Just a thought…

So I woke up this morning with this sort of renewed energy that I honestly felt was lacking for a while now. I actually managed to wake up feeling happy, there was no underlying anxiety towards what the day would bring.

I got up with this positive energy and my body moving like ten steps ahead of my sleep clogged brain, it was almost like I was ready to get on with the day without fully realising it yet. The thing is because I’ve felt so ‘meh’ and yes that is the word I’m so sophisticatedly using to describe how I’ve been feeling the past week or so. I think all the years of education has come in handy don’t you? So yeah having felt like that for the past few weeks had me literally bounce full of joy knowing I felt positive for once, I knew I wanted to make the most of it, not knowing how long it would last.

I don’t know about any of you guys, but I’m very much of a ‘Heart worn on sleeve’person, my emotions change so quickly, I swear the smallest things can affect my mood. I’ve learnt to adapt to my swiftly changing moods and now find myself making the most out of my positive, happy and ‘Kick Ass’ mood whenever it arises.

Anyway the long introduction out of the way the point of this post was just to say, that I’m sick of the feeling you get when you feel like something is missing. Only our own inner self knows exactly what we can handle and can’t, what our full potential is and isn’t and profoundly what makes us happy and what doesn’t.

So the last few weeks I’ve felt like something is missing, something is lacking from my everyday life, I think deep down I know what it was, but I keep coming up with excuses and just don’t let myself think too much about it. I know that once I find out what exactly is bugging me, I’ll want to do something about it and therein lays the challenge for me. Once you’ve established what is missing or what it is you require, you then have to incorporate that or find a way to change whatever needs to be changed and I mean that requires effort right? Any sort of change is difficult, whether it’s a good or bad.

Thing is though you can only go so many days feeling like crap and knowing things are not right, it doesn’t just affect your mind but also your physical well being. I’m so glad I woke up this way, and I’m going to try and be a little more positive and actually try and figure out, what exactly is making me feel as I so eloquently put it earlier ‘meh’.

I think sometimes just taking some time out and actually allowing myself to breathe and be in the moment without constantly thinking that I’m wasting my time or that I could be doing something more productive with my time. At the end of the day the most useful thing you can ever do for yourself is allow yourself some down time. Time just for you without feeling like you’re wasting it or that you haven’t earned it.

If something requires change, just do it! At the end of the day when you’re too comfortable with something, that will only make it harder to step outside that comfort zone and do whatever it is that you are wanting, but then again doesn’t’t’t that always lead to the best moments?

Love

Sophia xx

 

 

 

OUT OF HIDING

So this is my first post in a very long time. It’s been a few years actually since I’ve stopped writing, this blog used to be solely fashion based but have now decided to turn it into a bit of an ‘All rounder’.

I want to be able to talk about everything that matters to me, whether that be my daily mood changes, the new meditation techniques I think are amazing or even which book I think will be life changing.

I thought I would start by informing you of where I have been the past few years and what this platform will now mean to me. The first couple of posts will definitely be more mental health related, going into detail about my own personal experiences and gradually take it from there and go wherever the road takes me.

Let me fill you in on what’s been going on, we’ll start at the beginning shall we? A very good place to start (Whoever gets this quote, I’m totally high fiving you right now). Get your kettles boiled people and your teas brewed, it’s going to be a long one.

I stopped writing posts and stopped the YouTube channel I had back in 2015 and around that time I was living in London and working in fashion retail/PR and marketing. I thought I was living the life, living with two of my friends in our own flat and had a cool job. I was young and single and happy. I was ready for a great time.

Thing is I didn’t realise that all these things I thought were supposed to make me happy were actually going to be the things that finally pushed me of my so called wagon full of stars and unicorns and lead me to one of the most significant times in my life.

Depression.

I realised after a good 6 months that this ‘London life’ I had dubbed is not the life I wanted. I wasn’t happy at work; I was going from to job to job. In one year alone I think I had about four different jobs. I couldn’t cope with the anxiety and panic attacks so I would jump from job to job thinking that it was the job that was the issue when in actual fact the issues came from deep inside myself.

Around April 2016 I had my first ever panic attack, I had this sudden realisation that I wasn’t happy, that everything I was living and feeling was a lie. This was not me. Since that realisation dawned on me, every day after that felt like a huge struggle. I was suffering every day and normal day-to-day tasks seemed almost impossible to do.

I decided to go and do something I never thought I would do, Something I once used to make fun of and disregard as being useless and a money making scheme.

I decided to go and see a counsellor, now believe me, this was a huge thing for me, I think it took me at least two weeks to gather the courage to simply send the counsellor an enquiry email. I thought to myself if I go ahead and see a counsellor then everything becomes real. I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.

But them my anxiety grew, I was always down, I could never sleep, I bit the bullet and went to see this counsellor. Now let me tell you, this was one of the best decisions I’ve ever made, this one decision started me on my ‘Self Discovery’ path.

We had a relatively short time with each other, only 8 sessions, those 8 sessions however I learnt a lot about myself. But like many of us do, I thought to myself ‘oh look I’ve learnt a lot and now I can apply this and therefore do not need to continue seeing this woman’.

Couple of months down the line, shit hit the fan again, we found out that the flat we were renting was getting taken down and rebuilt as a home, meaning we couldn’t extend the lease and therefore would have to relocate.

Thing is my friends didn’t want to stay in London and so I was left with a decision of whether to move out and live alone in London, which would be extremely expensive or whether I would have to find others to live with.

I came to no decision and decided I would live with family close by until I figure it out. We left the flat and we left London. The whole thing left me feeling sad, angry and lost, so I thought ‘What is it I need to get out of this funk?’ I decided that going back home to Preston for a few weeks and being around friends and family would be good for me. To be able to reconnect with myself again and decide how I would move forward.

October 2015 I’m back in Preston. I’m home. Literally the next day I’m in my old bedroom, which has been empty since I moved out.

I’m sat on my bed with my laptop and I’m browsing and I come across an old friends profile, this friend of mine had decided that she was going to go travelling straight after Uni, she still is travelling all over the world.

I was looking at her pictures and so envious from all the posts on the new places she’s visiting along side equally amazing pictures. I sat there thinking, look at all these amazing things she is doing and experiencing and now look at me? Stuck here in my old room back to square one with my life packed in boxes and having no clue as to what the hell I want to do with my life.

So there sat in my old room with tears running down my face and looking through these posts and pictures, I had my first ever full-blown panic attack.

I couldn’t breathe; I was shaking and struggling to contain the tears. I was freaking the hell out. I was vaguely aware something was wrong but I couldn’t get myself under control.

I rationalised in my head ‘hey lets try and go downstairs and be around people’. I couldn’t do that however and instead went and sat along in a room by myself and rocked myself back and forth trying to figure out what was going on.

Then all of a sudden I heard myself saying ‘I don’t want to be alive, I want to die’. Now that thought freaked me the hell out, as I’m sure any sane person would!

I grabbed my phone and rang my uncle who came straight from work and heard me saying these things and probably others that made no sense. He decided to take me to his house; there I was sat with my aunty who instantly realised what was wrong. My aunty also has a history of depression and could see the tell tale signs that were clearly non-existent to me.

So there we go. That was the day that changed my life. I finally out loud heard the word depression used in a sentence that was directed at me. I finally figured out that I’ve been struggling for months.

I just couldn’t accept what was going on I didn’t want to be a person that has something ‘wrong’ with her. I wanted to be a normal woman.

Next day, after a lot of persuasion from my aunt, I went to the doctor, shared my experience and basically got told I had depression, now even that gave me a mini panic attack, hearing the fact that its all true and I am depressed, from someone who is licensed in the medical field is scary. That just meant one thing, this is all real and there is no way of running from it now. So I was then put on anti- depressants and assigned to a mental health support team and put on the waiting list for counselling. There began the most important journey of my life (So far).

By the way, a little disclaimer, what happened in London was not the actual reason behind the depression. That was just an experience that tipped me over the edge, my depression stemmed from events that occurred years back almost into my early teens. I know everyone has different sources of where their depression comes from and I am not belittling anyone’s experience of mental health. We are all different and so are our experiences and those experiences are what makes each of us unique.

So there we go folks that Is a wee introduction on what the hell’s been going and how I came from being this naïve young woman living in London to all of a sudden being a shell of my former self.

I am in a much better place now, almost on the point of wanting to say I don’t have depression anymore. But I know that’s not how it works and its something I will always have. The difference is now I’m in control of it, rather than it controlling me.

Over the next few posts I want to be able to explain in more detail of all the stages of depression I went through, my experiences and so on. I hope this is something I can share, I so believe in people wanting to share their experiences. That is the one thing that kept me going, knowing that I am not alone in this and many others have also been through the worst time and came fighting back.

This has been a slightly morbid post, but it is something that had to be said. Hopefully all future posts will have a more positive feel 🙂

Thanks for reading,

Sophia xx

 

Grey

Hello all and welcome back to another outfit of the day post, hope you are all well over, or at least trying to get over the huge, epically hyped about ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’. I think I am, I think. So as we all know for at least a month before the release and at least a week after the sudden ‘grey’ colour in fashion seemed to have outweighed rest of the colours all together.

So hey I thought id play my part in it too, I didn’t go as excessive; just a little number for me was enough.

 

Long duster coat – Primark White blouse – Asos Grey zip detail skirt – H&M Black suede boots – M&S

Black Suede detail bag – Primark Watch – Newlook

 

 

I just came from the office

 

 

coat-topshop shirt-zara lace shorts-topshop shoes-office bag-topshop watch-newlook rings-topshop/primark tights-m&s

So this is what I would call my ‘trying to look professional’ outfit, wouldn’t you? The lace shorts were actually a sale buy, gone down to £15 I wasn’t too sure about them as I’ve never been a fan of long line shorts but you could say they’ve grown on me. I love buying clothes just like any female but I also have that annoying thing where I forget exactly what I have in my wardrobe, deep inside the darker parts of my wardrobe I managed to pull out this shirt and this pair of shoes! I completely forgot I had both, the shirt is at least a few years old and I think the shoes are from last year.

I love that feeling when you find what you forgot you had, it’s like buying them all over again! So on another note, I’m trying out something new and something that requires a little courage from me. Hopefully I can share the news with you soon.

Until then..

Sophia xx

Trench’ing Along

 

 

 

trench-topshop top-river island jeans-asos shoes-topshop bag-topshop,                                               glasses-topman watch-newlook scarf-topshop rings-asos,newlook,topshop

 

I am a massive hoarder of coats and jackets, anytime there is a sale in January, I always stock up for the year to come. You ask why? So like I said I’m a coat fanatic and I’m always buying different ones throughout the year. (This can get a tad expensive). That’s why I’ll always pick out at least 2 or 3 during the sales.

I happen to actually forget I had this baby! How could I, I know! That’s what happens when you have so many, you forget what you have (face palm). Browsing through my wardrobe I found it again whilst producing a high-pitched squeal of surprise and recognition at the same time. There and then I decided this would be my new go to coat for the next few weeks.

I love how this trench can just completely transform an outfit. I could literally walk out in converse and jeans and still look somewhat sophisticated and smart (It also makes me feel like an undercover spy!). Want to know the best bit? I picked it up in the sale for £30!

– Sophia –

 

 

Eternity

 

 

 

 

 

 

Considering we live in one of the most weather challenged countries in the world, it’s always a nice surprise when finally we are graced with a few weeks of the summer sun.

The trends this summer aren’t as daring as the past few summers, now that the designers have caught up on the reality behind the British summer, and how abruptly our weather can change during the day. Go out looking like a Greek goddess, come back looking like a windswept, haggard nightmare!

Not saying this summer, its still not about the strappy dresses, denim shorts and kimonos, because it is, however it’s supplied with a good dosage of lightweight outerwear, to help aid us during the day.

During the day I’m all for denim shorts and strappy tops, but in the evening with the cool breeze and the fading sun, I prefer something a little warmer. Pairing these printed trousers alongside a simple print t-shirt and brocade like lightweight jacket, leaves me feeling cool enough for the warm evening.

 

TROUSERS – H&M  TSHIRT-PRIMARK  BROCADE JACKET-PRIMARK SHOES-BOOHOO SUNGLASSES-PRIMARK WATCH-MISS SELFRIGE RINGS-TOPSHOP/H&M/PRIMARK

 

 

 

 

Fall in line

Well hello there and may I say a happy 2014! Aah another new year is upon us, is it just me that remembers January 2013 like it was yesterday??! Time is going way too fast for my liking; we need to slow things down a little. Anyway my dears, I do hope you all had good new years and are ready to get on with your start to the year.

We had and are still having a pretty bad winter, like that’s a major surprise from all the previous years of harsh winters we’ve endured, and I clearly don’t point out the obvious (Sorry).

Coats. Coats. Coats. I am in love with coats. I need to have a new one every year and where do I find a new one every year? In the sale people, that’s where. This has become like a tradition for me now, purchasing a new coat for the following year in the xmas sales, I mean it makes sense right? Why buy a coat that’s £125 when I know I can get it for £40?!

This is the new baby I bought; I like my coats to be simple, dark and most of all warm. Comfort comes first for me, well in the winter anyway! Coat was £100 and went down to £40, from Topshop. The  black and white stole is also in the sale from river island, was £20 and went down to £12.

coat – topshop-£40 (sale), stole – river island – £12 (sale), dress – topshop – £10 (sale), shoes – topshop – £12 (sale), watch – asos £25

Yes, dreams do come true..

Hi Guys!

I do hope your all well and coping with the snow and the horrible weather we have been having as of late! Yes the snow made everything look pretty and white, but one day is enough, who agrees??! This is not a post related to fashion or beauty, this is a little more personal, I thought I would share with you.

One of the Christmas presents the family received was a DVD from my uncle, who’s a very philosophical person, very deep and passionate about what he believes in. Anyway so he recommended that we watch this film ‘The Bucket List’. To be honest with you I just looked at it and thought this is so not something I want to watch or would even enjoy, however on movie night  ‘The Bucket List won the vote, so reluctantly I sat down to watch it.

This movie is not what I expected. At all. Its basically about these two strangers who are in their 60’s who both develop cancer and are given about half a year to live, they strike up a friendship based on the ‘Bucket List’ (Things you want to do before you die). They write a list between them on the things they want to do. They then start their journey together and learn more about each other and teach other things along the way. Yes they do both pass away, but what they leave behind is inspiration, hope and passion. Whilst watching this film, it encouraged me to dig out all those little things I had wanted to do but never thought I could or never believed in myself enough to believe that I could do them. It encouraged me to go for it, to not be scared.

My advice to you is this, please do not be afraid of what you want to do or what you want to achieve in life or even within the next year, just having hope and the drive and the self belief can help you achieve all of your dreams and more! These days’ people so much as mention what they want to do and then are instantly dismissed by negative comments or doubts or concerns and yes this does just put you off.

I’m lucky to have some very amazing people in my life, like my uncle who recommended this film to me and also taught me so many things and made me realise how it is possible for me to do anything I want to do. He has always been my inspiration and I thank him for that.

So anyway to update you all, I now have some new ideas and some new plans and I am moving away from home and starting my own dream J and also wanted to let you guys know that due to this I won’t be able to post as much for a few weeks, until I’m all settled in 🙂

Until the next time my lovelies,

Sophia

xxx

 

 

The Love Cycle

Hi all, I hope your well and having a good week, I’ve been working all week and I am so glad its Friday tomorrow! Can’t wait for the weekend, currently in London,  can’t wait to go home at the weekend, I miss my family and friends! Right I’ve decided to do a short post on ‘Love’ today.

We all go through the ups and downs of love everyday as well as seeing it on TV, listening to people’s problems and stories, reading about it in magazines and newspapers. Were all quick to judge and offer advice; yes I’m guilty of that myself too. I’m quick to offer advice and just want to help the people who have a broken heart or going through something, yet when I eventually come face to face with the same situation myself, my advice suddenly is none existent. That mature sensible advice I once gave now means nothing to me, it’s always different when you’re in that very position, because then and only then your heart will always conquer and your brain left speechless.

Now I come from a ‘not so perfect’ family, my mum and dad had an arranged marriage and in time it didn’t work out, it did last 15 years mind and ever since then (13 years old) I had always been perceptive about marriage and love and often thought of it to all be a lie and not bring any happiness. However love is not something you plan or arrange to happen and decide that you want to fall in love at a precise time. It just happens when you least expect it. That’s what happened to me, I wasn’t looking and bang there’s me this perceptive cynical person who doesn’t believe in love, has found someone and all of a sudden can’t stop feeling the way that I am.

It’s a great feeling isn’t it? When it’s all new and romantic and you feel like you live in the clouds with constant sunshine beaming down at you? The beginnings of a relationship when you just can’t get enough of that person, and you want to do everything to make them happy, spend time with them and nothing is ever a problem. A year down the line and you either see a few cracks or you get stronger as a couple? Me? I  jinxed myself to be honest I’ve always been so scared of falling in love that when everything was going right after the first year I thought to myself this is too good to be true and I backed off. Whilst around me I could see relationships falling apart, tears being spilt and grudges being held. That one year can eventually become many years. For example my aunty has been together with her husband for 17 years and married for nearly ten.  That kind of thing allows me to open my eyes and think hey maybe it’s not all bad?

But why is that everything starts of so good and then all of a sudden cracks appear? What’s questioning the connection of the couple? Loyalty? Trust? Happiness? This is where the term ‘Love is blind’ comes in, a very true statement. Were all so happy and feel lucky to have that person that understands us, that gets us, makes us happy and we’re in sync with them. Instead of falling in love with the person and wanting them there because you WANT them and not because you NEED them. Not saying its everyone’s fault for having to feel the ‘need’ but that is not what it is about. You did not need that person when you were single, we become so committed to the routines to the text message routines and call routines as well seeing each other all the time that we THINK that we NEED that person in  our lives, otherwise our life will never be the same again.   That’s where were wrong, we should treat the person with kindness and show affection and love because we want to, like we did when you first met.

The sadness hits, all of a sudden the happy beginning and the lovely long conversations and romantic meals all seem to be a thing of the past. We all of a sudden give up. We stop functioning the way we used to, we have gotten so accustomed to that routine of being in a ‘couple’ that we all of a sudden feel lost right? The days feel longer and suddenly you feel as if you have no one in the world. Ok I do believe in second chances and fighting for things and people who you believe in and you really want, so yeah if you think a broken relationship can’t be fixed then you’re wrong. It all depends on how much you both want it to be fixed, whether the both of you want to fight for each other and to be together because you can’t imagine not being with that person and not having them in your life, is this the strongest love at all?

The strongest love of all, for me is what I can see in my aunty and uncle. 17 years together and that is a long time and yes of course they have had their shares of ups and downs but the fact is they conquered their problems together; it may not always be romance and happiness 24/7 just as long as it is present and shown by both sides.

Now I absolutely believe in love and I am a sucker for romance, complete turnaround from being cynical and not believing in love right? If you love someone I always think it’s worth that extra effort because at the end of the day you fell in love in love with them for a reason. For those of you having troubled romances sit back and think is it worth it? Can I see myself being with this person? Do I want to be with them or do I just need someone’s to fill that empty void? Most important can you live without them? For those of you, who have ended your relationship, don’t give up because there is always that one someone that you will mean the world too. Finally for those of you in happy committed relationships, keep at it! Show everyone what it means to be in love and happy.

Much Love

S.xxx

A Story to be told …

Hi all, I hope your all well, I’m not going to be posting around my normal subject area today, something a little different. See something happened when I was on a train journey recently and I engaged in a conversation in which everything I said was pretty much made up. We always talk to people we know on a regular basis, right? And the people we talk to will know whether we are telling the truth or not, so if for example, something amazing happened at work, you’d want to tell the event in the most extraordinary over the top way, possible. Why do we do that? Just so we can have that little bit of extra attention? Or is it something that we want to happen deep down in that situation but we didn’t have the courage to be able to do so, so we all exaggerate. Make the tale ten times more fascinating than what it is.

However the people we all talk to on a daily basis, know us too well and realise when something doesn’t sound like us and instantly won’t believe the height of the story/event/news were about to tell. But what if we come across someone that knows absolutely nothing about us? Where everything we say whether it’s a lie or whether it’s exaggerated, they can’t judge because they do not know us.

On this train journey, I came across a young man who was half English and half Chinese, the train was full and this young man happened to sit next to me. We sat in silence for a while, me not being the kind of person to indulge in full conversation with people that I will only be sitting next to for 45 minutes. Then he spoke, he asked where I was going and from that point on we just started talking and the funny thing is when he was asking me questions I felt this strange urge in me that spoke out and said ‘ wait a minute, this is a complete stranger, that I will most likely never see again. I can tell him pretty much anything’.

My real desires, of what I wanted to be doing, where I wanted to live, where I’ve wanted to travel etc all came out of my mouth rather than reality itself. Whilst I was sharing my ‘ideal yet unreal’ stories, this young man, whose name I didn’t even manage to find out, believed everything. The more he started to believe me and engage in the conversation the more I felt the urge to keep the stories coming. The stories which were things I want to achieve but in reality had not done so.

The fact that this young man believed me and took an interest gave me this hope, this silent hope that if he managed to believe what I was saying and probably saw the fire and passion in my eyes whilst talking about such things, then why is not possible for me to make these things happen. Whether they sound ridiculous or not, why can’t my life story be the story that I told this man?

Sometimes we surround ourselves around people that know everything about us, our passions, our failures and our goals and yes these people will surely love us and want what’s best for us. But at the end of the day there is always something that we want to achieve or we desire or we eventually hope to be, but we keep this within, too scared to share afraid of the reaction. Yet to me talking to this stranger about my hopes and dreams and managing to convince him that it was real and convince myself that anything is possible.

We can all be afraid of people that love us rejecting our ideas of what we hope to be, judging us or even those that support us may not fully understand you completely or be on the same wavelength. But that does not mean it is not possible. Just like the story of what I want to be, what I want to achieve that I shared with this young man, you can easily tell yourself your story over and over again until the day that it all becomes real and not just a ‘story’ anymore.

 

 

“Keep your dreams alive. Understand to achieve anything requires faith and belief in yourself, vision, hard work, determination, and dedication. Remember all things are possible for those who believe.”
— Gail Devers (American athlete)

 

Much Love

S.xxx