Leah's Reflections on 2017

Leah's Reflections on 2017

Tuesday, December 26, 2017

With Christmas day now firmly behind us and the New year drawing ever more closer, I thought it would be fitting to write a personal reflection of 2017. For me, it has been a strange year of ups and downs but most importantly a year of self-growth. 

"Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind do not matter, and those who matter do not mind." - Bernard M. Baruch

As you may already know I started university in September 2016, it was kind of a rocky start for me settling into the "norm" of student life but after a couple of weeks I found my feet and it eventually became like home from home. Moving into 2017, I joined a few societies, one of which being the " UWE Event Society" where we hosted our own event in a quaint little Bristol venue. Meeting so many people at university has allowed me to grow tremendously because I have had to learn to adapt to being around a whole host of different people, some good and some bad. But equally, I  believe that people enter your life for a reason so for that I am grateful. 

"The mind is everything, what you think you become" - Buddha

This year I really fell in love with meditation and trying to incorporate it into my daily life, I don't do it everyday but I try to do it as much as I can. Whenever I feel shitty or hurt about something, I use it as a method of relieving pressure and detaching myself from the person/person's or situation. Meditation has helped me sooo much during tough times this year because it has taught me that our feelings are temporary psychological states that don't last forever. 

"Most people quit because they look how far they have to go, not how far they've come" - Anonymous 

2017 definitely hasn't been the easiest for me for various different reasons but I think the key thing that matters is how you deal with the situations, rather than to let them determine the rest of your life. My passion for writing has grown so much this year and I have only just started blogging and journalling again. I missed it so much but I let life get in the way and stop me from doing what I love most. I want to really develop my writing skills next year and improve as much as I can, to hopefully become a writer/journalist in the future.

There is often moments where I reflect on my degree course and think "is this for me?" ," is this where my passions lie most?" and more often than not the answer is no.  I think for future reference I need to consider more about what will make me happy rather than "which degree will get me a better job?" because ultimately my happiness should be the highest ideal that I sought after.

"We do not develop courage by being happy everyday. We develop it by surviving difficult times and challenging adversity" - Barbara de Angelis

Everything in life acts as a lesson or development for personal growth, the good, the bad, the everything, I recently got marks back for a university assignment that I wasn't too happy about I worked really hard for it and got 60% when I usually get 65-70% in my assignments. I was really upset to begin with and starting comparing myself to other people and thought that one grade was the be all and end all of my life. How incredibly dramatic and wrong was I though?

Putting so much pressure on myself is so detrimental to my health, because as a friend of mine so rightly said there is 7 billion people in the world and I will NEVER be the best at everything, that is just impossible. I will be reflecting on this throughout my time at uni (because I know it will be an on-going issue & and it is a major downfall of mine), instead of focusing on what went wrong I will change my mindset to "okay so you messed up one assignment, so what??" & "how can I work on this issue to make sure it doesn't keep occurring?".

"Serve only what serves you" - Leah Richardson

So I obviously had to throw my own quote in here to try and inspire you all. Now guys and girls 2017 has taught me that people aren't always supposed to be in your lives forever, whether that is a friendship or a relationship. People come in and out of your lives to serve as lessons, to teach you about yourselves and to help you grow as people. Losing friends/lovers isn't the easiest thing to manage but I have learnt to look on it as a positive rather than a negative. It takes time to "master the art of detaching yourself" from other people but as soon as you do, you feel a hell of a lot better.

Now I know some of you may have expected this to be a quick short blog post, and I definitely rambled on as per usual but its mainly for me to look back on when I am older and remember how I felt at this time. All in all, I have been very blessed this year with all of my family and my friends by my side, and I cannot wait to grow even more as a person in 2018!

Looking for an equally inspiring post? Check out Mrs Mummy Penny's blog post on "Reflecting on my 2017 highlights"

Thank you all for taking the time to read my blog post, I really do appreciate the support.

Love Leah xx

My Curly Hair Journey

My Curly Hair Journey

Sunday, December 24, 2017

My Quest for Curly Hair - "The Transition"

I want to create a sequel of blog posts that document my hair care journey, but more importantly my "transition" back to curly hair. Now I have been straightening the hell out of my hair for many years now,  and I have been regularly getting hair 'texturisers' which is a mild version of a chemical hair relaxer. I was looking at old photos of me with my afro hair from 2015 and I couldn't help but miss the curls, straightening my hair consistently for the past two years has caused SO much damage and breakage, in fact I recently had to have the dreaded "big chop" which strangely didn't result in tears. But I think that was only because I got braids a few days later, I seriously urge you gals with curly hair to think long and hard before you decide to start straightening your hair because I can honestly say that it is a decision I regret so much!

June 2017

As you can probably tell my hair is beyond damaged by this point, it is relatively short now but the "big chop" is still yet to come..

September - December 2017

So these braids took around 5 hours to install, they were installed quite tightly but it didn't actually hurt at all, which is quite rare for braids.

The day after I got my braids, all ready for Tokyo world

A couple of months into having my braids, when they started going all fuzzy at the top, to be fair though they lasted a whole 3 months without unravelling at the bottom and did me well. I think next time I will get them a lot shorter though because they reached my bum and were really hard to maintain being so long!

December 2017 - Now

This photo was taken straight after my braids were installed (in my uni house obvs explains the mess) it took 7 hours!! Yes 7 hours for them to be installed, my hairdresser was really ill that day so she had to keep stopping for breaks which slowed the process down. She did her best to seal the ends with water but she was rushing because I had plans and had to leave my house at a certain time so it wasn't done properly which is kind of annoying as you might be able to see from this picture that they are unravelling a bit at the bottom, so I will have to re-seal these at some point. 

I have wanted ombre braids for ages and honestly love them so much but I have the feeling that my hair won't last as long because the ends are already unravelling, my hair is getting quite scruffy at the top because I don't wrap it up at night (spare no sympathy for me) and I have only had these installed for 11 days. As mentioned above I wanted my braids to be shorter this time but my hairdresser told me that as I had two colours mixed together she couldn't cut it?? Really annoying but I know for next time, ideally I would have liked them shoulder length because its more manageable for washing etc. 

But this is where I am at so far, I have started using the Shea Moisture Coconut & Hibiscus Curl & Shine Shampoo , Shea Moisture Coconut & Hibiscus Curl & Shine Conditioner, alongside Shea Moisture Hibiscus Enhancing Smoothie , now these products are a little on the pricier side especially if you're a student but so far I have started to reap the benefits! When I took my first lot of braids out my hair was still quite straight from the excess amount of texturising but after using this smoothie it has slowly started to restore some of my curls back. I only had 9 days in between braids and bought these products on the 4th day, so I haven't been using them for very long but when I eventually "leave out" my curls I will do a full review on these products

 So here we go, the start of my journey to curly hair (wish me luck guys!) 

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog post!

Love Leah xx

The Journey to Self-Care 2017

The Journey to Self-Care 2017

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

The Journey to Self-Care 2017

So it has got to that time of year where hormones are all over the place, mood swings are inevitable, morale is at an all-time low and self-care is seriously neglected. So why is it that during winter we neglect ourselves the most? We do we stop taking time out of our day to journal? or paint our nails? or even to run ourselves a bath? Why do we continuously strip ourselves of the things that we love the most? Why?? Because for many of us we lead busy lives, right? It is sometimes incredibly hard to take a simple 30 minutes out of our day to run ourselves a bath when we could be in and out of the shower in 10. We assume that we are saving ourselves those vital extra 20 minutes that could be better spent elsewhere?? Wrong. By not allowing ourselves time to wind down and have "me" time, we are ultimately contributing to self-neglect.

Now, hold on all is not lost here, we still have time to make amends. Starting with making time for ourselves, and when I say "make time", this can be anything from spending the afternoon de-cluttering your bedroom/work space to sitting in a nail bar all day getting manis, pedis and everything in between. Hey, if you want to spend however much on yourself then DO IT, and please do not feel guilty for doing so. We are allowed to treat ourselves from time to time, after all we are only human so you do you boo - no judging here.

Now I realise that "self-care" for some isn't as easy as "just getting yours nails done" but I do think that it is a contributing factor in making yourself feel better and improving your self-esteem, because if your nails look cute then you automatically feel cute! Maybe for some of you it may be that you take up a sport/hobby that you've always wanted to do and you practice it regularly until you have mastered it. 

I think that it is equally important to take time off social media too, sometimes we get too dependant on it and take things too seriously, when in reality the majority of what we see isn't even real. Instead, hit up your bffs invite them over, get the cheap Aldi wine out and the movies on. Now, I always find that spending time with my friends makes me feel 10x better and helps me to get out of my bad mood.  

Meditate, Meditate, Meditate!!! 

I cannot praise this practice any higher and the best thing about it is that you don't even have to be religious in the slightest to meditate. All that it involves is taking time out to sit in complete stillness and practice your breathing techniques. Before, I got into meditation I didn't think that much of it and didn't believe that it could play a vital part in altering my mindset but it really has! I currently use an app called "Calm"  which is on the app store and its super easy to follow along. 

Recently, I have used meditation a lot to help me de-stress and feel less anxious about my uni deadlines, also it has allowed me to feel more grounded and appreciative with my life. If you are generally speaking, a negative/pessimistic person then meditation is something that you definitely need to try, it will allow for clarity and increased self-care.

And yes, this process may be short for some of you and for others it may prove tiresome and longer but definitely stick with it. The important thing to remember here is that some days you will have down days and this is okay. Society

somehow convinces us that we look weak for struggling from time to time, but this is all apart of the process to self-love and self-care. You need to envisage yourself as a golden beam of light, everything that shines out of you is pure and radiant. Your body is a temple and you must treasure it with everything you own. 

Please do not neglect yourself and please look after yourself

Ps. Keep at it and keep faith, change doesn't come straight away but you will notice improvements if you implement these practices into your daily lives.

Thank you so much for reading my blog post, lately I have been inspired to write semi-motivational blog posts in hope that it will help one of you or even to encourage you all to look after yourselves better. 

Love Leah xx

FIRST YEAR OF UNIVERSITY...RESULTS, NIGHT LIFE, LIVING ON CAMPUS ....WAS IT ALL WORTH IT?

FIRST YEAR OF UNIVERSITY...RESULTS, NIGHT LIFE, LIVING ON CAMPUS ....WAS IT ALL WORTH IT?

Saturday, June 24, 2017

Hi everyone! I can't believe that my latest blog post was dated back to December last year, I am sooo bad at this blogging malarkey but I vow to try and get back into the swing of things. Lately I have been suffering from writers block and although I had loads of new ideas for content on here, I couldn't find the time or words to sit down and express all of it to you guys. So for that I apologise, and now lets jump straight into the topic for todays blogpost......UNIVERSITY! 


So some of you may know that I have just finished my first year of uni at UWE Bristol, I can hand on heart say that I have had a blast and met some of the nicest people that I will be friends with for a very long time.  I received my results from Year 1 today, and I kind of had an idea what they would be based on my progress throughout the year. 

For those of you who don't know I study BA Business Management with Marketing and I am pleased to announce that I scored 68.13% as my average for the year, which translates as a high 2:1. I was a bit gutted at first that I didn't get a 1st (70%) just because I know how close I was to getting it and I wanted for once to prove to myself that I am intelligent and can achieve anything that my little heart desires hahah. 

Nevertheless I am still very proud of myself and whilst I know that Year 1 doesn't count towards my final grade for the end of my degree, I know that achieving a 2:1 puts me in a good position to apply for placements in third year. As you need to have at least a 2:1 or 1st in Year 1 to do placement. 

Now onto the nightlife.... Bristol is one of the busiest, most expensive cities to live in, in the UK. But who really cares when you have the likes of Motion and Lakota on your doorstep??? Not I 

One thing that I really love about Bristol is the vast, diversity of people that you will come across, everyone is so unique yet their hearts are filled with gold. In other words, you can walk down to your local shops wearing a bright yellow neon skirt with makeup everywhere at 3pm on a Monday afternoon and no one will bat an eyelid (trust me, I've tried this before), hahaha no really I am joking but I have definitely gone to the shops on campus wearing pajamas and no one has looked at me twice. That my friends is the BEAUTY of Bristol... and if that hasn't swayed you enough to transfer uni's to UWE then you can doing it COMPLETELY WRONG. 

I officially moved out of halls two weeks ago and I haven't felt the same since....

I know what you're all thinking, why is she being so dramatic right? Wrong, when you've gone to uni yourself and lived in halls for a year I guarantee that you will feel a similar way. I think for me, more so than anything it is the convenience of it all that makes me miss it so much, if you're lazy like I am and prefer living 2 minutes from all of your friends flats, the campus shops, the gym and lectures then you will understand the pain that I am enduring.

However living on campus means living so far away from town and the night life in Bris, which results in paying ridiculous prices for Ubers and Taxis. I mean who do the taxi drivers think they are?? We are students, not millionaires and I struggle to understand how they can justify charging £20 to drive 10 minutes into town... 

But next year I will be living in a house which is half way between town and uni with 5 overly hormonal, dramatic, & hilarious gals. It is safe to say that Bristol won't know whats hit it...

(Yeah and I bet you've heard that one before)

So far I am only one year into my degree so I cannot comment on the rest of my years yet but at the moment, it has definitely been worth going to UWE. For someone who 3 years ago would have never considered university as an option, I have come a long way and feel like I have made the right choice. In regards to my degree course, I do kind of wish that I picked either English Literature or Philosophy instead just because I have a strong interest in both fields and would someday like to become a writer (ahhhh, I've finally said it...theres no going back now Leah). I know that I can always do a Masters in English Lit afterwards if I wish or I can do online courses at home to earn a Diploma in Creative Writing/Blogging. Using this platform to blog regularly will really help me to develop my style of writing and skills set so watch this space haha

Thank you lovely's for taking the time to read my first blog post of 2017!!!! Wow it feels weird writing that, but anyways stay tuned for similar blog posts and if anyone has any feedback or questions please feel free to comment below :) 

Love Leah xx