Pushing Yourself

Somewhere in Brighton

I've learnt a lot about myself over the past couple of years, and I think one of the most beneficial things I've really learnt is that the best way to overcome something is to just throw yourself in the deep end and do it. It's something everyone always knows is the best thing to do, but more often than not we don't actually push ourselves to go ahead and do it.

So many things fill us fear and we shy away from them because we feel like we're not good enough or that other people can do it better. And yes, there will probably always be someone better than you but that doesn't mean you're incapable. I've been in a lot of anxiety-provoking situations lately and I've had no choice but to push myself and keep going. These situations haven't always turned out successfully but a lot of them have and if I'd have carried on running away from the situations that scared me I would never have achieved things that I'd told myself I couldn't do.

These situations usually arose by chance - situations that were totally out of my control. I didn't deliberately put myself in them, they just kind of happened. But over the past couple of weeks I've subconsciously been creating my own anxiety-provoking situations, situations which scared the hell out of me but I was the person who made them happen in the first place. And as much as it exhausts me and sometimes I wonder what the hell I'm doing, I'm so glad I've ended up doing it to myself because I'm now doing things I never even dreamed I'd be strong enough to do.

I have no idea what the point of this post is, but there you have my 3am ramblings.

Moving On

I've written this post about 56,474 times and each time it ends up being about 100 pages long. SO, I'm going to have to be very blunt, and use the wonderful power of bullet points to get my point across briefly.

• I just nearly deleted my blog because I don't want a beauty dedicated blog anymore.
• I decided not to incase I ever wanted to post something beauty-related.
• Then I realised I don't need to have a label attached to my blog.
• So basically, Sparks of Serenity is not longer a beauty blog (although I'm sure the odd beauty related post will crop up)
• My life has changed a lot over the past 12 months. 
• I finished treatment for my anxiety and depression. 
• I'm actually LOVING my job now - it's probably the best thing in my life.
• I've just travelled Australia. 
• And I've just quit my job (yep, the one I love) so I can go to uni to study a subject that's totally unrelated to where I want to end up. 

So yep, in brief - this is where I'm at right now. I want to carry the blog on so I can document these big changes that are about to happen. 

So please bare with me... 

I'm back!: Battle with anxiety, music blog and education.

Hello!!

I'm back after 5 months without blogging!!

The main reason I stepped away from my blog was because my anxiety had gotten pretty bad, making me pretty miserable. I had a rough few months at Sixth Form, but I have now sought help so hopefully things are on the up. I've completed my A-levels, they didn't go very well but hopefully it's enough to take me to the next stage of my life. I'm now on a gap year and seeking employment to save money to travel next year. As some of you may know, I started to branch out with this blog and wrote a few music posts every now and again. I've now decided to pursue a career in the music industry, so my aim for the next couple of months is to apply to Uni to take a music business degree. I've also started a new blog which is solely music orientated so Sparks of Serenity will go back to being a beauty blog.

So yes, that's pretty much a brief summary of where I went, and where I'm hoping to go now I'm back. If anyone's interested in my music blog then do let me know and I will send you a link. I'm also contemplating blogging about my anxiety (which seems to be mainly social anxiety) so people can gain a better insight on it, but I'm going to wait and see how my treatment goes before I go ahead with that.

Thank you so much for sticking by me whilst I've been away,
Charlotte x

Getting Arty For Anxiety

I'm sure most of you are aware of a joint collab that has been going on between bloggers for the past couple of weeks called "Getting Arty For Anxiety." This was all organised by Molly from Lyon Notes (link here) who I must say, has done a fantastic job!

"People in general tend to have this misconception that mental illnesses, whether it be anxiety, depression, schizophrenia etc. are all something to be embarrassed about, something to sweep under the bed and to try and ignore. However, you're not alone, frighteningly, 1 in 4 people will suffer from mental illness in a year. Mental illnesses, when left to manifest will strip a person of their personalities, and leave you feeling as if you're a shell of your former self. This is why it's important to raise awareness of mental health, to let people know they're not alone and always have someone to talk to. #GettingArtyForAnxiety is a way of expressing your own personalities, and to raise awareness for mental illness whether you're a sufferer yourself, or a family member."

I wanted my nail art to represent what having anxiety was like, which is what I did attempt to do. But I totally hated my design, so I ended up doing another one. I wasn't going to share the first one with you all, but I've decided that I will, seeing as I had a good reason for doing it in the first place. (Apologies for the rambling that just happened... and for all the rambling that is about to come!)

 

The first nail art design represents my experience with anxiety. This may not be at all how other sufferer's experiences have been so please don't take this as a generalised piece of information. There was a time in my life where I felt okay, and my life was filled with things I loved and that I was passionate about. This is what the yellow nail represents; yellow is a general happy colour and the dots show the things in my life. I then used yellow turning to orange showing things starting to change. I always think of orange as a colour that gives off the message "brace yourself for what's about to come"... I think because I always thought that the amber light on traffic lights meant "get ready" to either go or stop... see, there's logic in there somewhere! The orange to red transition represents panic attacks. For me personally, panic attacks have been a big part of my anxiety. Sometimes I will be able to sense if one is approaching, but a lot of the time they just come on out of no where. The red also represents humiliation, because whenever I have a panic attack in front of people, I feel so humiliated for days afterwards. The dark purple represents the way I feel, totally different to the "real me" and then lastly, the black shows the effect it can have on a person having to deal with anxiety. For myself and quite a few other people who I've spoken to with anxiety, it leaves you feeling very depressed and your head isn't in a good place at all. All the aspects of your life just merge in to one (hence the pink blob... It was one neat dot but I managed to smudge it and didn't notice until I uploaded the pictures!) and you're left feeling very lost. 

My second nail design was to show that although life may not go the way we want it to and we may get put in situations which we really don't want to be in, we can make it work out okay. For me, the mint green colour isn't a colour I would usually wear on my nails, but by adding the peach coloured dots, I like the look a lot more. Similarly, having anxiety isn't something that I would have chosen to have, but by understanding the disorder a lot more and speaking up I don't find it such a 'horrific' thing to have. If you're struggling to cope with anxiety then please remember that it is manageable, it just takes time to find out what works out right for you. Don't lose sight of the things in life that make you happy and that you're passionate about, because if you let those things go, you will come to regret it. And no matter what, please don't feel as if you are alone in this battle, because you're not and there are so many people out there who are willing to listen... you just need to be willing to speak up. 

I'm really sorry if parts of this post have got a bit serious, but I hope you can understand why! Please do go and have a look at everyone else's posts, and if you have any comments or questions then leave them below or send me a tweet @Sparks_serenity :) I hope you're all having a lovely week so far and I will speak to you very soon! Charlotte x