Thinking about our bodies in the New Year is something that most of us do, and instead of talking about diets or how to get into shape I wanted to share my body confidence and positivity thoughts instead. I was recently contacted by Emily from "True and Co" to explain that their goal is to inspire women like myself to influence the readers of my blog to love themselves more, have body confidence and to change your negative thinking about yourselves into positive ones instead.
Body confidence is something that we all struggle with at some point in our lives - I know I have. I've spoken about how I lost my self-love when I heartbreakingly went through my first miscarriage of my daughter Katie-Mae at 17 weeks pregnant, and how it has taken me a long time to love myself and my body again.
When it comes to a New Year we can be so hard on ourselves and our bodies and think that we must start eating right, we must get into shape, we must do this and we must do that all to change how we look about ourselves because for some silly reason we have it programmed into us that if we change how we look or who we are we will start to feel better and love ourselves - a lot of the time this is not true. Instead of sharing my best diet tips or writing about how I want to change in the New Year, I want to share my top tips on loving yourself and your body again.
| Unstress | Get yourself a Tree of Life Pendant* from No Faux Vegan for only £13.00. This colourful and vibrant Tree Of Life pendant which would look great on a cord or a Sterling Silver Chain. This has resin beads representing the seven chakras which are so important for your own self-care and mental health. It's known that blocked energy in our seven chakras can often lead to illness and stress, so it's important to understand what each chakra represents and what you can do to keep this energy flowing freely - wearing this beautiful pendant can really help so I would highly recommend picking yourself one up!
| Take Time Out | Whenever you're feeling anxious or stressed out the best advice I can give everyone is just to simply breath. So many of us get ourselves so worked up that we forget to breathe normally and it can really affect our bodies badly so next time you feel like you're in a stressful situation take some time out and simply get your breathing back to normal.
| Take Time Out | Whenever you're feeling anxious or stressed out the best advice I can give everyone is just to simply breath. So many of us get ourselves so worked up that we forget to breathe normally and it can really affect our bodies badly so next time you feel like you're in a stressful situation take some time out and simply get your breathing back to normal.
| Smile| This may sound so strange to some smile but smile at yourself. Smiling is such an infectious thing that seeing yourself smiling in the mirror of a morning can change your mood for your whole day. However, don't do a fake smile - instead maybe after brushing your teeth of a morning just stand for a moment and think of some happy memories then when smiling look how happy that makes you. Smile at others throughout your day too, you never know how much someone may need it. These days it seems that a lot of people don't like showing their teeth when smiling because they aren't as "perfect" as you think they should be. My advice: get yourself a BlueRock Mao Bamboo Toothbrush* from Amazon. BlueRock is an eco-friendly, no plastic, carbon neutral toothbrush subscription for the whole family! For every toothbrush sold they give 10p towards marine life conservation, a cause which is so close to the founder's heart. I've been using this toothbrush now for a little while and couldn't recommend it enough!
| Be Your Own Best Friend | Becoming your own best friend is one of the best things about being body confident. Without even realising it you will become independent, not have to rely on people for things and will simply blossom into yourself - only after becoming my own best friend did I realise this. Start small and go shopping alone, or go to the movies alone, even take a short walk just make sure that everywhere you go in safe and you don't put yourself into any danger.
| Self Love | One of the best, and worst, things that could have happened to me.over the Christmas season js that I was put on strict bed rest as I had come down with shingles and as it was on my foot, I could hardly walk. However, it was the perfect time for lots of self-love and self-care which I highly recommend to everyone. No matter what it is that makes you happy, little or small, make sure you take some time for yourself to do something for you. Go for a walk, paint your nails, read a book, write, sing, dance, bake, anything at all - give yourself some love which will really help you love yourself and help your confidence grow.
| Keep Track | One of the best bits of advice I can give you all for confidence is keeping track of everything you do in life. Keeping track of yourself is such a wonderful thing, I keep track of everything and it helps me remember so much. Get yourself a journal or a notepad and create your own bullet journal or create a habit trackers. Watching your tracker grow helps you grow which, from my experience, helps your confidence grow so much and really quickly. I highly recommend "The Best Way to Predict The Future Is To Create It"* by TadFan*, its a wonderful 2019 goal book on how to improve pretty much everything in your life. It had a week-page layout where you can write down your plans and goals and ways you can achieve them, it's a great book for anyone struggling with how to achieve your goals.
Don't forget to check out True and Co who was the inspiration for this blog post! I really hope some of this advice helps you out in the New Year. I'm sending you all so much love on your happiness and confidence journey.
With love, Alisha Valerie. x