A Wonderful World

                                                        APPS FOR THE MIND ‘USEFUL APPS WHEN CARING FOR ONESELF AND MENTAL HEALTH’ Amongst the social media, music streaming, fitness and popular gaming apps that we can download onto gadgets or phones, there are also many apps that have been created to help us keep our minds in check and continue to ensure our mental health is cared for and a priority. HEADSPACE: A simple mindfulness and meditation app. Accessible techniques available so people can experience the benefits of meditation anytime, anywhere. It includes and shares guided meditations, animations, articles and videos. Sharing the message that meditation and mindfulness isn’t about switching thoughts off, but about acknowledging them and letting thoughts pass by in order to bring the attention back to the breath. Settling and quietenin...

                                                            YOUR MIND MATTERS. This week is Mental Health Awareness Week, 10th-16th May 2021. What is Mental Health Awareness Week? A national week in the UK to raise awareness of mental health and mental health problems. It's aim is to encourage action and promote the message of caring for and understanding mental health. The event has been organised and hosted by The Mental Health Foundation for the last twenty-one years, an opportunity for people to talk and learn about all aspects of mental health with a focus on providing help and advice. It's important that we continue to raise awareness to ensure we continue to strive to create a society that advocates for mental health. Despite its importance, there is still stigma attached. Mental health is just as essential as physical. It's convers...

'A little Greek restaurant, a lot of love to give.' 'Tsiakkos & Charcoal' is a Greek Restaurant situated in the heart Maida Vale. With a small exterior and curtains hanging at the front, it's like a secret to those outside what's actually behind. It's a family run restaurant that's been around for forty years and has established quite a name for itself. With it's fresh, beautiful food and caring, passionate staff, it's a stand out location. With traditional, authentic, Greek Cypriot food cooked to perfection and an intimate, cosy atmosphere, it's one to get to know if you don't know and to hold onto if you do. All the food is homemade and cooked at the front of the restaurant as you enter, and chargrilled dishes are cooked on live charcoals, dishes that have been passed through generations. It's a place of celebration, joy and warmth, a buzzing atmosphere of love and sharing conversations and connections as well as food. As it...

Your body is your home for life, let's take care of it. Let's work on accepting all bodies.  Our society has ingrained in us, ideas and beliefs surrounding image and aesthetic, instant judgement or assumptions about others as a response to how they look, rather than accepting that humans come in all shapes and sizes. I think it's important to know that everyone's version of 'health' looks different, despite our base bodily functions being the same, where we are and what we look like when our bodies are happy and functioning adequately can be very different.   By this, I mean internally, the things you cannot see. Our organs, arteries, hearts, lungs, bones, the female menstruation cycle and everything in between. It's not one size fits all, and thank goodness it isn't... how boring would that be! There are extremities that can be reached to shift ourselves of course, whether that we restricting or over consumption that can result in under nourishment and ...

You Don't Compare The Sun and The Moon.  Both the sun and moon shine and have their time. They’re both beautiful in their own right, and so are you. You don’t need to compare yourself to someone else, it’s both unhelpful and unnecessary. It’s a standard belief within our society that comparison can be used for a positive effect, many believe that at times, comparing yourself to the circumstances of someone else may in fact allow you to come to terms with all the things you do have rather than the things you do not, to be grateful due to the belief that there is always someone ‘worse off than you’. Years in the education system, yet we are never taught to love ourselves. Where could you be? Where should you be? What more could you have? How could you better yourself? What should you look like? What diet should you be on? What beliefs should you have? Questions that are constantly racing in our heads, plastered on our walls and displayed on our televisions. Those questions have some ...

The Reality of Mental battles and Stigma.   Suicide is happening now.    It’s real and it’s killing. When we experience pain on the inside, it’s not always evident to others and can be hard to accept we’re really not alone. The festering or pain that the silence of one’s suffering can cause, is something we don’t have to ignore, reject or judge. We should never have to suffer in silence when no matter how challenging it may feel to reach out, with this many other humans in the world, we always can. We can and be listened to and heard without judgement. When enclosed in the cape of darkness, you believe that the only solution to the seemingly unsolvable suffering is to end it all by ending oneself. A quick ‘fix’ which in fact is a sudden ‘break’, the only thing that is unfixable. When feeling trapped it can be viewed as the only escape. But it doesn’t have to be that way when we work to remove stigma attached to reaching out when suffering, when we choose kindness....

Changing our view on therapy and displaying emotions?  We have a range of emotions and potential feelings we can experience as a consequence of what's happening in our lives, around us or in our minds. Displaying, sharing, or experiencing them are human, not  weak.  We are conditioned to hide our feelings from an early age, ‘be strong’, particularly men, ‘man up’, and you’re weak if you show any form of vulnerability.  We feel bad about feeling a certain way because of what we’re taught to associate with particular feelings. But all feelings are valid.  Crying is a release, vulnerability is a strength, a willingness to open yourself and truly give yourself the opportunity to feel and not block, stunt, or suppress what’s inside. As powerful as we are as individuals, we cannot do everything alone. It’s can be scary to reach out at times, especially when you don’t understand what’s going on and you can’t even explain how, why and what you’re feeling. It takes cour...

‘Only in darkness can you see the stars’ – Martin Luther King Jr.  Mental illness cannot be seen.  It’s up to us to alter our perspective on mental illness, depression or any other diagnosis for that matter. Removing judgement, acknowledging appropriate care and support and caring for ourselves and others mentally as much as we are often concerned to physically. You can’t see mental pain and emotional pain, unless it manifests itself physically. But often as humans what we struggle with internally, we mask externally. If someone has their leg in a cast or they have scars, it is proof of their pain. That they are or once struggled with turmoil. But when it comes to mental struggle, we feel we have no proof or way of articulating what’s going on. We may question whether others will believe us if we speak up, or they don’t believe us when we do. The effects may be evident but what’s really going on inside is only in the individual battling it. It’s become a taboo or has stigma ...

'Your Health is Your Wealth'  A saying that's frequently circulated, but what does it actually mean?  One particular statement that my great Nan taught me and I hold close is, ‘your health is your wealth’, without prioritising that, nothing else matters. In today's society we can often forget that and place wealth as the greatest priority, in a world and system that can be competitive, we let our value be defined by our wealth. Of course, I'm not naive to the fact that possession of money can bring a certain level of freedom to our lives, and we can still take steps to reduce unnecessary suffering or divide, but when we take a step back and view the world and ourselves for a wider perspective, it's valuing our health that will ensure we live a life of longevity and happiness.  There are external elements that may bring an aspect of opportunity, but I believe health is what brings abundance. Your health, no one else’s. As we are all different it cannot be defined...

Acknowledging and Accepting your own worth. What is 'Self Worth'?  I often remind myself that although we are all different, we are all worthy. ‘Self-worth’ is a term that’s thrown around. Knowing and accepting your own ‘worth’ can be difficult when what it means is not fully understood. Personally, I like to define self worth as 'a sense of one's own value as a human being', it's about a level of respect and regard for yourself living in this world. What's the difference between 'Self worth' and 'Self Esteem'?  For me, separating self-worth and self-esteem is helpful. I like to think that self-worth is about knowing and accepting your own value, whereas self-esteem is about confidence. They are similar and equal in importance but they aren’t the same. Self-worth can remain constant, whereas self-esteem can shift dependant on confidence. My theory is that self-worth is the root, it’s the building block and glue that holds you together. If...