Notes from Ladybug

Stop buying unnecessary things

Build your wardrobe

Building a wardrobe takes time. The clothes you wear will different through different stages of your life. Take your time finding your style.

When you are young, you are dressed by your parents, but as time passes, in your adolescence you will find yourself searching your identity, so the old clothes that you already have, it will begin to fade away in your eyes. So, in your teens you will begin to express your opinions and dress accordingly to the idea of you. Your image will continue to evolve, you will begin slowly to take decisions regarding to your future and you will want to dress more professionally. At university, college or after high school, the clothes you had no longer correspond to the next chapter of your life.

Let’s assume you graduate, and you want to start living as a an adult. STOP, do not begin to buy a full new wardrobe for interviews, you do not need that, you do not need a bunch of new clothes for a job that has not even attained. Have 2 options for interview clothes and that will be enough, you will be interviewing at different companies, so no one will ever know that you wore the same outfit twice. As you GOT a JOB, probably not the one you wanted, but it will something that will pay, start studying people around the workplace/office, and then adapt yourself, maybe everyone is casually dressed and then you saved money by not buying a full wardrobe of elegant clothes that will not fit your new environment. Go, dressed with the clothes you already have and then build slowly your wardrobe by adding a few pieces that easily mix and match. People do not expect you dress on point on your first job, most probably they do not pay attention to you at all, you are not the TOP EXECUTIVE, so dress accordingly to your budget. As you career progresses, your wardrobe will evolve as well, you may add more expensive pieces, but please be careful to check the fabrics so that they can last longer.

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Choose wisely the clothes you wear, after all having a lot of clothes means wasted money that were better used elsewhere. Having a mindful approach towards clothes helps also the environment.

How to be healthy

Nowadays being healthy weighs more than having money. Health is the greatest asset that one man can have.

As one of the Tibetan proverbs says:

The secret of living well is:
Eat half
Walk double
Laugh triple
& love without measure
Tibetan proverb

Balance in eating is key to having a good health, since most medical conditions improve/become worse depending on the diet you have. According to dr Uma Naidoo, the best diet to follow that helps reduce most mental health conditions and improves overall health is the Mediterranean diet. This diet consist of plant based foods such as legumes, fruit, nuts, seeds, whole grains, herbs and spices. The Greek & Italian cuisine contain plenty of delicious meals that are good for your health.

By maintaining a healthy diet and doing exercise you are one step of having a good life. Try to avoid eating sweets as these are the ones that do the most harm to your health. As for exercise, you do not need to go to gym every day, you can achieve movement by simply walking and enjoying the landscape. Also, it is said that by walking every day, you not only get a great posture but also the Vitamin D that you desperately need. As research shows ( according to dr Uma Nadidoo), by increasing your intake of vitamin D, you can ameliorate the symptoms of depression and avoid mental health conditions. If you have been trough that path, you know how important is to be healthy. Also, walking around can also help improve cognitive function by clearing your mind.

There are great doctors out there that share their resource for the greater good. One of them is Dr Eric Berg that uploads almost daily videos on YouTube related to various conditions. One of the steps he suggests in achieving weigh loss and having a healthy body is by inter-mediate fasting, this way the body clears itself of the toxins and also the body starts “eating his fat reserves”. I highly recommend also check out dr Megan Rossi ( also known as the Gut Health Doctor), she provides great valuable advice in maintaining a healthy lifestyle. She is also an advocate of the impact of diet on the gut microbiome, the gut having a key role in a lot of medical conditions.

All in all, maintaining a balanced lifestyle is key to living longer and healthier. Make sure you remember, that you should food isn’t the only thing that can be toxic, so avoid as well toxic relationships. Take care of your mental and physical health.

Check them out: https://umanaidoomd.com/

https://www.theguthealthdoctor.com/

https://www.drberg.com/

Finding balance in your life

Photo by Sebastian Voortman on Pexels.com

You are not multidimensional, you are multidimensional. Your story is not entirely bad if wrong, is a succession of lessons, people, loves, bad & beautiful things. It’s every second that your heart is beating.

One day you are happy and the next the day you find yourself, crying your eyes out of head, your heart is beating fast, you feel sad and you wonder what you did wrong. My dear, something is clearly wrong, maybe you put work on the top spot in your life priorities while your health was declining and you didn’t had anyone around because you were too busy working. Or, maybe you put someone’s else needs first that you have forgotten that YOU, yes actually YOU are also a HUMAN BEING in this world. So, WAKE UP. The world needs you to be yourself and the world needs you also to be healthy and happy. It’s time to rethink and redesign your life.

Your mental well being starts by acknowledging your emotions. How an I feeling? Am I being stressed? Am I angry?, Am I happy? These questions may not be easy at first to ask yourself, but with time you will be an expert at recognizing your emotions.

You may say that you are OK, but are you really? You will find yourself after work constantly browsing through clothes website buying everything juts because it was on sales or it was a nice color. So, when you are going to wear that dress/shirt if you are all day at work. Take it from me, I was there buying things just to fill in a void that I was feeling. Putting too much effort on solely one aspect of your life can cause anxiety ( you constantly feel that that you are not doing the best at work even though that is the only thing you do) or depression or both. You can spiral quickly into depression after you were in burnout and then you only realize that there is more to life than work. So, my darling make a list of what you value in life and start prioritizing your well-being: mentally & emotionally. Remember that one person is your life that is always there for you is YOU, your body and soul. You may have a beautiful soul, but that souls needs a healthy body to live in, not a train wreck that war overworked until your bones come out of it. Being kind means being kind to yourself first and then to others. Take care of you, not one else will.

Books: are they worth it?

Every now and then, you look around and you see books. Maybe you’ve read them in school, maybe you’ve had an impulsive shopping spree and you’ve decided to buy one. But, is it worth reading them?

The answer is YES. Absolutely, yes, they are worth reading them. In school, I know you didn’t like reading them, mostly because the books that were mandatory , they were not your style or perhaps you didn’t like the book. Something, for sure may be more important than reading a book, but that book you may avoid it, it may bring you a much needed perspective. While reading a book, you have the chance to view the world through other person’s perspective and see things you normally wouldn’t see or became aware of them.

Books give you perspective. Reading books should bring you joy, also it will help you escape the reality and calm you down. Therefore, find books in fields that interest you and start reading. You will be amazed on how many books you can read when the subject may interest you.

I hope that you find books you enjoy and if you do not like the subject or how the phrases are flowing, you are free to stop reading that book. Go ahead and read another book that you enjoy and the old one if you bought it, and don’t need it, donate it to your local library. As with anything in life, life exists to be enjoyed.

Anxiety

Dealing with difficult times

Everyone has difficult days, you may have a difficult day or a series of tough days, but please do not give up. The sun is rising after each night, and so it is you, you will rise above each problem in the end. So, please don’t ever give up on yourself and your dreams. The best you can do in your darkest times, is to try to see beyond the dark clouds that are approaching you, try to keep positive in your mind despite everything is against you.

Overthinking situations may stressed you out and may bring you to the edge of your emotional stability, so before reaching that step start building around yourself a healthy environment.According to doctor Brett A. Moore, in his book Taking Control of Anxiety: Getting the Best of Worry, Stress, and Fear, suggests finding an interval each day when you are free to worry about anything that may cross your mind, so about 20 minutes you can worry about anything you want ( he also suggests writing down each of your angst on a piece of paper and using them in that interval). During the day, when you have a negative, thought try distracting yourself from that by thinking about positive things, about happy memories or by doing something else ( read, write in a journal, do a puzzle). He suggests on each negative thought you have, to write 4 positive alternative related to that.

Times are tough, and your mental sanity should be one of your top priorities. Do not avoid dealing with your emotions, start by making small steps in the direction of your emotional health and well being. Anther step that helps in dealing with anxiety and difficult situations, is simply taking deep breaths and concentrating on breathing, this way oxygen is brought up in your lungs and by concentrating on that, your body will begin to calm down as well as your mind. When facing a difficult time in your life, it is important to learn how to relax, you can do this by simply taking a 5 minutes break or by taking a walk through the park, and if you can afford, you can go on holiday and relax.

Times are tough, and your mental sanity should be one of your top priorities

Finding your career path

Be bold and make a decision, time will tell if it will be the best decision for you.

Most people know what they want to become or they have an idea. At 18 years old, you have to decide what you want to become for your rest of your life. This may be difficult for some, while for others it is an easy decision. You have to decide what university to follow… should you choose something that will provide you a secure job or something that you are passionate about. If you are lucky, something you are passionate will be also something that is a secure job that will provide for you and your future family. But if you are in the situation that you have to choose, you need to think it through multiple times and make a tough decision.

How are you going to make the decision that will mark the rest of your life? By spending some time thinking about that, by starting to make a list of pros and cons with your options. Yes, a list may help, but your gut feeling should also play a role in this decision. So, do not keep procrastinating, just start. You need at least a plan since that is only the starting point. Life without you noticing will make you alter that plan. Whatever you decide, will be the best for now since even the most decisive man cannot stand in front of life, the unpredictability of life is something man cannot stand against it.

Be bold and make a decision, time will tell if it will be the best decision for you. As someone said, whatever is meant for you, will find you across time and you will end up where you need to be. Be strong, be optimistic and calm, the universe has it own way but you have the power to help it or change it. Believe in yourself, you can do it.

I am rooting for you 🙂