Me, Myself & I.

Firstly I’m going to apologise for the cliche title, it’s fairly well used, but I feel it’s appropriate for my next post.

Too many of us focus on other people. Other people opinions, thoughts, looks, judgements. A lot of us may have someone we don’t like, that has hurt us, cheated on us, used us, made us feel small and our first reactions to this are “what did I do wrong?!”, “what has she got that I haven’t?” “Am I too fat”, etc etc. We compare ourselves to something or someone else because they have failed us, and wonder what we did wrong.

Life will always throw us hardballs and none of us are perfect, so try to remember, even when someone has hurt you deeply, that everyone is going through some kind of battle. So try to be the best YOU can be because that is your karma. Leave them to decipher their own karma.

Being hurt and wounded, opens up a lot of internal battles, it can lead to hate, spite, anger. However these are all things that are ultimately in your control, you can choose to let them devour you, or you can devour those bad emotions and feelings and turn them into positive energy.

So wake up this morning and think about YOU. You DREAMS, your GOALS, your ASPIRATIONS. Think about how YOU are going to achieve them and not how someone else will affect your life.

I’m not saying it is simply that easy to forgive, forget, remove pain and anger, but it starts with YOU, not them. They may never be sorry for what they did, they may never change, but those things are out of your control.

Your happiness is.

Happy Monday 🙂

Forward thinking….

So I’ve been very busy lately and haven’t had a lot of time to post, a few things have happened over the last few months that have got me thinking about how we, as human beings, deal with a lot of various situations.

One thing I hand on heart believe is that:

“Things do not change, we change.” —Henry David Thoreau

We are a product of our thoughts, actions, reactions, ways and everything we do in life. This makes us who we are… but what happens when you get a little lost.

I have experienced a few very testing things over the last 6 months of my life and I have done and said things to people I am not proud of. This is something in retrospect I know isn’t me, however, I let myself be a person I wasn’t proud of because of other peoples inner trials.

When you think about moving forward remember… this is just a small slice of your life. So the pain, may it be very real and present to you at the time, it will not always be.

Another life lesson that I stand by is that “a problem will keep repeating itself until the lesson is learnt”. Whatever personal lesson that might be.

Life is life. We will always have trials, pain and suffering but what we must remember in these low moments is that we will also always have happiness, love and warmth. So next time you feel low or are feeling slightly lost, pick up a pen and write a list of 5 things that are good in your life. Count your blessings, not your sorrows, because with and open heart and an open mind you will attract happy people into your life. If you train yourself to consistently be more loving in thoughts and actions, your energy will attract more positive people and positive results. As Albert Einstein said, “You can’t solve a problem by staying in the same energy in which it was created.”

As for myself, I have had someone constantly pulling me in a downwards direction for a long time and it took me getting to breaking point to realise that sometimes people are only meant to be in your life to teach you something and not to necessarily stay for the rise. However, when someone hurts you in a way where you feel you need revenge and feel resentment.
Keep in mind a fabulous Carrie Fisher quote: “Resentment is the poison you swallow hoping the other person will die.” Recognize that when you resent someone, you are not only hurting yourself, you’re also giving this person control of your emotions.

Stop allowing someone else so much control over your life. Take a few deep breaths and remember that you are in control of your happiness… you and only you. You decide who you let in and who you don’t.

Just remember you are right where you are suppose to be, many Buddhists consider huge difficulties to be a sign you’re an old soul—the bigger your misfortunes, the closer you are to enlightenment. Whether you believe this or not, it’s certainly cheery to reframe all your life’s bad events as tests of your character. If you feel particularly tested right now, ask yourself what the heck you’re being tested for! Patience? Compassion? Resilience? Forgiveness? Open-mindedness? What strengths must you develop further? Now consciously go out there and develop them!

Because of course “The best is yet to come.” —Frank Sinatra

Go find yourself…

So when I left England to travel around 3 years ago, the phrase “Go find yourself” was thrown around a lot. Although, what does that really mean?! You can’t find yourself literally, because you are and will always be yourself. So metaphorically how does one “find themself”?

I suppose it has something to do with working out, who you are, what you want to be, where you want to go?! But is all that really necessary?

I travelled 3 months in South East Asia and now Australia and I still don’t know the answer the all of those questions. However I have had some of the best life experiences ever. Things that I will always remember and have changed my life and perspective forever. Until the next experience.

So what I’m trying to get as is that life is always forming and shaping us, so what’s the rush? What’s the stress all about? At the end of the day we can only change, worry or deal with things that our in our control, when a lot of aspects of of lives and what influences us simply aren’t in our control.

One of the main things for me is my family and friends, I grew up in the UK, so the majority of my family and closest friends are there, this can be hard, sometimes you just need a hug from dad, or the girls with that elusive bottle of wine that drowns your sorrows. However all that being said, if I didn’t leave my little safe haven on the Isle of Wight, then I would never have got to experience everything I have, or met people that have touched my life and I wouldn’t be the person I am today.

So I suppose my viewpoint on this is that all these experiences make us who we are, but it is ultimately us who decides what we do in the face of these experiences, good or bad. Life has it’s ups and downs, it also had it’s highs and lows, but you can choose to be swallowed by them or to ride them the best way you know how.

So while it’s all good and well to “Go find yourself”, travel, take to experiences and get up and go, because life’s to short not to. I believe that “finding yourself” isn’t something that needs to be done, or can ever be fully achieved. It’s subjective. So it’s more a case of “Go be yourself”, however you are at that time in your life. Let life influence you, mould you, change your perspectives and feelings because by going so and truly letting go of trying to be somebody, you can really “find yourself”.

Don’t stress the small stuff, hell don’t even stress the big stuff, easy to say, a lot harder to do, but life is too god dam short to worry. So look for your silver lining in every situation and make that your focus and have fun “being yourself”… because at the end of the day, you is all you’ve got!

Loss..

So we’ve all experienced some type of loss in our lives. 1 in 2 people actually suffer more than one traumatic event in their lifetime (Sethanne Howard and Mark W. Crandall, MD, 2007). So one thing I can say is whatever you are going through, you are not alone.

Loss can be many different things, whether it’s losing a favourite earring or the end of a relationship or the loss of a loved one. If you cared enough about that thing, big or small, it can have an effect on your life.

I have experienced some loss recently, and while I’m still determining what kind of loss it is, or even if it is a loss at all, that’s my journey. My loss is to do with love. That four letter word, so easy to spell, so easy to say, but so hard to get right.

There comes a point in your life, when you’re officially an adult. Suddenly, people expect you to be responsible, serious, a grown up. We get taller, we get older. But do we ever grow up? No matter how much we grow taller, grow older, we are forever stumbling…forever wondering, forever…young.

It was so easy when you’re young, go to school, make friends, occasionally do your homework, hold hands with a boy and he’s your boyfriend… anyone else want to be 12 again?! Now we have to make decisions about what we want to do with our lives, how that special person fits in with that. Make time for our friends and family, trust me it’s even harder when they are in a million different places. Or do we? Why does the number that we are in years determine that we can’t have he same “youthful optimism” that we had as a child. It doesn’t, there no rule book saying because we are maturing and have to deal with bigger issues that we can’t sill see through the “rose tinted glasses”, they way a child views life.

Some women choose to follow men, and some women choose to follow their dreams. If you’re wondering which way to go, remember that your career will never wake up and tell you that it doesn’t love you anymore. I agree with this, but I also believe that it’s not a choice of one or the other. By no way take me the wrong way, I think everyone needs to follow their dreams, but I believe it’s also about knowing which one is important at the relevant time in your life.

There will always be those people who cause you pain and try to bring you down but we must remember that we are in control of our own lives, and when these things happen that cause us pain, we have a choice to allow that to continue or not. So forgive them even if they are not sorry, not because it excuses their behaviour, but because it makes you a better person, and everyone makes mistakes, but all we can try to be is the best version of ourselves.

So empower yourself, don’t wait for a man, or woman, or friend or family member to do it for you. Believe in yourself, believe you are beautiful, don’t compete with others, compete to be the best version of yourself. Then at the end of the day that loss, however much pain is caused you, will only serve to make you stronger.

It’s easy for us to judge, and name call, and bring people down, but calling someone fat doesn’t make you any skinnier. Life is all about risks, and it requires you to jump. Don’t be a person who has to look back and wonder what they would have or could have had. No one lives forever.

So wake up in the morning and look for the positive things, change your perspective, it makes that loss that you felt, a loss that you survived. One thing that has always been true about life is that it goes on… It never stops going forward, so right now, whatever stage of your life you are in, smile. You are exactly where you are supposed to be, if not, you’d be somewhere else!

Until next time…

So let me introduce myself..

So blogging, it’s relatively new to me, I dabbled a bit when I travelled around Asia but nothing to fancy. Here’s where I’m supposed to eat the scene, the story of who littlebritishlou really is?!

Well I’m 25, I’m fairy sure most of you will have picked up on the fact that I’m British, I’m currently residing in Sydney and have been for around the last two years. Some of you, probably a very select few, will be asking how I got here. I come from a very small island in England, known formally as the Isle of Wight, however, to myself and friends it’s known by various other names, we don’t need to go into those.

I had a pretty god damn good childhood, however much you will hear me moaning about how cold England is, I had the luxury of sandy beaches, water sports, horse riding, gymnastics among many other great things to be involved in as a child. So it’s safe to say I had a pretty sweet upbringing.

Anyway growing up has it’s ups and downs, mainly first world problems that we occur as children and believe them to be the end of the world. At the ripe young age of 18, I toddled myself off to university where I studied and gained my massive passion for Criminology.

After which I decided as all young people seem to be doing that “the world was my oyster” and I set off on my travels around Hong Kong, Asia and Australia. The last in which I fell in love and 6 months turned into two years and counting.

Australia has been a dream to me, I’ve had some of the most amazing experiences of my life. Not without it’s up and downs but all worthwhile. So I suppose that leads me on to why I am here, right now, writing this blog. I have just been involved and experienced one of those lows, and whilst we all deal with things in our own ways, this is one of my coping mechanisms.

Were all on a journey to better ourselves and our lives and stay away from negativity and pain. So here is my journey.