April #BlurtSelfCareathon from Blurt Foundation – Join in with your selfcare?

Nourishing yourself in a way that helps you blossom in the direction you want to go is attainable, and you are worth the effort.
– Deborah Day, Author Be Happy Now

I’m really looking forward to joining with The Blurt Foundation #blurtselfcareathon in April. Selfcare is something I try to do every day.  I really enjoyed doing #blurtmerrycalmness it’s helped my #mindfulness practice, helped my #wellbeing and finding words and photos to represent each word.

It will mostly run on Instagram, but I thought I’d do some overview posts here too.

I’ve got lots of ideas of what pictures to take and what I want to write about to fit with the daily theme. I find that having a concept to think about each day, makes me think more mindfully. I do know that taking photos, being outside and being in the moment helps me enormously with my anxiety and living with chronic pain from arthritis

Background

I’ve done a couple of these photo prompts before:

• December 2017 – #blurtmerrycalmness
• January 2018 – #savouringJanuary – @gabrielletreanor – Gabrielle writes about wellbeing, slowing down and self care, being in the moment, mindfulness advice for overthinkers (like me). I really enjoyed this photo prompt too but I’ll write about this another time.

Want to get involved with #blurtselfcareathon?

I’ve been discussing the #blurtselfcareathon on a peer support group on Facebook and some people were a bit stuck about what photos to take and what to write about.
So I thought I’d write a post showing some of my photos for the December prompts. I hope you find it helpful.

My advice

1. You don’t need to post every day – there’s no pressure with this.
2. If you want to keep things more private there are closed facebook pages – or just email yourself
3. It’s your selfcare – do it your way 🙂
4. It’s can be a good idea to look back to see what you wrote – and see how far you’ve come.
5. in some ways these photos prompts are a bit like a diary/journal
6. For me taking photos are part of my self care but they don’t need to look ‘instagramable’ or ‘touched up’. It really doesn’t matter what photo you use to represent your ideas.
7. have fun with it 🙂
8. go at your pace – catch up or skip days if you want to.
9. Have a look around the hashtag

Here’s the prompts for December 2017 – #blurtmerrycalmness

Here’s some photos and what I wrote about the prompt word – I hope you find this interesting 🙂

Day 5: SLEEP I listen to relaxing music (Elbow – golden slumber) before I go to sleep; I write my ‘to do list’ and ‘achievement’ list, and moisturise too so I don’t turn into a wrinkly old crone… And hopefully, drift off to sleep – well that’s the plan 😉

Day 6: LESSONS – I learn much from my friends – sometimes it’s physical skills sometimes advice. I have many good friends at Cottonopolis WI This photo is the Christmas card I made at our craftmas (December meeting). Making Christmas cards is really great selfcare. I’m doing a papercutting picture for our next meeting in April 2018 🙂

I’ve written about the Women’s Institute many times – you can find the posts using womens-institute

• If you’re local we’re in Ancoats, in Manchester and we meet on the first Tuesday of the month – www.cottonopoliswi.com
• If you’re not so local – you can find a group on www.thewi.org.uk

Day 10: ADAPT I’ve done alot of adapting and changing in my life – and I’m not done yet. It’s OK to change your mind – it’s OK to say no – it’s OK to say yes.
This mug makes me smile – and reminds me. The cracks matter too. I’ve had this mug on my desk with pens in it for over 20 years – Biomednet was an early Internet science research magazine – long gone. I’m still here 🙂

DAY 13: BREATHE I am happiest when I’m by the sea. We live 30miles from the sea but we don’t get to the sea as often as we would like to. This is the tide table from Arnside in Cumbria.

DAY 16: ENCOURAGE my husband supports and encourages me in everything I do – he holds my hand metaphorically and physically. He’d agree with quote:

‘In the middle of every difficulty lies opportunity’ – Albert Einstein

I’m the same, encouraging and supporting him – in everything he does. Cheering from the sidelines when he’s running. My friends encourage and support me too. I try always to #bekind. I’ve written a few times about kindness.

DAY 18: BLANKET I’ve always got blankets on my sofa, on the bed, even in the car as I’m always chilly, much to my husband’s amusement. This aqua blanket and tree tea light holder were a wedding present from longtime friends. There’s also blanket stitch on the heart I made. My sewing projects are always small so that I can finish them, so there are less half finished projects lying around the place making me feel guilty.

DAY 21: PLAY Sometimes in life you’re outnumbered, but the force is with you (and #Yoda has your back). I bought the Lego Advent Calendar. My brother and I loved #StarWars and we played alot of lego in the 1970s. Remembering him today, and every day.

DAY 23: JOY holding hands 🙂 My husband holds my hand when I’m anxious, even if he’s miles away. It’s the little things…that are the big things 🙂 This photo is from the day we got engaged at Bodnant Garden in North Wales, in the rose garden. More about Bodnant and our wonderful, blissful engagement day.

• Our engagement at Bodnant (16 June 2016)
• Bodnant Gardens – National Trust

DAY 24: SOOTHE Music soothes me; songs can evoke a time in my life, but photos of music is tricky, so this beautiful lamp sits by our Bluetooth speaker:- A wonderful wedding present

DAY 28: FUN I’m happiest when I’m outside walking. This is the start of a local walk (aka Worsley Loop Lines). #worsleywoodsparkrun starts here too. At least one hour outside helps my mental health enormously. It’s part of the regular walk we take to Worsley.

• In a Vase on New Year’s Day – dogs, woods and walks

DAY 29: NATURE glorious walk on West Wittering Beach. Very windy, but peaceful and just as I remembered it. My brother and I went there often as kids. At least #onehouroutside helps my wellbeing, especially if the sun is shining, and we’re by the sea. I miss, and think about, my brother every day.

DAY 31: MOMENT 2017 was the worst of times (my awesome brother died) and the best of times (I married the love of my life) for both reasons I’ll never be the same again. Things change in a moment so CarpeDiem. In 2018 I’m hoping for the best of times – along with health and happiness.

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Thank you to The Blurt Foundation for all they do to help people like me – I’d have been a mess if I hadn’t found them. I’ve written about them a few times on the blog.

• In A Vase on Monday – old rose, new year plans…CompassYear
• In a Vase on Monday – good enough when not ‘in the pink’
• In a Vase on Monday -(journaling) old favourites and new memories

And the Sparklers at Spark Peer Support www.sparksupport.co.uk – I’ve been involved for the last few years.

My journey continues with more adventures in 2018 🙂 here’s to health and happiness in 2018. Three months into the year, it’s going well. I’m feeling much better, more energy and many plans for the future with My Chap, my family and friends.

Happy Easter everyone and don’t fall for any April fool jokes today. Selfcare is definitely not a joke.

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Follow me and join in on Instagram: @becinmonton
Follow me and join in on Twitter: @becinmonton

Follow Blurt Foundation on Instagram @theblurtfoundation
Follow the Instagram hashtag – #blurtselfcareathon

Follow Blurt Foundation on Twitter @BlurtAlerts

More resources and help for depression and anxiety at www.blurtitout.org

The Blurt Foundation’s CEO Jayne Hardy knows so much about self-care, she wrote a book about it :-). It’s available from bookshops Self Care Project

Follow Jayne on Instagram @jaynehardy_ and twitter @JayneHardy_

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Come back later on today to see what I posted for 1st April ’10 things about me’
Are you joining in? Let me know in the comments

Carpe Diem

love Bec xxx xxx xxx