To feel more positive we need to free up some space and clear out some of the crap Negative Nancy is saying in our heads. Shifting your mood is about shifting your focus and changing something to have a positive calming effect on your experience. Here are 3 ways to lift your mood….

Being kind to myself means I dig deep and do the inner work. The words I say to myself and hear in my head are old news, they aren’t true and I can prove them wrong if I can learn to be kind. Old stories have a past and they might be buried deep but they can hold me back.

Stress is an everyday process your body is designed to flow in and out of, but that doesn’t mean it’s any more pleasant when it does show up! Learning to recognise your body’s unique nudges allows you to consciously (and compassionately) respond to what you’re feeling and rebalance rather than unconsciously reacting to your experience.

Anxiety is both physical and emotional, it is not only in your mind! Moving from feeling overwhelmed or unsettled to a grounded space can be challenging which is why it’s so important we learn to understand anxiety and how we can recognise and respond to it with compassion.

How stress shows up and learning to recognise and respond to your stress signals.

Stress is an everyday process your body is built to flow in and out of, naturally, the problem is you can end up spending more time there than your body would like you to. Understanding how stress shows up and impacts your body invites self-awareness helping you embrace your wobbles and live your life with more connection and balance.

This week Big Love Movement turned 3. Three years since we were about to go into lockdown, I decided it would be a fantastic time to get Big Love Movement off the ground. I saw it as a nudge from the Universe and it worked, we’re still here and growing.

This week marks the Spring Equinox, a time of new beginnings and a New Moon. I love this time of year but until recently I had no idea how significant it was to me…

Where you place your awareness is where you place your energy. If you are in pain where are you placing your attention? On your pain.

When you focus on the pain you are feeling, the feeling of pain gets amplified.

This can be exhausting and suddenly your pain is not only physical, it’s emotional too.

On any given day a stressful experience can knock you off balance and that can be internal or external, it won’t always be obvious to everyone else to see.

This is why mental health is not as simple as good or bad.

Awareness, empathy, compassion and resources are what we need so we can help ourselves and each other move through the inevitable challenges we face and rise when we stumble.

I want to say I didn’t have a plan and that people didn’t call me mad but neither of those things is true. There was definitely a plan and people definitely called me mad, bonkers and brave. On a side note, I think brave is the polite way of saying “You’re mad”, or maybe, “You’re mad but you inspire me anyway”. All I knew was something had to change because I was so stressed.

Grounding has become a daily practice and one of the most important things I do to support myself when feeling flustered, anxious or overwhelmed, whether I am worried about an experience or an event in the future it is a simple practice self-care that works by bringing me back into the present and helping to reconnect to my body.

My own lived experience of mental illness, grief and the challenges faced by those around me are the very reason I am here today doing the work I choose to do. I changed my whole career to create Big Love Movement although I didn’t realise I’d been shifting towards this change for a long time. Throughout my life I have felt anxious, depressed, disconnected and sometimes, very lost and alone. There have been tremendous highlights along the way, inspirational experiences and people to share it all with however it is the most challenging times that nudged me to create Big Love Movement.

The language we use and how we use it has a huge impact on our mental health. Whether you look at how you talk to yourself; the thoughts you have and the words you use when thinking them, or whether you reflect on how you speak to the people around you, you'll start to notice those words create an emotional response in them and in you, and often a physical one too.

You’re mental,

I’m mental

We’re all mental because we all have MENTAL health