Over the last few months, I’ve
not really felt myself. I’ve been feeling a little bit down in the dumps, I
look tired and there’s been a serious strain on my social life. A lot of this –
primarily the tiredness – is linked to the fact that I work A LOT and my job is
incredibly demanding, both physically and emotionally – but I have really
started to feel like enough is enough and I’ve put a number of things in place
to ensure that I start feeling less like my current self and more like the
happy, energetic, old me.
SELF LOVE:
Showing myself love has always been
something I’ve found a little bit difficult. I find it hard to see the good
things about my appearance and treating myself has always been a bit of a no-go
because there’s always been something we’re saving up for, whether that be for
the house, a holiday or just bills that need paying. As a consequence, my
confident has dropped even more than usual and the ability to feel good about myself
is proving impossible at the moment. I’ve made a sort of mid-year resolution to
look after myself a little bit more and show myself the self-love that my body
needs – whether that be with a relaxing bath at the end of the week, whacking
on a little bit of fake tan to perk myself up or else just applying makeup for
the hell of it, rather than because there’s a specific event going on. I’m
going to start treating myself to massages when I’m feeling worse for wear and
getting my brows and lashes done to perk myself up when I’ve had a particularly
long week. Showing yourself self-love is never a bad thing; who’s going to love
you if you don’t even love yourself, after all?
DOWN-TIME:
As a teacher, my evenings are
usually spent prepping for the next day’s lessons, printing off worksheets and
marking the day’s books for the next day. I usually leave school around 6pm having
marked the vast majority of the books and then spend the next few hours going
over lesson plans for the next day, planning for the next week and marking any
books I didn’t get around to at school. With 58 English books, plus afternoon
books to mark each day, my evenings are pretty packed and having down time
usually comes at a cost. My new rule will be no work after 9pm and between 9pm
and 10pm I’ll get stuck into a good book and try and stay away from technology
as far as I can. Having this time to myself can only be beneficial to my
happiness so I’m excited to see how I feel in a few weeks time.
DATES:
Having the time to go out and
have a date night is something that Richard and I are struggling to do at the
moment, with both of us working on different schedules and having different
days off. We do have the benefit of having a home together, which means we can
have time together whenever we’re both in, but we’ve decided that sticking to a
routine and making plans to go out is something that we’re going to start doing
more of. We have a few trips booked over the coming weeks and months, including
a little break down south this week, so we’re definitely starting as we mean to
go on.
TRAVEL:
I wouldn’t be me if I didn’t book
spontaneous trips here there and everywhere. I’ve booked a surprise trip for
Richard’s birthday in May (the surprise being that he doesn’t know where we’re going) and we’ve booked to
go to Amsterdam in August and are going back to Nuremberg in November to see
friends (said friends are coming to us at the end of April.) I want to get back
into a habit of being more spontaneous and just deciding to book a flight
somewhere bizarre, with time to deal with the finer details further along the
line. I’ve missed travelling and this is definitely one of the things that make
me feel like myself.
What do you do when you’re
feeling a bit down and out of character? Let me know in the comments!
