Tag Archives: Body Image

What is this all about? Updating posts relevant to my current way of living

24 Wednesday Mar 2021

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So this week I am updating many of my passed blog posts to make them current and relative to my current way of living. I have never been more structured in my life and Everyone Can Build A Castle was about, how to develop your life so you too can have a castle that is full of opportunities and possibilities and it is symbolism of how everyone can have a happier fulfilled life, it’s all about making changes that will last not just for the new year, but forever.

Sheffield's long-lost castle reveals the city's deep roots in the Middle Ages - Archive - News archive - The University of Sheffield

I am a Jet Setter and a doer and this in many articles and other blogs I have read, is often seen as a bad thing, but is it?

No! I like the fact that I like to do a lot of things, and jump in with both feet, as it is what has helped me fight through the bad times of my life, and keep going, even though, there are those who tried to stop me, but I never allowed it to defeat me and battled my way through mental torment aswell as physical.

You know my Grandad had about 6 life threatening attacks on him? Yes in the second world war, when he was fighting out in Burma. He missed being killed a lot during that time, and we all joked that he is like a Human Cat and had 9 lives, as honestly being almost shot in the head, but the bullet went through his hat to the person behind him is like someone was looking after him, and that he was being saved for a purpose. I do believe in God and hearing those stories made me see that even after such troubling time, you can still grow peacefully and when he told me of those stories, I was like “Bloody hell how are you still standing?”, but yes, and he then went onto having a successful career afterwards as a Bus Conductor and before then had his own Butchers shop, which got hit and never to be returned too.

Now he joked about that, because he did what wardons told him not to do apparently, and that is leave the lights on as you will be a target and yes he forgot and yes it was a direct hit. But would he have done that?  it was because there were some stores like his being broken into, and so he wanted to treat those kids a lesson and would tell them, when he found out which ones they were, and yes it was often a young lad stealing, but not too especially in the war and they would make out it was the owner of the stores who had left the lights on, but no it was them, and if you’re gonna do that, expect to get hit, and if you steal and are in my store at the time of when it gets blown up, so will you.

My Grandad Charlie Skinner, was known in the war as “The Man with 9 lives”. So it goes to show that even going through a war, you can still create a new life too and that is what this blog is all about. Building your life and becoming a success.

Many thanks for reading,

Carrie L.M X

Building Relationships

22 Thursday Dec 2016

Posted by in Personal Development

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Being married for 10 years has had its ups and downs like most, and we certainly don’t spend every minute of the day together, I believe in personal space even being in a relationship, but I do also like our together times too.

We aren’t all over each other like a rash and we don’t always cuddle up at night. I like being left alone for some of the night, as I feel that this is my time to try and switch off and be in my own thoughts.

What we do have is understanding. We know we want to have that time together and when we want that space. You just sense it by the body language and the fact that my husband has his face berried in his tablet like myself at times.

Building relationships whether it be romantic or not, is part of the human being. Learning how to be around other people, respecting the other persons boundaries, even though you do get those who try and break them. You learn how to compromise and how to pick up tips from other people, which can inspire us.

We look at someone who we idolise on the TV as an example and we see the life they have to what we have, and we think “Wow I would love to experience that” so even though you haven’t met the person, you have already formed a relationship with that image of that person. You build up this admiration for them, you love their voice, what they have to say, their talent and sometimes you can feel as if they are a part of you. You want to know how they are like that and how can I be like that too?

Above is a photo of the extreme, those who go to lengths to look like someone else, but is this a good relationship.

I always think it is dangerous route to take. Idolising someone is different to copying someone completely, and that can be a bad relationship.

You can never be like someone else. You don’t know their thoughts unless you are a mind reader, only the person themselves know what is going on in their head, and your chasing something you’ll never be.

However you can also learn from this too. Look at how they walk, talk and stand, why they have so many people admiring them, and you can use their body language to help you too.

Language can really help when building relationships, as a lot of the time when a relationship breaks down, what usually comes up is the communication. The lack of it. When they talk to you it feels like an attack or a criticism. We can often feel that they don’t love us anymore because they are talking to us differently.

We can often put up a barrier in our communication, because of our tone of voice. We can sound like we are too busy with something else other than that person who loves us, but we don’t mean to, we get caught up in the everyday and we forget “Oh this person loves us”.

Or when we try to talk to our partners we can often feel they no longer want to talk to us, when if we waited for them to finish what they were doing, and be patient then that person will talk to us, once they are ready too.

We can be demanding “Why aren’t you talking to me” “Why are you not responding the way I want you too”. We often complain because we expect at times for our love ones to read our minds, but they are human too, and no man or woman is really a mind reader.

I am no relationship or marriage counsellor but I am a married woman, whose parents divorced when I was reaching the end of my teen years, and it was tough seeing the break up and being in it.

Once we take the pressure off from a relationship then both parties can feel relief. I know when I have piled too much pressure on mine and my husbands, because I have had too much of an unrealistic expectation. Like on days out and he hasn’t wanted to walk on further along the river, he can’t see what I had planned, he didn’t play out my head to see “Oh she wanted to go and walk along the River Thames to have a drink by Tower Bridge” no it was all in my head, but as soon as he didn’t want to walk that far, I felt hurt that I had spent all that time planning in my mind of the day. I felt he didn’t care because I had this ideal image of the day, that I never mentioned until he didn’t want to go there.

How was he supposed to know?

I kind of expected him to know. How?

If I had said from the beginning I would like to go and have a drink near tower bridge, I had planned it since planning this day, then I am sure he would have said “Okay” but I didn’t.

This again, was down to me not communicating correctly, which once I realised that I quickly learnt from. My job in customer service, one thing it teaches is how to form good relations with customers by using certain words and effective communication, but when it comes to using these lessons at home, there is often a communication break down.

So from looking outside of my relationship and from others I have witnessed, the important parts of building a relationship is quite simple.

Understanding, communicate effectively, pressure off and compromise when required.

Many thanks for reading,

 

Carrie X

Feeling good about yourself

14 Wednesday Jan 2015

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Low self esteem isn’t something you are born with but is something that is triggered by someone or something, it can lead to other psychological problems. In terms of myself it was,

  • Comparing myself to others
  • Bullying
  • Not feeling comfortable when my body began to change as I became a teenager

It took me a while for me to accept myself, and even struggled when I got married and wouldn’t watch my wedding video or pictures of myself at my mums wedding because of the way I felt about myself. I knew I couldn’t continue to feel this way, and so I began to make changes in my life, as I didn’t want to look back in my 70’s should I reach that age, knowing that all I did is feel bad about myself. The changes had to come from me. To do that I began learning from others using tools and exercises to get in touch with my positive feelings and side of the brain. Instead of wanting to do something I started to do it, such as exercise and taking up walking long distances and running.

I got back into writing and blogging, where I did another blog about building self confidence which was called Building self confidence- Feeling like the ugly duckling. I began to educate myself about food, as I needed to change the way I saw food and my relationship with it. I had to take myself out of my comfort zone, and do things that I have always thought “I would love to do that one day” to “I am going to do that”. I remember one May in 2006 watching the London Marathon and thinking instead of saying I will do this one day I am going to do it, and I applied for the 2007 London Marathon, however didn’t manage to get a place, but I have been trying ever since. I had to stop running for a while when I became pregnant, however I have not stopped wanting to do this and I hope to finally get to do the Virgin London Marathon in the next couple of years.

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I have since done other events, and still do them even after having my son and completed a Personal Best last in July 2015, when I did the British London 10K which I also did the year after, and completed another Personal Best. In the same year of completing the London 10K the second time, I then in September of 2016, took on the Royal Parks Half Marathon.

Exercise has become my therapy and my love for walking has grown even stronger, it is so good for the mind and clearing out your thoughts and have done walks for charity and each year, doing the London Bridges walk for Garden House Hospice.   

This year 2016 on the 10th September I completed a 25KM walk, to take on the Thames Path Challenge. 

I started off when I had a day off from work in the week because I was working at the weekend I would go for walks around London and walked one day from Wimbledon to Tower Bridge, and I used to when I worked in Kingston, walk from Kingston to Wimbledon and then Kingston to Epsom.

The walks weren’t always easy, there were hurdles sometimes in the way, diversions, or under passes which I am dubious about walking through and toilet breaks, fatigue can set in so you have to boost up your hydration and energy levels, but when I saw the finishing line, example when walking to Tower Bridge it gave me such a boost and looking back now it was like travelling through life.

Life has many paths and tunnels, and it is the paths and tunnels we choose to take that will help us to take the next stage in our lives. There will be challenges, and hurdles. However if you focus on the goal you want and take on the challenges, but continue to be determined and committed you can achieve the things you want in your life that will help you feel good about yourself and will help bring you happiness.

  • It is OK to say I want to change the way I look, but ask yourself why?
  • What is the real reason why you want to make this change?
  • Is it because of someone else or for yourself?

Asking the right questions will give you the right answers.

I knew the reason why I wanted to get fit was because I wanted to change the image I saw in the mirror by changing my lifestyle, getting in touch with my thoughts and produce the endorphin’s I needed. It did help me smile and realise what I could accomplish and what I do like about myself.

I have legs that can help me achieve goals that I never thought I could, a mind that can create ideas, hands that can help me to be creative and write and can use to exercise too, such as weight lifting. I have learned too cook new meals, met new people, I have been told I have a wonderful smile and people get a buzz from me when I am fully enjoying myself and happy

Another key thing in building yourself self confidence about yourself is learning to see why you have the family you do and what they see, and your friends’ Why you bring happiness to them?

When you feel negative that is all you see, you don’t see the positive. You will always focus on the negative “I don’t feel good about myself” so you need to change the view you are seeing. See what people see in you, take yourself out of you to see the good within you.

Watching This Morning yesterday they had The Speakmans on who specialise in Schema Conditioning Psychotherapy they were helping people who were lacking low self-esteem and they did an exercise where by they asked a couple of women who were suffering from low self-esteem to look at themselves in the mirror and tell them what (The Speakmans) they saw and thought about themselves. As these women were talking, Eva Speakman wrote down and got a stranger to read back to these ladies of what they thought about themselves.

Then they asked the ladies to think about the person who they loved and who loved them back what they would say about them and again Eva Speakman wrote this down and got them to read these comments back to themselves and then look at themselves again. Doing this exercise made them refocus their thoughts and get in touch with their positive side of the brain.

That is what you need to do is change your focus by doing these types of exercises and making lifestyle changes, writing down how you feel, looking at a time when you did feel happy about yourself or of a memory that makes you smile, expand that image and play it in your head as if it is a movie.

What was it back then that made you feel good about yourself or makes you smile? Write about this down.

Also as talked about in my first blog put all these in your dreams book or whatever you choose but in something you know you will keep and look back on, so when the negative thoughts creep back in, you can look at the positive images that you wrote about and remind yourself, you are beautiful and are special.

Creating a better image of yourself and thinking about what makes you happy, will help you to change the way you see yourself, and plan to get the life you want, and to look the way you want. You can feel good about yourself without making drastic changes, and if you want to make a change then you have the power to do so.

You just have to believe in yourself and go through what you do love at the moment about yourself and your life. Making a lifestyle change, learning to get in touch with your brain that sends you positive signals will help you to begin your journey into feeling good about yourself.

Please see ITV.com of the exercise The Speakmans did to help build self-esteem and I will be in my next blog writing about other tools, other changes and materials I have used to help feel good about myself.

I do not expect that the exercises and materials will work for everyone, however I know that they have helped me and can help others too.

Many thanks for reading,

 

Carrie Challoner