Category: Self-Discovery

Posted in relationships, Self-Discovery

If Life is So Short

Posted on by Miss Blabbaholic

I woke up at 4:30 am on one of these rare and precious days when I actually get to have a lie-in because I can’t stop thinking about how life is too damned short and unpredictable.

A colleague of mine died suddenly this week and I’ve yet to process how much this has really shaken me. I wouldn’t presume to call him a friend, but spending a considerable amount of time with someone in intense and highly-pressurised moments creates some kind of weird and indelible bond.

When someone dies you think about the last conversation you had with them. At the time I was quite upset about something and he helped me to see the humour in the situation, and then we talked shop for a little while as we both finished our tea breaks.

This was two weeks ago. I’ve passed him in the hospital corridors in the days in between and I’m sure I took the time to say hello.

God, I hope I took the time to say hello.

Whenever something like this happens it always makes you think about living your life and doing things that really matter. It gives you perspective; it certainly made me think about the hundred little things I worry about and obsess over that probably won’t matter much to me five years down the line.

It makes you think about the connections you make and how easy it is to take for granted that you’ll always find the time to reconnect with old friends. You put off saying things that matter because you think you can always leave it for tomorrow but what if tomorrow never comes?

And finally, it makes you think about your life choices. We spend our whole lives studying and working in order to live the good life, and I think sometimes we lose sight of why we work so hard in the first place. In our quest for the so-called good life, we’ve stopped living altogether.

Life should never become about the daily grind.

Find the little pleasures in between life’s big moments. They matter more than you think.

Make each moment count.

Call your friends. Call your family. Make sure you tell them every day how much they mean to you.

As cliche as it sounds, and while I’m not telling anyone to go bungee jumping or skydiving (in fact I have an aversion to both those things), I guess what I AM saying is, live your life in your own terms and live it in a way that you will have as little regrets as possible.

I love you, awesome people. Thanks for being a part of my life even if only in such an infinitesimal way.

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Posted in dating, relationships, Self-Discovery

Putting Yourself Out There

Posted on by Miss Blabbaholic

Its all just lip service until you practice what you preach.

I’m a big believer in putting yourself out there, in letting the universe know what you want and in not being afraid to go for something if you really want it. I’ve always said that you shouldn’t let the fear of failing ever stop you from trying. Grab a spoon in the big banquet of life, and all that jazz.

The truth is, until recently, I’ve done nothing but talk absolute bollocks.

Sure, in every other aspect of my life I’m quite the go-getter. I’m known for having a one-track mind. When it comes to achieving something, I’ve been known to run myself ragged, exhausting all options and myself, until the goal is won.

When it comes to my love life, though, I am the biggest coward in the world. I have never been able to look any guy in the eye and just flat out let him know I’m interested. Ever.

I was in love with someone close to me for almost a decade and I was only able to bare my feelings in the most uncomfortable and awkward Facebook message I have ever had to send in my life, and I did it five years after I got over him. I honestly think I was only able to do that because by then I was safely in London, two oceans and a continent away.

Part of that is the culture I grew up with. Both the Filipino and the Chinese culture frown upon their women being ever so forward. A part of me will always balk at the thought of making the first move.

But I can’t blame my somewhat sheltered upbringing for everything.

The real root of such cowardice is my complete aversion to being emotionally vulnerable in any way or shape. I am so petrified of the risk of rejection that I fail to put myself out there time and time again.

I’ve thought about this long and hard and I’ve come to the conclusion that, in all likelihood, when you ask someone for something or when you put your heart on the line like that, there’s a huge chance that the answer will be no. Like maybe 9 times out of 10.

But if you continue to bottle everything up, to shy away from anything because you don’t want to risk being hurt, you miss out on that glorious ONE TIME when the answer could be yes.

Or you know, at this point, I’d settle for a maybe.

Today I took my chance. I put on my full battle armour (pretty curls and cat’s eyes), gathered my courage and just asked.

The answer was not what I was hoping for, but it was an answer nonetheless. It placed the situation in the most realistic and undeniable light, and it made me see my way forward, which is really as simple as showing him what he’s missing. Lol

Anyway, the point is today I was emotionally brave for the first time ever in my life…and quite frankly I feel nauseous. Like seriously nauseous. Being brave is not all its cracked up to be.

But I also feel great and empowered and I feel like walking down the street singing R.E.S.P.E.C.T. at the top of my lungs. Because I respect myself so much more for having the guts to look him in the eye and tell him (more or less) that I’m interested.

Ball is in your court, bud.

Posted in family, relationships, Self-Discovery

Heart In A Box

Posted on by Miss Blabbaholic

There’s an episode of Grey’s Anatomy where Cristina Yang is trying to compile a wish list of surgical procedures she would like to learn from her mentor. She drew inspiration from a beating heart that’s been preserved in a glass box through some breakthrough in the field of heart transplantation.

If the procedure she thought of did not even come close to giving her the same sense of wonder that that heart in a box did, then its not worth adding to the list.

My version of this is not as happy and wondrous, I’m afraid. I’ve been under some degree of stress lately. I can’t blame it on anything major, just a buildup of life’s minor irritations that have somehow become unbearable: bills, the return of London’s infamous grey skies, Jon Snow being annoying on Game of Thrones, office politics, people being absolute dicks, just to name a few.

Then I remember that this month my Dad is about to go in for testing to check whether he’s got prostate cancer.

That’s my heart in a box.

You see, we may think we’re having a bad day or even a bad week, and we expend so much emotion on things that we’re not even going to remember five years down the line. I personally dwell far too much and for far too long on things that are so beneath me, its not even funny.

I think about things way too much that the result is that I make more of it than I should, and the molehill becomes a mountain I can’t get beyond. But really, annoying colleagues, unmet deadlines, walking in the rain, a bad date, those are a walk in the park compared to the fear of losing probably the only man I’ve ever loved.

An argument at work is not a bad day. A bad day is getting a biopsy result that will change my life forever. That is the measure. Anything beneath that is not worth my time and attention.

Save all that emotion for the things that are worth emotionally investing in. Trust me, you’ll probably need it.

Posted in bloggers, Careers, Self-Discovery

The Illusion of Power

Posted on by Miss Blabbaholic

I’ve heard it said that power rests best in the hands of people who never sought to gain it in the first place.

When you move up to a position where you have authority over people, its easy to forget that with that authority and power comes the responsibility to always look out for the well-being of those under your care.

Its very easy to succumb to the mentality that people are there to follow your every order, to bow to your whims, and to be subordinate in every way short of fetching you tea and biscuits.

When you feed this mentality, it gives you a false sense of pride – and we all know this cometh before the fall.

Part of that is because pride gets in the way of you being able to listen to people around you. Pride also makes it difficult for you to accept feedback, and to accept the fact that you don’t know everything and you’re not always right.

The knee-jerk reaction to being questioned is to become defensive. But actually, having your decisions questioned should not feel like an attack. I’ve actually come to look at it as like a safety net, because I know someone is there to check my actions and to make sure I don’t make the mistake of implementing things that could go horribly wrong.

I guess its hard finding that balance between asserting your authority to make sure people know to respect you, and not overly elevating yourself above the people whose respect you seek.

Respect comes from people knowing you’re there for them, that you’ll be fair and compromise when the situation calls for it but that you also have the balls to make the tough decisions when the going gets rough.

I think having the respect of your team is where your true source of power lies, and its something so precious and something that takes ages to cultivate that you never want to do anything to jeopardise that.

I suppose I just need to remind myself that being in power doesn’t give anyone license to be an autocratic bitch. The idea that authority gives you power which then means you can do whatever you want is an illusion that you should nip in the bud lest it comes back to haunt you.

A little humility goes a long way.

Stay grounded. Stay humble.

Posted in bloggers, Nursing, Self-Discovery, Stress Relief

All In A Day’s Work

Posted on by Miss Blabbaholic

The best way to deal with challenging situations is to reflect on them, learn from them, and – in my case – to write about them. So I’m sharing some of the things I’ve learned these past few weeks when work has been difficult, in the hopes that other people out there who – like me – are new to management will know they’re not alone in their experiences.

You cannot please everyone. For every praise you receive, there’s a person waiting in the wings who’s just dying to tell you the many many ways in which you’re screwing things up. I guess the key thing is to learn to compromise, to find the solution that is best for everyone, and to make a decision that you will be able to live with. You are not in the position to care about being liked, the best you can hope for is to be respected.

Friendships at work are a thing of the past. This is something I find incredibly sad, but its the harsh reality that most managers face. They say its lonely at the top, and though I’m not at that level I can only imagine how true that is. Not everyone will be able to accept the fact that you are now their line manager as well as their friend.

Most friendships whose bonds are weak and superficial will not be able to survive professional disagreements, or differences in opinion when it comes to work-related matters.The upshot is that the friendships you do keep, the people who will love and support you even when you give them a notice of improvement for consistently coming to work late, those are the friendships that are worth keeping. Everyone else is not worth losing sleep over.

There will always be people who will try to undermine your position. Whether its colleagues who have mentored you in the past, or people who think you’re too junior or too inexperienced for your role, or simply people who think they can do your job better than you. Standing up to these professional gaslighters is something you’ll have to deal with on a day-to-day basis, and it doesn’t get easier with time.

You will need to dig deep and to really have faith in yourself and your abilities. I’m constantly surrounded by people who back me up when I need it, and seeing the amount of trust they place in me is something that still humbles me every day. But none of that matters if I can’t find the strength to put my foot down, to say ‘no’ when its needed, and to have courage in my convictions. I won’t be able to convince other people that I know what I’m doing until I believe I know what I’m doing.

Human beings are amazingly resilient. We are capable of so much more than we give ourselves credit for. I never anticipated being able to talk to people who intimidate the shit out of me, or to be able to have these difficult conversations with people at a very senior level. I didn’t even believe I’d be able to control my emotions long enough to survive the shifts from hell, as I’ve started to call them in my mind.

But I did. And I have so much more respect for managers everywhere, and for myself. I think for me, its enough to know that I did the best I could, even if I very nearly had a mental breakdown at the end of it. That’s normal; managers who tell you they don’t experience these occasional bouts of hopelessness are lying. We all go through it.

Its okay to break down in pieces when you’ve had a bad day, but what defines you is how you take those pieces and glue them back together so that you come back to work the next day feeling motivated to do better, to be stronger, and to hopefully do some good in the world in the process. So it doesn’t matter if you drowned a whole bottle of prosecco, or stuffed your face with greasy Chinese food because stress eating is the solution to everything.

Do whatever it takes to make you feel human again, and remember, its just one stressful day at work out of many. Just like every bad thing we’ve ever experienced in our lives, it too shall pass.

Posted in bloggers, fitness, Health and Well-Being, Lifestyle, Self-Discovery, Travel

Life Lessons From Hiking

Posted on by Miss Blabbaholic

After a hectic four-day trip to Vegas, my aunt took my sister and I to a 15 kilometre hike around Silver Falls State Park in Oregon.

I’ve always considered myself a city girl, and I will probably never live more than commutable distance away from a major city, like London. If I have it my way I will be renting my flat in Soho (for the same price!) until I die.

But for some reason I’ve developed a strange fascination for hiking around nature this year. I’ve discovered how much I love to just walk with no particular destination in mind, to soak in the views around me and allow it to soothe my often anxious and high-strung city soul.

You learn a lot when you’re somewhere with no mobile phone coverage or Wifi, especially when you’re running low on battery and can’t even listen to music on your Spotify. In that instant, its just you and nature and whoever happens to be hiking with you (my family, in this case).

I’d like to share some of those lessons in the hopes that, like me, you find the time to get away from it all for a while and have the opportunity to enjoy the pleasures (and lessons!) of hiking.

Be prepared.

I’m very vain, and my instagram is filled to the brim with photos of me in various outfits. But there’s no room for vanity around nature. You have to be prepared for rain, sunshine, mud, water and whatever elements Mother Nature decides to throw your way.

For me, this really is a metaphor for life, and its something that I should really be sorting out now that I’m in my 30s. No one wants to think too hard about things like insurance and savings when life’s a party, but you can sure as hell guarantee they’ll be thinking about it when the challenges start pouring in like rain.

Disconnect and Unplug.

I’ve already blogged once about my increasing disillusion with social media, and yet I find myself still posting on Facebook and Instagram time after time after time. Its like I’ve been conditioned to think that anything I do in life is not worthwhile unless its validated by my “followers” in the form of likes.

Be honest. How often do you look around when you’re on holiday to find that you and your friends are all on your phones, racing to be the first to upload photos or post an Instagram story? Or wasting time trying to get the perfect shot that you fail to soak in the beautiful piece of the world that you’re fortunate enough to find yourself in?

Yesterday I had a phone that was dying and was without a Power-bank for a change. I also didn’t have mobile data or Wifi coverage. And I think it was the best thing that’s ever happened to me on this trip. To just be able to enjoy the experience without feeling the need to update the rest of the world about what I was doing, to really BE in the moment, was a gift.

I think for the rest of this trip I will try to be on airplane mode more often.

Put one foot in front of the other

I think of myself as a reasonably fit individual but I have to say I had reservations about the 15km hike, especially when I realised that a) there won’t be a toilet for miles and b) the trail will naturally have uphill, downhill and (did I mention?) uphill portions.

It requires stamina and good breath control, sure. But one should never underestimate the power of the mind. If you psych yourself out by thinking of all the ways it could go wrong, or decide that you’ll never make it before you even try, you’ll miss out on an incredible experience.

There were times during the hike that I thought a particularly challenging trail would never end, but eventually it evens out, and before I knew it I’ve made it to the finish line. It’s a lot like life, you really just need to keep moving forward, putting one foot in front of the other until you make it.

Breathe

I live in a city where life is so fast-paced that you wake up on Friday not knowing where the rest of the week had gone. I’ve built a career and most days I find that I actually love my job, but it does account for at least 30% of my overall stress and anxiety.

I attended a talk once where the speaker said that stress is really just a series of tasks that you need to do. You’re stressed because you’ve either procrastinated so much that tasks have piled up, or you’ve set unrealistic goals in the first place.

I’ll add to that and say you get stressed because you forget to sit still and just breathe. This hike was extremely taxing, but there were periods when we stopped to catch our breath, relax, enjoy the scenery and work up to getting our second wind.

Life should be like that. You should be able to press pause and look out for your physical and mental health. I think one of the things I could definitely do when I get back to London is to work less extra shifts and have more time for me. Since getting back from Australia I feel like the energiser bunny that just keeps going and going and going. I feel like I never have enough time to breathe, to just BE.

Breathe in. Breathe out. Nothing’s so important that you lose your health and yourself over it.

The journey is the destination

Finally, and I know this is such a cliche, but cliches exist for a reason. Winnie the Pooh once said:

We didn’t realise we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun.

We spend so much time worrying about where we’re going and what we’re going to do when we get there that we don’t stop to appreciate the journey.

I didn’t even realise we were nearing the end of the trail until my aunt pointed it out to me. I was having so much fun exploring the beauty of one of Oregon’s most beautiful state parks that I didn’t realise we’d walked 15 kilometres.

Whatever you do in this life, enjoy it. Make memories, make friends, try new things, push yourself. At the end of the day, where you go and when you get there won’t be as important as HOW you get there.

Posted in bloggers, dating, Lifestyle, relationships, Self-Discovery

Castles in the Sky

Posted on by Miss Blabbaholic

My old boss once told me that one of my greatest strengths is my ability to think of the most outlandish and craziest ideas and then have that idea become a reality. She says that I work like I have my head in the clouds most of the time, and I come down to earth and get on with the business of making things happen.

I suppose I’ve always been a very optimistic person. I’ve been fortunate enough to have an easy and happy childhood. Even when things seemed difficult, life always had a way of sorting things out with or without my help.

Being somewhat of a type A personality of course I wasn’t contented to watch from the sidelines. I’d like to think a took an active role and made some pretty savvy life choices to get to where I am. I’ve made some mistakes along the way but I’ve managed to bounce back from them with my psyche relatively intact.

So yes,  I am a person who’s full of hope. Hope springs eternal; I shit dreams and unicorn and all that. It will be the last thing that leaves my body when I’m dying, and even then I’d probably be clinging to the hope that I can find a way to defeat death somehow.

Hope is a double-edged sword though. On the one hand, it is what propels me to keep going and to keep pursuing the things that I aspire to. But on the other hand, I often wonder how much hope affects my ability to perceive and interpret the reality of what’s actually happening around me.

I sometimes find myself in situations where I do really stupid things in the hopes that things will go my way, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. I once built an epic romance out of what was essentially a platonic relationship, based on nothing but hopes and dreams alone.

I’ve travelled tens and thousands of kilometres on the hopes of finding something amazing, based on something as flimsy as a month’s worth of semi-intense connections (and you know, that connection might have just been due to Christmas being in the air and the lights around Central London making things more romantic than they normally were).

I’ve had my heart if not broken, certainly bruised, because I refuse to give up hope without definitive proof, and that definitive proof usually comes in the form of almost soul-crushing disappointment.

After my recent brush with hope and its consequences, it would be tempting to resolve to be a hard-eyed realist from now moving forward. It would certainly save me a lot of tears (and a good chunk of my life savings) if I did.

But the thing is, I wouldn’t know who I am if I wasn’t the kind of person who would go to the other side of the world for the chance of exploring the potential for something more with someone who made my heart beat for the first time in a long time.

And yeah, maybe that blew up in my face a little bit, but I came back to London ready to try again, to give it another go.

And when I get to a point where I’m ready to throw in the towel because I feel like I may never find the kind of love I’ve always dreamed of having, I somehow find an inner reserve of hope that something amazing could still happen.

I suppose what I’ve realised, after having given it some thought since I came back from my holidays, is that I would rather hope and love a little too much, than to ever become a cynic who can’t see the possibilities of the extraordinary in the ordinariness of life.

I’ll keep building my castles in the sky. Who knows? Someday my prince could even come along and join me there. Or better yet, a prince will come along who will share a mortgage with me and join forces in the battle against exorbitant London house prices. Lol

Happy Sunday, one and all.

Posted in Lifestyle, Self-Discovery, Travel

The Gift of Disney

Posted on by Miss Blabbaholic

For my birthday this year, my sister bought me an all-expense paid trip to Disneyland Paris.

Anyone who knows me would know that this is the most perfect gift anyone could have given me. I don’t care if this is my 31st birthday. In my opinion, you stop needing Disney when you are on your deathbed. I cannot conceive of any age where I won’t feel excited at the sight of Sleeping Beauty’s castle or when I won’t get a giddy feeling when I hear the opening notes of A Whole New World.

I digress. 

There is something to be said about a company who’s entire ethos is built on the power of dreams, on the power of believing that something magical is waiting to happen just around the corner.

And I know in this cynical world, where more often than not it is violence and not pixie dust that is commonplace, that may seem really trite and corny. I had a colleague who incredulously asked ‘Why??” when I said I was spending my birthday in Disneyland. He asked me whether I wouldn’t rather go to Italy to soak up some culture instead.

(Yeah…no. I’ve been to Italy so many times and I’m all cultured out thank you very much. I just want to see Mickey, Minnie and the entire gang of Disney Princesses).

Walt Disney once said that the problem with the world is that too many people grow up. I agree with that statement but only up to a certain point. Because as accurate as that may have been in the 50s or 60s, in these turbulent times you HAVE to grow up fast if you want to make it. If you want to survive.

I don’t think people growing up is the problem so much as it is people equating growing up with letting go of their dreams. Too many people stop seeing the world with wonder. Too many people go through life just waiting to be disappointed rather than thinking of it as one grand adventure.

And can you really blame them?

These are hard times. And it sometimes feels like its going to get worse before it gets better. President Trump. Brexit. Wars. Never-ending conflict in the Middle East. Harvey Weinstein. I’ve stopped keeping up with current events because it feels like there’s always suffering somewhere in the world. Its really hard to keep believing in the wishes our hearts make in the face of such troubles.

On a more personal front, the week before we went to Disney was one of the more challenging weeks of my life.  I don’t do change very well and that week felt like a week of endings: I was saying goodbye to something that had been a major part of my life for the better part of the decade in order to do something different. I said goodbye to a friend who’d been like a rock for me these past couple of years because she’s moving back to Australia.

I wasn’t feeling very Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah.

I was also feeling all kinds of depressed and yes, afraid, about the fact that I am now officially in my 30s and I don’t feel like I have anything to show for it. The fear of ageing hits you at the oddest of times but all the more so on birthdays I think.  Birthdays always make me feel the weight of all of society’s expectations more than any other time of the year. I always feel like my life never quite measures up to the standards of how a 30-year-old’s life should be.

WHAT A LOAD OF RUBBISH.

Like I said, I really needed this Disney trip. It made me realise that as scary as the world is becoming, I shouldn’t let it affect me so much because at the end of the day, there’s not much I can do about it. What will be will be.

I should also stop thinking about living my life according to other people’s standards. I say this all the time, but every time my birthday comes around (or when someone has a kid, or gets married, or achieves some other milestone that I’m nowhere near achieving), I always forget this  one simple truth: we will all go through life our own way, and the only person who gets to decide how we should our lives is US.

What I should be more afraid of is the concept of fear itself. I admit, I sometimes have anxiety problems. I worry too much about consequences that sometimes I don’t even bother trying. I let my fears get in the way of me experiencing new things. I can’t count the number of opportunities I’ve let slip simply because I was too afraid to try, or to say how I feel.

So whilst I was queuing up to ride the Hyper Space Mountain on Frontier Land, I suddenly decided that this year would be the Year of No Fear. I would make a point of going after things that scare me. If it makes me feel anxious, if it gets me out of my comfort zone, then its probably worth doing, if only for the life experience.

I will try not to be afraid of going after something I want, even if I crash and burn in the process. What’s the worse that could happen? Rejection? Heartbreak? Humiliation? I can survive all those things. What I won’t survive is regret, or looking back years from now and thinking about what could have been.

I don’t think my sister realised the impact of the birthday present she’d given me this year. It’s given me back a portion of the belief and wonder that I had as a child, and has made me resolve to go through life thinking that something amazing is going to happen every day. Its infinitely better than going through life being afraid all the time. It’s the year of no fear, and when we get over our fears I think that’s when we really start to live.

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All this introspection aside though, I just really REALLY enjoyed going to Disneyland. I wouldn’t want you to think I spent the entire weekend ruminating on the meaning of life.

 

EYE. ROLL.

 

I spent the weekend fighting with children for a spot to see Cinderella, riding rollercoasters and magic carpets and singing It’s A Small World After All. I saw Disney Princesses, and my heart went all a flutter when all those Prince Charming’s made an appearance.

There was lights, music, fireworks and Mickey Mouse on parade.

It was epic, fabulous and all kinds of awesome. It was the perfect way to start the Year of No Fear.

Happy 31st to me. Its going to be a great year, I can feel it. 

 

Posted in Books, relationships, Reviews, Self-Discovery

Book Review: Three Things About Elsie

Posted on by Miss Blabbaholic

Three things you need to know about this book:

  1. Its about growing old
  2. Its not the most exciting book in the world but hey, growing old rarely is
  3. Elsie really isn’t the point of the book, despite the title.

This book tells the story of Florence, and her day-to-day life in a care home. Now you might not think of a care home as the most scintillating of settings and you would be absolutely right. ITS NOT. This is not the kind of book you pick up if you want a fast-paced plot. Its more like a Sunday afternoon, relaxing-by-the-beach kind of read.

More things you need to know about this book:

The plot twist is incredibly obvious.

I mean, if you work in the medical profession I think you’ll be able to see it straight away. Or it could just be because I’ve read a similar plot line in other books that right from the start it was glaringly obvious to me who Elsie was and what she meant to the main character. I don’t know whether the twist was intended to be a surprise, in which case the author could have done a better job of keeping us guessing, or whether the truth about Elsie was almost secondary to everything else.

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Personally though, figuring out the twist didn’t take away from my enjoyment of the novel especially since there was still a mystery to be solved. I liked how nothing is really as it seems in this book. Florence is an unreliable narrator because she’s biased and because I think age and hindsight tends to colour our memory of an event. I think time changes our interpretation of things that have happened in our lives, either for better or for worse. 

You also have to pay close attention to every character in this book because trust me, they’re all significant. I was really amazed at how connected everyone was, I mean, how small a town are we talking about here? I’m almost tempted to think that the entire plot was too convenient and too contrived but I am a sucker for things like these. I like knowing that all our actions create ripples that unknowingly changes the course of someone else’s life. 

 

This book is relatable to anyone who’s afraid of growing old. Don’t lie. That’s everyone.

The only thing we really know for certain is that we’ll all get older. Some of us will get there before others, but make no mistake about it: we are on a one-way track to old age and despite whatever magic serum or fad of the month says, there is no stopping the inevitable. 

It seems almost eerily appropriate that I’m reading this book a couple of weeks before my 31st birthday. Thinking about the fact that I have probably reached the midpoint of my lifespan has been giving me a couple of sleepless nights, I’m not going to lie. I can’t put into words exactly why growing old terrifies me. I just know that it does.

When we were younger we couldn’t wait to become adults, probably so that we won’t have anyone constantly telling us what to do. But now that we’re here, all we want is to go back to that place where our greatest worry was whether our parents will allow us to go to a party at our friend’s house over the weekend.

I think what I miss most about being in my teens or even in my twenties is that feeling of having my life before me, of having something to look forward to. I know I’m not exactly doddering, but its different in your 30s because you’re kind of committed to the consequences of your life decisions. For example, unless I make a drastic move in the next five years, I’ll always be sort of working in a field related to medicine or surgery.

What I learned from this book though is that its not so much the ageing process that matters (because there’s really nothing we can do about that) as much as our attitude towards ageing. I think we all need to be reminded once in a while that you can still experience new things AT ANY AGE, its up to you to find and maximise those opportunities. I think you should hold on to the kid in you who will always see the wonder in the world around you.

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Be kinder to those who have already travelled the path of life.

I’ve had to explain how an iPhone works to my mum once, and I think my tone bordered on condescending half the time I was doing it. We always think we know better than those who are older than us because we have technology and all the modern-day comforts on our side. But what I realised whilst reading this book is that there is no discounting the wisdom borne of age and experience. There are just some things you cannot google. 

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There was a point in this book where Florence felt like speaking up was pointless because people tend to stop listening to you when you’re older. They also tend to stop seeing you as a person. I thought that was really sad, and not something that I want my own parents and grandparents to feel.

Can I just say though, at the risk of sounding ignorant, that I really don’t understand the concept of putting people in care homes? I recognise that this might be a cultural thing, but this is the one thing that my Filipino upbringing just cannot acclimatise to. I grew up with the understanding that when my parents grow old, it would then be my turn to take care of them.

I don’t think I would ever dream of putting them in a care home and having someone else see to their needs. Again, this is not meant to offend anyone. I do realise its very difficult to do this in London and that there are very valid reasons for putting relatives in care homes. I know sometimes its better for them in terms of the quality of care and amount of attention they receive. All I’m saying is that I personally object to the concept.

All in all, whilst this is not going into my personal favourites (and I’m kinda regretting buying a hardback edition of it), that’s a testament to my taste rather than the quality of the work because this book was actually quite good. Maybe buy it on Kindle or something because its cheaper. Lol

Overall rating: 3.5 stars

Posted in bloggers, fitness, Health and Well-Being, Lifestyle, Self-Discovery

Confessions of a Body Shaming Victim

Posted on by Miss Blabbaholic

Last week, in the middle of a stressful theatre list where I was worried about having sets and instruments for the surgical procedures we were about to do, one of my male colleagues told me that he thought I was looking “a little chubby“.

Now normally, I would be able to brush off a comment like that. But last week I was especially vulnerable because I had spent the entire week before that binge-eating as a result of the combined effects of hormones and the natural stress of having made some big career changes.

I won’t deny that my self-esteem has always been inversely proportional to my body weight. I come from a country where a UK size 4 is considered the norm and a UK size 12 is almost bordering on fat (if not outright obese). Growing up, I’ve always accepted that this is the standard of beauty against which I will be measured and I am painfully aware that in that regard I have always fallen hopelessly short.

Anyway, this one thoughtless but probably  innocent comment sent me on a downward spiral throughout the day, to the point where I couldn’t even look at food without feeling sick. That day, I saw food as the enemy rather than something that will fuel and nourish me.

My sister and I finished late that day and she asked me whether I wanted to order takeaway rather than go through the hassle of having to cook dinner. I had to tell her that I can’t even think about what to eat for dinner until I’ve stepped on a weighing scale and confirmed whether I have indeed gained weight or not.

I know, I know. Berate me all you want about how stupid and illogical this was, you’re not telling me anything I haven’t already told myself. Rationally, I know that beauty is skin deep, and there’s more to me than just my physical attributes, everyone is lovely in their own way yada yada yada. 

Rationally, I know that it is INCREDIBLY UNREALISTIC AND DELUSIONAL to think that I will ever be, say, a Victoria’s Secret model. To start with, I just don’t think I have the genes for it. But how do you deal with that irrational part of you that just wants to fit in? How do you deal with that part of you who just wants, FOR ONCE, to not worry every time you want to eat a brownie?

I always say to myself that I exercise and workout for my health and because its fun, not because I’m chasing this picture in my head of what a “sexy” body should like. Someone once told me that confidence is the new sexy anyway and most of the time I have confidence in spades.

I’m not one to deprive myself of food, nor do I usually stop myself from wearing certain clothes because I think I’m too “fat” to pull it off. My favourite outfit is a cropped top for goodness sake. I think there’s nothing you can’t wear as long as you choose the right size for you. Don’t stuff yourself into a size 8 when you’ll look and feel so much better in a size 12.

I guess what I’m saying is that even though I’m a well-adjusted person most of the time and I’ve developed a healthy relationship with (and a healthy acceptance of) my body over the years, my weight will continue to be the one aspect of my life that I will always be incredibly sensitive about. There’s nothing I can do to change that.

Blame it on a childhood full of teasing and being called a member of the “Spice Pigs“, a nickname my friend’s brother called my circle of girl friends because we were all “healthy“. Blame it on a culture that glorifies being skinny. Blame it on the media. But it is what it is, I will always be sensitive about it.

Not even 24 hours after the incident with my colleague, I was at a Bruno Mars concert and, as is expected in these things, people turned up in their summer outfits. Which means to say there was a bare minimum of clothing present. We saw a girl wearing a really tight stringy top that looked three sizes too small for her. Honest-to-god, she looked like a burst sausage.

But you see, what does that say about me that I have those kind of thoughts? What does it say about me that I joke and laugh at someone else’s expense when I know how much it hurts to have the same thing done to me? It doesn’t matter that I didn’t say it to her face, the mere act of mocking her behind her back makes me the worst kind of hypocrite there is. 

And that is the true confession. We are all of us simultaneously victims and perpetrators of body-shaming.

One of my friends once tweeted that you should change the world by example and not with your opinions. Writing this blog is my way of admitting that I also have my faults, and a way of promising that I’m going to try to be better.

I just think we should all be kinder to ourselves and to others. Believe me, whatever criticisms you make of someone does not match the amount of self-criticism that that person has already given herself. No one judges us more harshly than we ourselves do. Having other people say what we’re already thinking just adds insult to a self-inflicted injury.

I hope that this story makes other people think twice the next time they feel the need to tell other people something potentially hurtful about themselves. Try a compliment the next time. No matter how a person looks I believe you will always find something good to say about them, and it will make them feel better as well as making you feel better about yourself.

You know what I want? For once, I want someone to come up to me and say “You look chubby and its awesome”. Full-figured doesn’t have to be a bad thing. People need to know that as long as they’re happy and healthy, its okay to look the way they do. 

SAY NO TO BODY SHAMING. Focus on the positive rather than the negative and do the world a bit of good.