Month: October 2024

The right people hear you differently

~ Fridgesays ~ Leave a comment

Quote Anon

Recently I was in a yoga class and at the start my teacher was explaining how she was enjoying Instagram, that much like a garden she had cultivated AI to make her feed wholesome and positive. It made me reflect on my own social media and I agreed that I didn’t often see any negative comments online any longer and that my feed was full of my personal enjoyments – things like baking or yoga, positive quotes, book recommendations etc that fill my cup up.

Online I don’t follow thousands of people but there are about ten to fifteen people that I regularly see and enjoy there content. I even have a handful of people that I’ve followed for so long, they feel like friends. We share content and tag each other and I’m pretty sure if they lived local I would enjoy there company. One of them is called Hannah, she’s a mother to about a thousand children (well, more than two) and a million chickens (this I might not be exaggerating), she has enjoyments and similar nature based loves that resonate with me. Randomly, I also follow her husband? A similarly hairy dude to my other half. Anyway, this week Hannah posted a bread roll bake that she had made…they looked incredible. She then kindly and without me asking, sent me a link to the recipe.

I gave the rolls a go and oh my! The joy level was amazing. They came out super fluffy and light.

I baked them on Friday evening at stupid o’clock (gone are the days of clubbing and drinking) I was sipping green tea and watching piles of dough expand. Saturday morning we devoured three with bacon. Yesterday evening three more were consumed as I made homemade chicken burgers in breadcrumbs with mozzarella, lettuce, mayo. Two are requested for tomorrow’s packed lunches.

The process of making them was satisfying and I’ll be making them again, but joy was also found in private messaging Hannah with the process and celebrating my success…seriously baking break always makes me feel proud and if it doesn’t go well, I enjoy unpicking and perfecting the process.

Social media often gets a bad press and for many valid reasons, but in the spirit of keeping things positive I hope this post reminds you that you can cultivate a mini online world of things you enjoy. You also, might be blessed to make connections with people that geographically you could never call friends and would never have the joy of meeting but they still enhance your world. So let’s raise our cups of tea, to all the lovely humans that the internet helps us to connect us with. Hannah is @bloomsandhens and she recently got a puppy! My online bestie is Lincoln’s goddess to a sunset photo @sammanfa1 and @backtobrickbungalow who is building a amazing home for her daughter Rosie called ‘Muriel’s place’ and I love it for her real content and DIY drama…no posh aesthetic here, just a woman crushed by life (frigging men) and the dream of a place to call home. I’ve also realised that these three women are all living up north? So if like me you’re as southern in the UK as possible and need a splash of northern joy to your life – give them a follow.

Head up twinkle

~ Fridgesays ~ Leave a comment

Quote from Fridgesays

Sometimes I don’t feel like writing. It could be because the week has been busy, I’m tired or I’m just lacking a clear vision of what to write about.

It’s in these moments, I have learnt that success is a step away. As a result, I usually make myself write something or I take a half written post and complete it. Why? The world won’t stop turning if I don’t write each week but my mental health won’t be as sparkly, my satisfaction level won’t be as joyful and honestly, it’s often the posts I don’t feel like writing but do anyway, that attract the most readers.

The attitude of resilience and keeping going when things feel hard, the art of consistency is a dying one in 2024. Giving up is easy when other options are abundant but pursuing the unattainable is hard, but as previously mentioned often when success lays.

I shared this with a friend recently and she said it was the same for her when she went for a run, the wet and soggy, cold and muddy days where staying in bed for an extra quarter of an hour and not going to run are often her best runs. Not only the satisfaction of doing something hard that will enhance oxytocin into our bloodstream but also create new learnt pathways to our resilient threshold will allow us to learn from previous ‘I can’t be bothered’ situations and lean in to the experience rather than hide under the duvet.

That said, it’s also important to distinguish within ourselves the difference between not doing something because we don’t fancy it and not doing it for a valid reason – such as our health or wellbeing. There have been times where I’ve needed to rest due to exhaustion or being run down with a virus, to make myself write or my friend to go for a run in poor health would only lead to further illness and negative outcomes. Whilst most readers make think this is obvious, in a toxic positive culture it’s important to remind ourselves that our boundaries are crucial to keeping us safe and ‘out working’ the person next to you often leads to depression and feeling inadequate than living our best lives.

And just like that, I’ve written a post about not wanting to write. I hope that this week a task that may feel heavy becomes lighter because of this post. What I can guarantee is that you’ll see the benefits of continuing and improving, that you’ll strengthen your neuron pathways for future growth.

A lack of boundaries invites a lack of respect

~ Fridgesays ~ Leave a comment

Quote Anon

I was just doing an evening session of yoga and I had a revelation.

In primary school there was a yellow line prohibiting you from touching anything fun…things like brick corners, areas where cars might be, a crazy paving concrete slope ( it was the late eighties) and it taught me something that literally until ten minutes a go I had never thought about. It taught me that boundaries were to be broken. I should probably tell you that I was a good girl but that at least once a week I’d slide my Mary Jane patent shoes across the line in act of rebellion…obviously never getting caught and in retrospect of my good girl nature we are talking millimetres not empowering jumps of anarchy. It never occurred to me that boundaries and the yellow line of forbidden treading was to actually keep me safe?

My competitive bones have never really developed but as I rolled into my twenties I did develop an inner competitiveness within myself. ‘No’ is a word I choose not to have in my vocabulary, again recognising it as an unhelpful verbal yellow line of doom. The only child in me often plays games in my head where I beat other people, complete tasks in set time frames and obviously secretly plot to over throw anyone that should ever imply I can’t do something…again I’d never thought that these words were to keep me safe?

…I’m now wondering how I’ve actually made it this far without serious injury?

With this new knowledge in mind, I invite you to think about your adult perception of boundaries, are they purely a hurdle to jump, a task to complete or unlike me something to run from? I then invite you to find balance within the word boundary…it’s already got a few of the letters so you’re half way there. Do you need a revelation like I just had and need to step closer to the concept of safety or perhaps you are bubble wrapped in the playground lines of your childhood and need to be freed from them. Either way, like most aspects in life boundaries need to be established for your own wellbeing – tell those you’re in a relationship with what you will and won’t stand for, remind your manager (in appropriate tone) what you are paid and not paid to do…and also relax within those safety perimeters…seriously who would of thought a playground rule could have such a lasting effect on the mind?