Let's be Real

It occurred to me the other day when a friend said to me that "my life seemed pretty perfect”, and that “I was always positive" that maybe I wasn’t actually being open enough. I perhaps wasn’t sharing the downs, if any, as much as the ups ... and trust me this year there has been a lot of downs. 

As the saying goes: “If only you could see what happens behind closed doors”

This is not a blog post on how to deal with hard situations, because I don’t have the answers.  I’m still growing, healing, learning and theres no quick fix. But I just wanted to share that it's okay to not be okay. And that for the last 6 months of this year, I’ve been pretty down about a lot of things. I don’t want any pity or for people to feel sorry for me. I just want to be real and honest.. this year has honestly been such a battle for me. 

This Hub and my Instagram are my places of positivity. Food, health and wellness and being able to write about and share these with people is my passion! It’s my creative outlet and I love it. 

I also love social media! Yet, I am also very aware of the detrimental effects it has on peoples health and wellbeing. I have three younger siblings and have been exposed to how they use social media and the positives and negatives that come with that. So, I said to myself that if I was going to have a presence on social media it was going to POSITIVE. If someone was having a bad day, that maybe they would see one of my posts and would feel inspired, encouraged or just a little glimmer of happy! Rather than, a mood change for the worse and not feeling good - I realised that many accounts made me feel like this and I did a good cull. 

Anyway I guess that what I’m trying to say is that I don’t want my blog or gram to be a place of negativity. I do however want to be real and be open and honest, which is scary. But I feel like there's a point when its okay to say hey things aren’t working out or I’m having a bad day. Because guaranteed there are a lot of other people out there feeling the exact same and to see that someone is feeling the way they are - might just make their day and they wont feel so alone. 

Alone. 

On the topic of alone, I feel alone. 

I feel so so alone a lot of the time. 

I sometimes feel alone in a crowded room. I feel like I’m the only one battling with just life in general. I feel alone in my thoughts and in my passions. I feel very different from a lot of my friends and like something is wrong with me.  

If you feel like this, let me be the one to tell you that you aren’t alone! Because I feel the exact same.

A lot has happened this year for me, a lot of what I don’t share. I battled and fought some pretty dark demons away for good (I thought) at the end of last year. I worked so hard on myself, and being HAPPY. The start of this year was amazing, probably some of the best 3 months of my life. Slowly but surely though, the year started to go down hill. Physically I am in a different place to where I was, but more importantly mentally I’m not where I was. 

Physically, I’m heavier and fuller than I was at the start of the year for sure. Not by heaps, but I definitely don’t feel as healthy and strong.  Stress and me don’t really mix well when it comes to weight gain and water retention (hello puffer fish face in the morning) haha if I ever figure out the perfect recipe for stress not getting to me as much as it does - I’ll be sure to let you know. 

When I thought about it, I wasn’t that surprised that the way I talk to myself and about my body now in comparison to the start of the year is very very different. I look in the mirror and I see what I don’t like. I had worked so hard to be in a place that I could look in the mirror and be like "okay this is me! There are things I would like to work on but I have a body that works and I’m so proud to live in this skin." It’s frustrating that those pesky negative thoughts get in the way.  

Negativity is like that one bad apple in a pack of good ones. Once it starts, it starts to overtake everything. Well that's how its tended to go for me. 

Having constant negativity and thinking negatively has resulted in a few downwards spirals. Anxiety for me, being a big one this year. (I’ll do a separate post on this) 

Anyway, we choose who we follow and we choose how it makes us feel. I don’t share everything on social media, like many people don’t. I just want to say don’t be fooled that the positivity of instagram and my blog is my life all the time - I don’t share the times when I come home from uni every second day in tears becasue of stress or because of how someone made me feel. I don’t show me up at 2am in the morning because I get so anxious at night. I don’t show me just feeling so alone and having a breakdown for absolutely no reason. I don’t say that I feel like Dunedin doesn't really work for me and I feel like it should because everyone else loves it. 

I really struggled when deciding to post this blog. Not because I didn’t have a lot to say. But because its very personal, and its hard enough admitting to yourself that this is the way you are feeling, let alone writing it down for hundreds of people to see. 

I hope this has helped someone in any way! But please know that you aren't alone! 

I hope that you are having a great day and that you did something positive for yourself and your happiness and health today! 

I would love to hear from you!

Love and Health, 
Charlie