5 Things I learned In 2015

It’s that time of year yet again where an entire year has passed and it’s time to reflect on all the good, bad and ugly that has happened in the past (almost 365 days)

This year I can say that a lot has felt good but a lot has also felt wrong, or for a better choice of word I should say that a lot has felt unfamiliar.

But despite how unfamiliar or uncomfortable things have felt I pushed through because I knew there was a bigger picture on the other side of it all.

So now that I’m on the other side... well at least I think I am, here are my key takeaways that 2015 has taught me...

1.         Courage

This year I did the bravest thing I think I have done to date, after struggling with anxiety coming to terms with where it was coming from, I woke up one morning and decided that it was time for a change. So I booked a one way flight to my favourite city and started over.

I left my family, my friends a job that I adored and every comfort that I had ever know. I stepped so far outside of my comfort zone that it threw me to the point where I didn’t recognise myself, but despite how hard I found it and at time still find it, I am so happy and proud that I found the courage to move on from what no longer served me or helped me to grow in the way I needed.

2.            Family and Friends

Moving someplace new to start over alone was really tough in the beginning. It wasn’t until a few weeks in that I realised that I was physically Completely alone.

Don’t get me wrong I’m an Aquarius so I’m pretty fine in my own company, but too much of one thing is never good for anybody.

Being here alone and starting over has taught me to value the relationships I have at home with family and friend and also the new relationship I have built since being here. Because despite living a plane ride apart, we still love and support each other just the same. They are still the people I call to share my good news with and they are still the people who help keep me together when I am down.

3.            Letting go of clutter

Literally and metaphorically!

I seriously was a few hand bags away from becoming an official bag lady!

For years I’ve had this idea that I would save all of my absolutely fabulous dresses, bags and shoes for my unborn daughter who would of course be the exact same size as me and would undoubtedly have the same taste.

At some point I had to get real and realise that I was holding on to a bunch of stuff that I had no use for especially, with no kids even in the pipeline!

As I started getting rid of a lot of this clutter, I realised that I needed to do the same with a lot of the mental and emotional baggage that I had been holding on to. There was no sense in keeping what has passed and no longer served me because it was simply taking up space for new possibilities.

4.            Self appreciation

This is something that I am still learning how to do. It sounds pretty simple right? Well when you live in a  world that encourages people to care about the lives of other people more than your own and to constantly try and Keep up with the Kardashians never mind the Jones, you forget how important it is to simply keep up and balanced with yourself.

Learning to say no to people and learning to say yes to yourself as well as to trust your instincts is one of the most important things that you can ever do for yourself, but it’s also one of the hardest.

Saying no to others doesn’t make you selfish and doesn’t mean that you don’t care, it just means that you understand the importance of treating yourself with the love, respect and kindness that we so readily give to others. Afterall, if we can’t do these things for ourselves who are we to expect it from anyone else.

5.            Sacrifice

In comparison to the lives of others, I’ve never really had to sacrifice much, I’ve always have a great family, friends, a roof over my head, food on the table, more clothes and shoes than one person can have and so far have travelled to over 20 countries.

Quitting a job I loved and that allowed me to have multiple holidays a year, not having my family and friends living around the corner from me and having to find the willpower to walk past ZARA on a daily basis and fight the temptation to go inside and buy myself something pretty, are all luxuries that I have had to sacrifice for the past 6 months. Small sacrifices in the grand scheme of things, but big huge sacrifices to a girl who hasn’t had to sacrifice much in life so far.

Image sourced from Google

Making these sacrifices has taught me to be grateful for the things I do have and to live in the moment, rather than focus on the things I don’t have.

This year has been a true year of lessons some much harder than others but all as valuable as each other.

Overall I have learned to be thankful for what I have as well as what I don’t have; to accept things and people for who and what they are; not to have too many expectations of others and to explore self-love.

I hope you were able to take something away from my 2015 takeaways?

Feel free to share what you’re best 2015 takeaways have been.

Love Sara. xxx  

Monday Motivation

Happy Monday Lovers!

So a few months ago there was this photo that was all over the internet and newspapers about this lovely and cute little old lady simply living in the moment at a film premier in the States.

Image sourced form Google.com

The world became obsessed (for a short while) with the fact that while all the other people in the photo were busy capturing the moment on the smart phones, this little old lady didn’t give a rats arse about taking photos at all because she was more than happy capturing everything she needed at that time with her eyes.

Today we have become so obsessed with taking instant pictures and sharing them with the world that we have forgotten that sometimes an image simply can't do any justice to what is happening right in front of us.

Some moments aren’t meant to be captured by a smartphone camera or even an SLR. Some moments are meant to be lived so that you can feel whatever it is that you are supposed to feel in that moment and take it with you.

Image sourced from Pinterest.com

This week instead of whipping out your phone when you see something amazing, take the time to enjoy it and observe how it make you feel.

But if you happen to bump into say… Beyoncé or your ultimate idol this week then I think it’s safe to say that you need to make sure you snap that shit as we will all want proof of that moment!

Have a great week y’all!

Love Sara. xxx

Monday Motivation

Image sourced from www.mermagblog.com

Hey there Lovebugs!

I hope you all had a fab weekend and are looking forward to the week ahead.

Question - Does your mind ever run a thousand miles an hour generating idea after idea of the things you want to do, have or be? Well mine does and because of this one of the many things that I have managed learn about myself is that I have a very overactive imagination!

Don’t get me wrong this has its advantages, as it keeps me on my toes, but sometimes I get so caught up in it all and that I accidentally exhaust myself mentally, physically and emotionally.

There is nothing wrong with being ambitious, driven, determined and all that good stuff, but it’s important to remember that ‘You can do anything, but not everything’ .

This quote regularly keeps me in check as it’s a reminded of my talents and what I am capable of, but it also encourages me to prioritise by what I want the most and what is realistic, to what I can take on at the time.  

So if you find yourself overwhelmed with amazing ideas or even by the request of others, take a moment stop and remind yourself that you are more capable of anything but that doesn’t mean that you should burn yourself out trying to achieve it all at once.

Take your time with what’s most important to you and have a great week me darlings!

Love Sara. xxx

Monday Motivation

The mind is a powerful thing.

Have you ever found yourself in a situation where you have started with one negative thought and before you knew it, you had become overwhelmed with emotions and not necessarily the good kind?

Like I said the mind id a powerful thing and if you give too much power to your thoughts especially the negative ones you can easily end up in a places that feel emotionally and mentally draining. But on the flip side of that, if you start to think more positively you will find that you will experience emotions that feel much more energising and happy which will inspire you to hold on to those feelings for as long as you can.

Staying in a positive frame of mind all day everyday is, well, at least for me... impossible. Simply because shit happens in life and you have to go through the (e)-motions to get to the other side.

But as silly of as difficult as it may sound to ‘train your mind to see the good in everything’, it’s actually one of the best things that you can do. Trust me on this one!

By doing this, eventually you’ll realise that the things that were once big issues causing you stress, anger and heartache are actually not worth the hassle.

It will help you to put things in to perspective about who and what is important and who and what’s not. Without realising it, training your mind to ‘think happy thoughts’ (yep, just like peter pan) will open your mind and your world to things you never imagined. (Ok so you won’t be able to fly your way back to Never Never Land, but I assure you there are plenty other things you’ll experience with your feet planted firmly on the ground.)

Happy Monday Lovebugs! Have a great week and remember to think happy thoughts!

Image sourced from Wunder.co.uk 

Love Sara. xx

Finding a New Path

Can you believe that my first month in Lisbon has already gone?

So how did it go? – Well to be completely honest the first 2 weeks were pretty bad as I experienced the worst homesickness I’ve ever experienced in my life. I’ve always been one to get homesick but this time it felt like it was never going end which made it even worse. Immediately I stated making plans for my return home to England and how I would just carry on with my life as it was. For a while this was comforting but then after returning home for a week for a family event and spending time talking really openly with my family and two besties about what I was feeling, I began to remember all the reasons why I made the choice to move to Lisbon and give myself a break and live life in a new place for a while.

Taking myself out of my comfort zone and starting over the way I did was such huge thing to do and I clearly underestimated the impact that it would have on me, as I had gone from having a super busy job, friends, family, and social life, to having no job, plenty of time and just me myself and I to keep myself company. But as awful as those few weeks were, I got over them (thank God) and was able to start putting things into perspective, like the fact I am living the my favourite city in the world with endless possibilities!

Now a full month in I can say that moving here for the summer (or maybe longer who knows) was definitely the right thing for me to do because although I change my mind as often as Rihanna changes her hair, being here and having time alone has given me the chance to start thinking more about what I want from this new blank chapter of life, what’s most important and how I can achieve it. And yes, it’s likely that I will change my mind a gazillion times before I get to the place that I’m supposed to be, but I’m happy to say that this is a start, and for the first time in a while, I think I may be on the path that was designed just for me.

Love Sara. xx

Epiphany of Change

Last week I had a long overdue lunch with one of my mentors, who always manages to add some sunshine to my day.

Over the past few months I have experienced complete and utter exhaustion, being overwhelmed and anxious to the point where even I at times didn’t recognise myself!

Now a few months down the line I’m nowhere near ‘cured’ or free of the above, but I’m definitely on the path to a much better place.

Earlier this year I had a car accident, which in hindsight was the straw that thankfully broke the camel’s back. Unfortunately in this life its takes a negative and frightening experience to slap you about and tell you to wake the hell up to reality and that’s exactly what that accident did for me.

For almost the past 2 years of my life I have allowed myself to become so involved in my professional life by trying to keep up with those around me and what societies idea of what a young professional female should be, that I forgot about the most important person in my life… me! Sounds silly I know; how can I forget about me when I spend every single day with me? But this is easily done when you become so consumed with the day to day tasks of work and life that sometimes you forget to stop, breathe and take the time to take care of you. Well I had been doing that for longer than I can remember and when I finally realised that this is what I’d been doing, everything began to change.

As they say change is good, but what I have had to learn is that change is also flipping hard, especially when the change is so big that you know that every relationship in your life will change as a result of the changing of the relationship you have with yourself. This has been no easy ride and changes by the day, sometimes even by the hour. But with each day I have learned to understand it all a little more and accept it a little more, but here is what I learnt and understood last week with the help of my wonderful mentor.

With change there is always a loss and this is sometimes why change can feel uncomfortable. I also learnt that throughout life we have ways of doing things that have always served us well, but sometimes these things no longer serve us and this is ok. But when these things that we do and may have done for our entire lives, or the last decade of our lives no longer serve us, it’s ok to let them go, because there is no point in holding on to something that no longer works in our favour. Sometimes this can mean letting go of something that has become a part of you, but this doesn’t mean that you a losing yourself or even compromising who you are. It just means that you are making space and opening yourself up to something new that will serve you and will allow you to evolve, grow and develop in to the person who you are destined to be and that will help you flourish in your next chapter.

This is simple and deep down this was something that I already knew, but through having this casual lunch with my bubbly and supportive mentor, the penny finally dropped. By letting go and cleansing myself of certain habits and ways that I have always had does not mean that I am losing myself. It means that I am giving myself the permission and acceptance to grown into the person I need to be for the next stage of my life and I should not, regret, mourn or feel anger or fear towards this, instead I should embrace it and let it be.

These are just some of the lessons I learned last week that I wanted to share with you… There plenty more where they came from so I’ll do my best to share them with you when I can.

Love Sara. xxx