Words That Changed My Life (Patreon)

On average, we hear nearly 11 million words a year, so it’s a guarantee that every now again some of those words will stick, some for the worse and some for the better. But today we will focus on the latter.

The whole reason I sat down to even write this post today is because recently I heard an interview from everybody's favourite gal Jennifer Aniston, and a phrase she said stuck to me and to be quite frank, it gave me a kick up the ass to actually start doing the things I love to do, and all round be way more productive from day to day. 

Now I’m not making excuses, but as I’ve gone through in the past, touring is tiring. It seems like a lot of fun from the outside, but when you're dropped back into reality you realise what a toll it’s taken on your health, mentally and physically, so you need a break. But for me, these breaks turn into slumps, and the slumps affect me so much more negatively than what I thought they were, it’s just taken me a while to realise that. 

In the interview, Jen was talking about her fitness and work routine, ageing, her body, some super personal stuff, and she said ‘I have those days where I don’t want to do any of it, but I just do it anyway.’ Now I don’t know what it is that made this phrase just stick in my brain like a thumbtack, but it just did. I’m sure we can all agree that Jen is an extremely influential woman, anyone would dream to live her life, but the reason she has that life is because of herself. She has the drive that often abandons me, but this interview highlighted the importance of showing up for yourself. If I want a better life, I need to do that, I need to make that happen for me. 

Now to U turn back to these ‘slumps’ I mentioned. They affect my mental health tremendously. I’ll sit there going down the rabbit hole I forget exists in my mind, that always leads me to the conclusion of - I feel my life has no purpose. < This is bad. Nobody should feel that way, and I know people will say ‘but you do this and you do that blah blah blah’ but those words simply don’t compute when you’re in that dark place. When I’m at this low, this makes me sleep more, mope around more, be on my phone more, not want to leave the house anymore. This then affects my physical health which leads me to get sick, gain weight, develop body dysmorphia, which then circles round again and makes my mental health deteriorate even more. The last time I went into this state, that is when I heard that little interview with Jen, and it’s like a switch went off in my brain, and I said to myself, I have to do something about this.

That’s when I started helping myself, and this is what I did. 

• I booked in to get my immuno boost drip. Besides helping my body fight germs, it always brings a bit of colour to my skin which has the added effect of giving me a lil confidence boost! 

• I started actually setting my alarm again and forcing myself to get out of bed rather than sleeping in. One of my downfalls was that they’re just never seemed to be enough hours in the day for me to get my tasks done, which led me to not do any of them, which led me to just feel constantly overwhelmed. Who knew people woke up before 11am? 

• I booked a session with a personal trainer. As most of us do, I also struggle with body image, and if I have someone to hold me accountable, call me out on my s**t, a time and place to be somewhere, it means I actually stick to it. (I am weak at the knees at the thought of an organised schedule.)

• I started doing yoga whether it was for 5 minutes or 5 hours. I feel SO much better when I practise yoga, it benefits both your physical and mental health, and I had let my practice slide. So to get back into it, I took the approach of ‘listen to your body’ - rather than forcing myself to do a whole yoga class every single day, I simply turn up to my mat, start moving, start stretching, and if I feel like doing a class, I’ll do a class. If I just want to stretch out for a while, then I’ll do just that. 

• I started going for a walk every day. Whether this was around the park or to the shops, I knew that I needed to leave the house every day, and walking is a great way to do that!

• I listed things I need to do. I focused on this list which consisted of both the basics of, ‘do laundry’ and job necessary tasks such as ‘edit photos’ and ‘write lyrics’. (I’ve been struggling with a bit of writer's block so the simple task of just starting to write was hard but a necessary task to get the creative juices flowing.)

• I listed things I wanted to do. This list I looked at with less impending doom and pressure. Once I got on top of my ‘need to do’ list I then started implementing these tasks, which included sorting all the tech for my newly launched Twitch channel! 

Now everyone has different priorities, these are the things that have kicked me back into a healthy schedule that is now affecting my life for the better, so I am not in any way saying that if you do these things it’ll magically heal everything. Everyone has their own stuff to burden. But I cannot express enough how important your mental health is, and I realise I can’t keep being an advocate for it if I’m not looking after my own. 

Hearing those words was a turning point for me, and it also highlighted how important our words are. (Keep that in mind when you have something to say.) I guess what I’m trying to say is; 

Thank you Jennifer Aniston.