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NEW YEAR NEW BLOG December 2023:
2023 was my annus horribilus but 2024 is going to be my annus fuckingfabulous. I say this because I too am a queen and my crown has been rather crooked of late. Now it’s as straight as my sexual preferences. This year has shaped me more than any over recent years and I feel stronger, more powerful and assertive. I hold no grudges or resentment over events that I couldn't control and people that disappeared from my life. Excruciatingly painful and disappointing as it was at the time, I now know that some people are not meant to be in your life forever and I thank them for the experience because otherwise my mindset would not be as focused and strong as it is right now. Normally I don’t give a shit about New Year’s Eve. It’s just another night with no real significance. But this year I feel an immense change around me. For starters, I decided I won't be spending my traditional NYE crying in my bedroom at my annual self pity party for one. I have done this for too many years. No, this year I shall be partying in Ayia Napa, in my favourite place with my best friends, my favourite people who make me feel good and accept me as I am. I have found my tribe. Cyprus is my spiritual home and as my son acknowledged yesterday, I thrive in the sunshine. For far too long I have been a people pleaser, putting everyone’s needs and happiness before my own but I am not doing it anymore. I am over middle aged and my time on this planet is running out so I am going to make it count even more. Call me selfish, I genuinely don’t give a fuck what you think. Of course my children always come first but they’re shaping up to be incredible humans. As a mother, my role is to provide them with infinite love and security, teach them independence and give them an endless supply of self-confidence so they can make their own decisions and function in this brave world. So far, so good. But mum deserves a life of happiness too. It’s my time now. January is toning up as fast as my glutes, which I may add, are banging, thanks to a new addiction to spin classes. I have exciting new business projects and my finances are looking healthier. I am fitter, having qualified as a Bodypump instructor and I have lots of new projects to work on; The Manchester Lifestyle Awards and a new part-time role with a charity in which I am organising a spring fundraising ball for them. I have a new silent business partner on Lifestyle magazine and I am scaling it to become global, a vision I have had for many years that will hopefully provide us both with a passive income which will free me up to spend more time on the beach and on things I love. People are trusting me with their autobiographies to write too, which is another passion as I can work from anywhere on this. I don’t know if it is my age, or because of all the emotional trauma I have experienced over the years that I have finally said enough is enough. Really am at the “no fucks given” stage of my life. I have been to a lot of networking events over the past couple of months and I hear myself talking to new people. Once upon a time I would have been giving the hard sell of why people would benefit working with me and my vast experience in my field. Now I honestly don’t care if you decide to or not. I’m more than great at what I do so take me or leave me. I have recently told people I have worked with who have messed me around, withheld paying invoices ridiculously late and organised meetings with me and then kept me waiting for a disrespectful amount of time to actually fuck off. I don’t want to work with these people. I told the employers of the company that I have been hired for part time, that I will only work remotely and that my life is split between Cyprus and Liverpool. I went into the office twice and got up and left by 3pm as sitting at a desk for 8 hours is not productive to my creativity or health. If they don’t like it, I’ll leave. I have set my prices for my work and I am not haggling anymore to secure a deal. This is my rate, this is what I am worth. Don’t like it? Step aside and make room for the people that value me. I am working on my terms. I have cut ties with toxic people, people who made me question my self worth, and people who bored me. Adios motherfuckers. I was holding out for a hero to come and save me for far too long but I now realise that I am my own heroine and my happiness is mine to create. Goodbye 2023. I am going into the new year with no expectations so I shall not be disappointed. However, cliche as it may sound, the new year really is bringing in a new me. Happy new year!
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 November 2023
I woke up today feeling different. I had no desire to reach for my phone. The air was still and I felt calm. It was peaceful and my heart was joyful. I have had a traumatic year, exasperated by the end of a year-long situationship which almost broke me. It was severed cruelly by him six months ago and by writing this I am putting it finally to bed and closing the chapter forever. He was my online personal trainer which blossomed into what I thought was a close friendship but it was built on lies. He spent two perfect weeks in the sun with me, but it was a fantasy holiday romance. Despite the chemistry being insane, I thought we had a connection, we shared the same views on multiple topics. He was everything I hoped to find in a man, we worked out together, danced together and he taught me how about nutrition and how to eat properly after years of dietary neglect.. He messaged me from the moment he got up to when he went to bed everyday, he sent funny reels to make me laugh throughout the day, he gave me pet names and when we were together in person, he held my hand and made me feel safe. We went to nice restaurants together and he always paid for my meals and drinks and treated me how I had never been treated before. He cooked for me and checked in with me when I was poorly. But it was a croc of shit and through my healing journey I have unravelled his sociopathic tendencies. He mirrored what I wanted to believe in a man, to reel me in and gain his trust. Then he slowly began to pick me apart. It began with the training sessions. The steady criticisms of my technique holding the weights grew into threats not to train me if I didn’t match up to his expectations. This led me to feel confused and anxious before training. Occasionally I put the phone down on him after a scolding and he would call me back and tell me it was my fault and if I trained properly he wouldn’t speak to me in that way. I was trauma bonded after years of emotional abuse which I opened up to him about, and which he finally used to gain his power over me. I was desperate to please him and would embarrass myself by telling him it wouldn’t happen again. He never wanted me to tag him in pictures or post us being together, he played down us being together all time. One time, after a summer of the gym being closed, I was excited for the opening and to be back training with the girls. I sent him a short video of my session, I really enjoyed it and was in high spirits, but he chastised me ruthlessly, telling me my technique was awful and don’t send him videos again, haven’t I learned anything etc etc? I spent the evening feeling worthless and again, the apology came the next day. This pattern went on for several months but, having an obsessive personality, I convinced myself I was in love with this man, I felt comfortable being intimate with him and the sex was off the scale. I drove my close friends mad, trying to analyse his behaviour and told myself we would be together eventually. After all, my ex husband never wanted a commitment when we first started seeing each other and I foolishly thought this was normal. Looking back there were so many red flags I could have sewn them together to make a king size fitted sheet ten times over. I was managing his social media and helped raise his profile. A woman popped up in his inbox sending nude pics and then next thing I saw, he was on a 15 minute call to her. Often women would message him with flirty texts or an arrangement to meet for a coffee and he would respond back in the same manner and then delete them but never before I read them first. The fact he deleted them immediately should have been the sign for me to walk away. But I had crippling low self esteem and this man was giving me the attention I craved for the first time in years. I ignored the messages, after all, he told me we weren’t serious and we could see other people and we were, for the most part, 3000 miles apart. The end came in April this year after I spent a weekend at his, he started to pick apart my messages, bombarding me with questions over a potential business opportunity abroad and not giving me time to answer before firing another one at me. Then I got a text telling me he “didn’t feel it anymore and didn’t find me sexually attractive.” There are a thousand ways to end a relationship but this was cruel, especially two days after we had spent hours in bed together. We went no contact almost immediately and I was grieving what felt like a death. It was so painful and for months I clung onto the hope that he would change his mind. But I am deep into the healing work. He told me I was intolerable, like my exhusband told me I was a failure. They were just projecting how they felt about themselves and this criticism is on them, not me. I know I am not perfect, I am strong willed, fiercely independent and I speak my mind without filter. I don’t like criticism and I like to get my own way. HoweverI would never intentionally hurt someone’s feelings, yet this man, who I opened up all my vulnerabilities to for the first time in 25 years, ripped them apart with no conscience or remorse. Weeks ago I was sad and I told my daughter I missed him. She looked at me like I was crazy. “Why would you want to be with someone like that? It’s like being with dad all over again.” And the switch flicked. She was right, I had found the same man but in a different body.And so my healing journey began and I enrolled on an online therapy course. I am no longer sad or anxious or pining for the potential that will never be. I owe my heartfelt thanks to him, for he gave me a valuable lesson. He taught me about myself and how I have people pleased for too long, how I will never accept emotional chaos in a relationship and how my needs will never be dismissed again. If I meet a man and they don’t match up to what I want, I wont waste time and effort hoping things will change. I will walk away immediatelyI feel stronger and calmer and recognise my worth and what I bring to a relationship. Best of all, I recently qualified as a Les Mills Bodypump instructor. Challenge creates change and finally, I do believe I have changed for the better.  MY NEW BLOG:
Today’s topic is procrastination, something I am an expert on. Ironically it’s taken me almost an entire day to sit down and write this because I’ve been faffing about making tiktoks, wrapping presents, surfing Amazon for crap I don’t need and sending emails here and there and playing with my cat. Usually writing a feature this length would take me less than an hour. I am a terrible procrastinator, I leave everything until the last minute and then when the deadline looms, BOOM! I am on it; completely focused. I don’t know why I do it but I have always worked this way. I think it’s the rebel in me. I have never responded well to being told what to do since a child and always have to do things on my terms. Being self employed, I have to manage my own time, some days better than others. Looking into the psychology of procrastination I have discovered that we procrastinate to put off chores we don’t like, or tasks that give us stress and anxiety as we think we won’t do them well but that’s not the case with me. I don’t have a fear of failure, if anything I am very confident about my work. I love my job I love writing, And I’m rather fabulous at it. So why do I procrastinate? According to the New York Times, it has nothing to do with self control. Phew, because I haven’t got much of that. They say it’s to do with bad moods which again, is something I can’t comprehend as I am rarely full of rage unless someone has pissed me off. Procrastination is an emotion regulation problem, not a time management problem,” says Dr. Tim Pychyl, professor of psychology and member of the Procrastination Research Group at Carleton University in Ottawa. That does make more sense to me as I am wildly emotional. “Procrastination isn’t a unique character flaw or a mysterious curse on your ability to manage time, but a way of coping with challenging emotions and negative moods induced by certain tasks — boredom, anxiety, insecurity, frustration, resentment, self-doubt and beyond.” he adds. In other areas of my life this also resonates. I don’t have incredible attention to detail with mundane tasks and I put off looking at bank statements, I never clean (I would rather pay someone else to do it) and I cook with resentment. I pick and choose the jobs I like to do, similarly to my work, starting with the shortest task first to feel like I’ve achieved something quickly. It’s like a dopamine hit. Maybe it’s linked to my insomnia too? Perhaps, as the jobs I should have done during the day prey on my mind subconsciously at night There’s a lot of negativity associated with procrastination but as someone who usually looks on the brighter side of life, let’s look at the positives to it. Urgency to complete a task puts me into a fully focused mood as the deadline edges closer and I become more energised as the adrenaline kicks in. Stepping away from my laptop isn’t a bad thing either as I go in search of other things to do instead of what I am supposed to be doing. Movement is good, it’s healthy and better than being sat on my arse all day. I am not a robot. A 2012 study published in Psychological Science found that participants who were asked to daydream before completing a task used more creative problem-solving, compared to those who didn’t. I can relate to this too. One time I went to marriage counselling with my ex husband (that worked!) he told the counsellor he couldn’t stand me living in a dream world. I told him it was better than the reality I lived in. Daydreaming, procrastinating… whatever. It works for me and essentially I get the job done rather well. |
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