and the one after when you are being paid to sit on your bum for 4 days poodling through the work you can do. Come on who loves their job that much?
Whether it’s due to boredom or because I am just having a week where my body hates me. This week has been all about the early nights. I have been so tired and in a lot of uncomfortable pain that by 9pm I want to go to sleep.
Sleep is something I love, my body loves and needs and my endometriosis pain works well with a good nights sleep. I had Friday off for a hospital appointment and when my alarm went off at 7am like it would normally go off. 7am was too early for me, Alexa could have gone out the window but I knew I had to be somewhere so big stretch and I was up. Weekday nights I have about 9 hours sleep which works ok but towards the end of the week I’m tired. Weekends I can easily do 11 hours if I am allowed. Endometriosis and sleep just go together for me and if I need it and my body too I will have it! That or get me in a bad mood.
Bubble baths have been the best part of my week. I love a good hot bubble bath because endometriosis or shall I say its pain majorly loves heat. A good 20 minute hot bath works wonders for me, clean, relax, de stress, think about the day and a little time for just me! Any recommendations for podcasts to listen to in the bath are hugely appreciated? That ladies voice is just not getting me to relax.
This week I have really tried to stay on the diet for holiday. I am in Greece in 3 week’s time and just for my own mind I want to look good. Because I am not feeling overly my best I am wanting treats and good food. Thursday I caved in when I heard the chef at work had made cake, I was too late to get a slice but the toffee crisp I ate instead was equally nice and less calories.
Me time this week has been 3/4 replaced by my early nights. After reading The Perfect Child, I just can’t seem to get into the book I am reading. Its really good, I am getting and liking the storyline its just not screaming read me more to me! So I replaced reading by sleep.
My bullet journal is something I love, still fairly new to me. This time round anyway. But I just love the time to write down all the positives for me daily, my mood in flower form and all my adventures along the way. I also do random pages along the way like 12 ways to love yourself, self care things and bucket lists. Journalling for me in this one anyway is all about the positives and this is something I want to continue hopefully forever more. Sad really but its something close to me, something that makes me happy and something I would grab to take if there was a fire.
The self care a journal, it’s something I got in a buddy box the end of last year. This is when I decided 2019s goal was to focus on self care and a happy positive life. Little did I know my Grandad was to die and something I am going through right now was going to happen but its good to have things to make you refocus and reenergise in life. Not that I am saying my Grandad dying was a good thing because it isn’t but it has made me realise a lot in life and change possible ways I life daily.
Anyway I am filling in the book daily and I love to make note of what I’ve done self care wise, or how much I have drunk , etc. It’s the pages in between that get me, when the refocus you’re mind into something you could be side tracking. Sunday will be the 25th. The day most of you are reading this and that is day 233 of this year. This week we read about how we can’t give what we haven’t got. All about stopping when we have nothing left to give and refuel with goodness. Such an important message because I know personally I keep going or have done when I can’t anymore and that makes you feel worse. Stopping is the best thing to do and refuel to help you as a person.
Daily planning is something I do too. This book is where I write down all my feelings everyday, the good ones and the bad ones. I write roughly 12 phases, the same each day to remind me of how I want to live, what I should do and to motivate me to push myself to the top of my strengths. It is the perfect way to end the day by letting go of all them feelings when you shut the book and have a better nights sleep.
For this week coming I really want to stay focused, concentrate on the good people, the good things in life and the things my body needs. Meditation is something I naturally practice even if its in the bathroom toilet cubicle at work or out in public ones. I really want to find a way of meditating more. Maybe it’s because right now in my life I have some challenges that I am trying to achieve, I feel good most of the time and I have learnt massively this year, that has brought me to a better place. Personally I don’t want the knock back to happen but we will never know until it or if it happens.
The reading situation I want to pick up and finish the book I am reading. I am into the storyline and I don’t know why its just not calling me to pick it up but maybe with this long weekend I can refuel on sleep and feel the need to read more.
Even though as I type this I am sitting with a headache, a kool ’n’ soothe patch on my forehead and my tortoise shell glasses on. I feel in a really good place right now. Nothing is easy and there’s always going to be some hiccups along the way but finding or creating a place that comforts you, pushes you to excitement, a routine of self care rituals and Buddha peeping through behind the overgrown plant, somehow has put a smile on my face.
So I am going to try finish the book I am reading, meditate just to push this more, fill my body with clean healthy nutrition and focus on the positives. What do you want to work on this week?
