February – the month of love and kindness! So on kindness awareness week I thought I would touch on this as it is something close to my heart.
Kindness awareness week has come at the loss of a beautiful human being, Caroline Flack, who inspired people to have more awareness for mental health, along with her famous post “in a world where you can be anything, be kind”. This is an amazing quote that holds so much truth with a lesson to all.
So with this in mind we need to treat everyone kindly as we never really know what battle everyone is fighting or which path they are on. One way to join in is by doing a random act of kindness this week to let someone know you’re thinking of them. Send a hug in a box or a postal box, send a thinking of you card, or just check in with friends and family. All of these things make a huge difference and they put a smile on someone’s face.
As well as for others, kindness awareness week can also be for yourself too. Whilst we are all in this pandemic, I wanted to touch on anxiousness, anxiety and feeling overwhelmed – three things I hear so many people battling with a lot. This is happening even more so in these lockdowns, and is affecting people’s mindsets and mental health. So from a person who suffers with all three of these elements on a regular basis and have done for a long while, I am learning how to deal, control and live side by side with it. I am no expert, I am only sharing something I’ve found has helped me because if it helps just one person then that can only be a good thing right? And remember it is OK not to feel OK.
Self love is something we need now more than ever. It is so important. My job in the beauty industry focuses on the confidence of people and making people feel better about themselves and I strongly feel that people not being able to have these confidence boosters such as nails, hair and eyebrows etc are making people feel low. It is often the little things that make a huge difference. So remember to give yourself time; time to clear your mindset, time to relax, time to pamper and make you feel good because it makes you think clearer and feel better. Another process that I find helps is going back to the good old days. By this I mean a timetable, a routine, which right now is important it because it brings structure and a bit of certainty, when at the moment the future can feel very uncertain.
It also gives you a visual prompt to motivate you, making it more likely you are going to get those things done and ticked off. You can reach out to a friend and set up a buddy system so that you motivate each other and hold each other to account to make sure you stick to the timetable.
If you feel you have no tasks right now and feel a little lost because of too much free time then why not try some goal setting and work your timetable for what you are going to do to push yourself forward. You could make a vision board to help think about the things you would really like to work towards and to use this time wisely. Use it as a reminder that this storm shall pass and brighter days are ahead and you will feel much better looking back at what you achieved in this time rather than what you could have achieved.
You can have an off day and that’s OK too, let your body and mind relax, be kind in the things you say or think about yourself, don’t mentally beat yourself up. Run a bath, read a book, meditate, exercise or if you want to just shut yourself away and unplug then do that too, give yourself time. But tell yourself tomorrow I give my all, then tomorrow go for it – get your routined timetable and smash your goals set for that day because as the legend Sir Tom Captain Moore said “ my today was all right and my tomorrow will certainly be better.”
So from me to you: you’ve got this and you are moving on to great things.
