Dare To Live

'Self care is not about self-indulgence, it's about self-preservation' Audrey Lorde When I first encountered it, self care was a term I distinctly recall leaving me both bewildered and frustrated. What does it mean? How do I do it? Is it not sort of a waste of time? The concept of conducting acts of care acts towards myself was a slow one to translate into my day to day life. I remember asking for examples of it when it was introduced to me and instead of considering what my own could be, I just latched on to one that seemed most doable and tried to implement it. It was forced, I wasn't connected to it and the action was being carried out merely to tick a box and be able to say I was self-caring. After significant practice, exploration and improved understanding, self care has become an increasingly important undertaking for me. And I'm still learning about it. I've found that it needs to be continuous, and while it never necessitates a grandiose affair,

As you may or may not know, we've been running a month of gratitude over on our Instagram  since the month of August kicked off.  Using the hashtag #daretobegrateful each day there's new images of gratitude popping up to gradually grow this little idea and turn our attention towards an attitude of gratitude. Today marks day 21 - which is also the amount of days it takes to build a habit - so if you've been doing it since the start, you're on to a good thing! Of course, it's still not too late to get started, it never is. Every drop makes an ocean and whether it's everyday or not, adding to the pool of positivity is always going to be of value. We're just over 3/4 of the way through and already I think there's been learnings along the way about the effects of gratitude.  1. Variety Each day I don't know what kind of visuals I'll be greeted with as there's such a wonderful array of what people are finding gratitude in each day

In search of blog ideas, I find more and more that just one little line can quickly be all that's required to push my mind into a whirring wheel of contemplation. The smallest inkling of inspiration will pipe up and demand to be made into a bigger idea.  This week, the one that kicked it off simply said 'I am endlessly creating myself' A simple affirmation yet it's one that boldly shows commitment to personal exploration, discovery and learning. It denotes change, movement and the freedom to not confine ourselves to one box, to not pigeon hole our personalities into a type. But how much do we embrace the endless creation of ourselves? I think instead, we create a concept of who we are going to be, we take on a label or become what others say we are. We fear becoming something more or something different because that drives us to depart our cosy comfort zone and enter the unknown.   To endlessly create ourselves means taking on the role of creator and actively

This topic has been trickling through my mind for a while now. There's been various signs pointing me in its direction, encouraging my exploration. I've had consistent reminders urging me to give it my time and energy and finally get right into the niggling nitty gritty of it. But while I heard and saw and felt all the signals, I still absolutely did not want to. Which is exactly why I'm now writing this. The topic is that of being human - of being flawed, emotional, confused, afraid, insecure and anxious. To being a feeling, thinking thing and to honestly embrace that.  As you'd recognise if you'd read here before, I am greatly inspired by the importance of vulnerability as researched by Brené Brown. But yet, going and actually doing vulnerable things really awakens the human side of us and I've realised, as much as I see the worth in doing these things - I found it so challenging to genuinely embrace them.  Because you really feel this stuff.