The Cheer Up List (from damn unpretty to pretty damn happy)

The Cheer Up List (from damn unpretty to pretty damn happy)

Wednesday, 5 February 2014

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So this post is a follow up to my last post Damn Unpretty (read it here). I thought I would share with you the list of things I do to cheer myself up when my self esteem or my mood goes on the down swing. Try any of these when you are having a particularly bad day and I guarantee you will feel better :)

 

Nails in Hip Hop by Rimmel London Salon Pro Plus
      

Paint my nails - Usually red, red is the colour of confidence and it seems to be my signature colour (I love that). I love painting my nails it's really therapeutic and I like looking at them when I've finished, it gives me a small sense of pride (particularly when I don't smudge them) and seeing the pop of colour on my nails makes me happy.

 

Put on lipstick - I think my lips are my best feature. Elizabeth Taylor famously said 'Pour yourself a drink, put on some lipstick and  pull yourself together.' I love that. Whilst I'm not a big drinker, I feel like I can face anything if I've got the right lipstick on. My favourite winter lipsticks are: #1 Seduction by Collection 2000, #500 Diva Red by Rimmel London & Pom Pom by Soap & Glory. I am also obsessed with Apocalips by Rimmel London in Apocaliptic (pictured).

Happy Place :)

Go for a walk - I live a five minute walk away from Bedford Park, which during the summer is absolutely beautiful. Whenever I feel myself stressed to the point of breaking I put on my iPod, listen to happy music and walk round Bedford Park until I feel better. It's so peaceful and secluded that even though I am in the middle of the park it feels like I'm the only person in the world. It's my happy place.

Listen to music and dance my face off - I defy anyone not to feel better after dancing around and getting out of breath and silly. My personal favourites to do this to are: ACDC's You Shook Me All Night Long, Journey's Don't Stop Believing,  Amii Stewart's Knock On Wood and Grace Potter's Something That I Want.

Read - There is nothing I love more than forgetting my troubles and immersing myself in a good book. I don't have a definitive favourite book because I love so many but some of my favourites are: The Girl in Times Square by Paullina Simons, Gone with the Wind by Margaret Mitchell, How to Love by Katie Cotugno, The Hunger Games Series by Suzanne Collins, Harry Potter (obviously) and The Knitting Circle by Ann Hood. I love anything by Jodi Picoult, she's a fabulous writer. I also just finished reading Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me? (And Other Concerns) by the gloriously funny, beautiful and amazing Mindy Kaling, I strongly recommend it.

  

                 

Knit - Knitting is my therapy, and I'm not alone Amanda Seyfried, Ryan Gosling, Zooey Deschannel, Julia Roberts and Tom Hardy all enjoy knitting. It's so therapeutic and calming because you have to concentrate and can't think about anything other than what you are doing. It really quiets a frantic mind and I always get something cool out of it. Win-win.

Baking - Is amazing and when done right results in untold deliciousness. It is simply not possible for anyone to feel sad whilst baking and then getting to eat chocolate fudge brownies. I'm not the world's best baker (I'm trying to get better) but I love it so much.

Have a bubble bath - Normally I prefer showers to baths, I have to really be in the mood for a bubble bath but when I am there is nothing quite so relaxing as a hot bath full of gorgeous smelling Soap & Glory Calm One Calm All bubbles (my favourite bubblebath). My flat only has a shower, so whenever I go back home to see my mum for the holidays I make sure I have as many bubble baths as I can to make up for it.

Wear super fluffy slippers - I was originally going to say wear high heels around the house just because. But I wore heels out last night and my feet have not forgiven me yet for subjecting them to shoes that torture them no matter how beautiful. So instead I'm saying slippers. Slippers are one of man's greatest inventions, closely followed by Smartie cookies, the iPhone and MAC make up. These beauties are currently adorning my feet.

Honestly it is not physically possible to be down about life when I have the plush, yellow face of Homer Simpson's face looking back at me. Plus if I wiggle my ankles it looks like he's eating my feet, there are literally hours of fun to be had in these slippers.  

 

Go swimming/for a run/to the gym - I will be the first to say that exercise SUCKS. However the feeling of accomplishment when you have finished coupled with the endorphin high does not. I personally prefer swimming because it's like a form of meditation. I just zone out and before I know it I've been swimming for over an hour and am exhausted. Before I came to uni I used to go to the gym at home twice a day. There were 2 reasons for this 1. There was an instructor there who was so beautiful and amazing I was hoping he would become the next Mr. Lauren (he didn't) and 2. I got a little bit addicted to the rush I got after, which is not the healthiest thing in the world.

SING - Singing has been scientifically proven to improve mood. On days where I am feeling ugly or sad (and I have the house to myself) I love nothing more than expressing my sorrows through the medium of song. My favourite songs to belt out are Barbra Streisand's Funny Girl, On My Own from Les Mis, Don't Rain On My Parade again by Barbra, Idina Menzel's version of Let It Go from Frozen, The Rose by Bette Midler, My Man (Barbra again), Defying Gravity from Wicked, Don't Stop Believing by Journey and anything by Queen or Meatloaf (as you can see I do this a lot). No matter how bad I sound I always feel so much better after. It's really therapeutic. I find it's best to choose a song where you have to belt out the notes, because you can let all your emotions out with the song and afterwards you feel so much better.

I have loads more - including a Pinterest session involving animals wearing hats/pyjamas, watch a film or a entire TV boxset (I strongly recommend Scrubs) in one sitting, facemasks and surfing youtube but I think I might be starting to bore you now. Hopefully this list helps you go from this...

to this...



Until next time lovelies check me out on twitter, facebook, Bloglovin, instagram & pinterest :)

Love love love xxx

Damn Unpretty

Damn Unpretty

Saturday, 1 February 2014

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I was watching the feat of televisual gloriousness that is The Mindy Project a couple of weeks ago and there was a line in it that I have been turning over in my mind ever since... this was "You're a woman and that's good, you should look like a woman." spoken by the delectable Danny Castellano, this as you can imagine made me go all gooey inside but it also made me think.

I, like every woman in the world, have massively struggled with my self esteem and my body image. My struggles go back to when I was 8 which is a shockingly young age now that I think about it. I have spent more than half my life feeling inadequate, fat and ugly. And frankly I am SICK of it.

I hate my stubby man hands and my stomach, I hate my bum, my thighs, my boobs, my feet, my love handles, my ears, my arms and I am not overly fond of my hair, my cheeks or my nose. Some days I don't want to leave the house because I feel that my overall appearance is not suitable for human eyes.

                                    

In one sentence I have summed up all my insecurities and completely torn myself to shreds. As women we are our harshest critics that is a fact. No one likes criticising themselves more than a woman does. I don't want to criticise everything about myself anymore. I don't want to feel like this anymore. I want to love myself and all the flaws that I come with. But I don't.

At 22, nearly 23 I have kind have got to a place where I don't let my low self esteem and body image control me as much. Don't get me wrong the nasty voice in my head is still unbearably loud. But rewind my life 7 years and you would find a very different person. A very, very sad, lonely, self-conscious 15 year old girl filled with self-loathing who covered up the mirror in my bedroom so I didn't have to look.

Recently on the cover of US Elle (the beautiful) Mindy Kaling was pictured. In black and white, showing only a close up of her face and shoulders, the same thing happened with Lena Dunham's Vogue cover

 

    

Whilst the pictures are beautiful I find it disgusting, not Mindy and Lena's faces obvs, but the fact that normal sized, beautiful women are pictured in close up to deliberately not show off their bodies. Mindy made light of the situation on twitter however I don't think it's something that should be taken lightly. We live in an image obsessed world, and sadly a world where even the stunningly beautiful (and tiny) Jennifer Lawrence is considered fat. No wonder self esteem in women is at an all time low.

The media presents an unattainable ideal of woman and none of us can compete. We are constantly bombarded of what we SHOULD look like, how we SHOULD dress and no one is safe from it. We are expected to meet these impossibly high standards. And when we inevitably fail to conform to these images that's when we start to blame ourselves for our shortcomings and that sucks! Luckily we do have ladies like Mindy Kaling, Lena Dunham, Jennifer Lawrence, Emma Stone and Lady Gaga (to name but a few) fighting for us but I'm worried that it might not be enough.

My issues started when I was 8 and what makes me really sad is that I know that I am not alone. I have a 3 year old niece who is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen (that includes Tom Hiddleston) and I am terrified that she will grow up feeling the way I did.  What is scarier is the thought that I may not be able to stop it.

What do you guys think? Do you agree? Or am I being overly sensitive?

Until next time peeps,

Love love love xxxx

(P.S. I sincerely apologise for my use of the word 'peeps' it won’t happen again plus feel free to follow me on twitter, facebook, BlogLovin, instagram & pinterest)