Your physical and mental wellbeing

Wellbeing, this is a word that we have all become familiar with over recent years but what does it really mean. For some it is mostly about mental health, for others it’s just about being happy and for me it is about having a healthy mind and body and making myself a priority.

You will see from other posts I have written that I have struggled with my identity, I have struggled with my weight and body image, basically I have struggled to accept who I am. I now feel in a much better place with all of that and I think it is since I have been more conscious of the word wellbeing.

As I am a fair to middling woman I don’t have all the time and money in the world to go to retreats or go to fancy yoga classes so most of the stuff I do to focus on my wellbeing is at home. The most difficult thing for me to do, which I bet you can relate to, is to actively take time for myself. Just today I was due to start work at 10am but I wasn’t feeling great, or very happy with the world when I woke up and the closer my start time came the more I didn’t feel I would be giving the best of myself to my work today. So, I did a 30 minutes weights session at home using some pretty cheap weights from my local sports shop and it really helped. Doing some weights is great for your body but I find it is also great for my mind because it makes me feel strong.

Now I know what you’re thinking ‘I should be so lucky, she can obviously start work when she wants what about us who have to be in the office etc.’ and you’re right I am very lucky to work from home and I can take 30 minutes out to do a weights session. But this was just an example. You could do this before work, or when you’re having a horrible day and you know you have to go home and make dinner and you feel stressed as hell, you could promise yourself that whatever is going on at 7.30pm you will pick up the weights even for just 15 minutes and think about how strong that makes you feel.

What I have described above is just one way I take time to focus on my wellbeing. Sometimes when the world feels too crazy the only way I can focus on myself and make myself happy is to watch a TV show I like, with my husband and eat some chocolate. Taking time out to focus on yourself doesn’t mean you need to be alone, go and see a friend but don’t let them pile all their problems on to you, you don’t need that during your ‘me time’ just talk about old times or just random stuff that makes you laugh. Or maybe just be silent with your partner, I find that makes me feel safe and helps to relax me which makes me feel happier. But most of all do not put pressure on yourself!! It is good to take time out to focus on yourself and the way you are feeling but don’t let that become another stress to add to your life, it isn’t just another thing to fit in. You may go days without finding 5 minutes to yourself and that’s fine, just know that when you can you will make the time to just do something that makes you feel happy and good.

You’re wellbeing is your thing; I’ve told you what makes me feel good but that may be totally different for you. Taking care of yourself is the most important thing, whatever you define that to mean. Having a healthy body is important (I must stress I am talking healthy not skinny) because let’s face it we all want to live forever, but exercise might not be the thing for you that makes you feel good, it may just be another chore. If that’s the case that’s fine, just do the things that make you feel good and make the time to do it whenever you can.

All I would suggest is take 5 minutes every day, even if it is when you are in the shower, to think about yourself and think about something that makes you happy. Doing this will ensure no matter how busy life gets, you never forget yourself.

Over the coming weeks I’ll be talking more about my own wellbeing journey and tactics and hopefully that will be useful to you. If you find it difficult to remember to think of yourself then I will be there to give you a gentle nudge.

A fair to middling life

A fair to middling life for the average woman can be a wonderful thing and can also be incredibly frustrating, but what is a fair to middling life I hear you ask?!

Basically a fair to middling life is about always being in the middle, or as I like to call it part of the forgotten normal. It’s about not having the best of everything but still having enough so that you’re happy and you have what you need. It’s about never reading about someone like you in magazines or even on social media. It’s about exercising enough to be healthy but not spending 20 hours in the gym every week. It’s about always being forgotten by society (in the broader sense) because you’re doing ok.

If you have read my About Me page you will know that I am British but I now live in Sweden, and in Sweden they have one simple word for being fair to middling and that word is ‘Lagom’. Linnea Dunne has written a fantastic book about lagom, and if I have described you and your life in the paragraph above you should give it a try.

Whilst living a fair to middling life can be frustrating, which you will definitely hear me rant about if you continue reading my blog, but it can also be something to embrace and feel really good about. Learning more about lagom really helped to teach me that. Lagom in a nutshell means not too much and not too little. Lagom means working hard to have a ‘good job’ but making sure you have time for yourself and your family, it means eating everything in moderation, it means if loads of exercise isn’t your thing then maybe get off the bus a stop early and get in a little bit of walking, it means not filling your wardrobe with loads of cheap throwaway items but mixing that with the odd more expensive piece that will last forever, it means doing what you can for the planet but not taking it so far that it controls your life.

Over the years I have really struggled with my identity, even at school I was the kid that flitted from group to group but didn’t really have an identity. I don’t have kids so I’m not in the mum group, I don’t work all the hours in the world for a 6 figure salary so I’m not in the rich workaholic group, I’m not a big gym girl so I’m not in the fitness group, I have always felt that I don’t have a ‘thing’ you know that ‘thing’ that defines me. Then one day I realised my thing is being fair to middling, having different groups of friends that like different things, working hard but not too hard etc. and actually that is pretty awesome.

Whilst being fair to middling is awesome I really hate that there aren’t more people like us represented on TV and in the media. I absolutely embrace diversity but I think these days it is all about extremes and I am not an extreme I am in the middle. I want a voice and I want other people who feel like me to have a voice too which is what prompted me to start this blog.

So if like me you struggled to fit in and find your ‘thing’ then you’re in good company and I’ll be writing a lot more about my fair to middling life and how wonderful it is but also how frustrating it can be. So say it with me, I am fair to middling and there’s nothing else I’d rather be!