2018 Outro.

This was a year full of challenges, lots of joy with sprinkles of anxiety attacks because what would life be without a few breakdowns? Overall a good balanced year and I had lots of important conversations with myself about myself. I've learned to not force myself to do things I don't want to do because they're expected of me, learned to stand my ground a bit more and be OK with my sudden bursts of anger which I have worked on suppressing for many years. I've let myself be myself much more, good and bad, and prioritize the people I love while still allowing myself to disappear when I need a break.

Creatively this year has been awesome!
I've decided to just not care anymore about societies ridiculous beauty standards, I have embraced my occasional pimples, facial hair, wrinkles that have started to make their appearance, even my dark circles under my eyes (which I intend on getting fillers for in a few years but for now I'm letting them be). I find it so exhausting and terribly boring seeing all these people face tuning and trying to be living dolls without any "flaws" (or humanity). I have also realized just how much I love make-up, I have always liked it but now I truly believe that it's what I want to do for the rest of my life as well as photography. While I don't ever want to lock myself into a specific genre as I love too many different styles, as my "Best nine of 2018" proved on Instagram, I don't stress about being too plain or not living up to peoples expectations. Following the changes Instagram made earlier this year with the algorithm I feel even less inclined to please others and want to reach a point where I only do things that speak to me, for me. I feel very fortunate to have made so many wonderful friends on such a diverse platform who all inspire me to keep growing and who have been encouraging me to keep up with my not so traditional Instagram beauty feed.

In short.
I'm happy and excited for the future.
I've started setting up my bullet journal which I absolutely loved and am so happy I discovered this year. Definitely helped me keep my anxiety at bay.

And to end this "outro" I hope you feel inspired to better look after yourself by perhaps having more talks with yourself and do more of what you love in the new year, for you and less pleasing of others.

Have a peaceful end to the year and wishing you all a stronger and more confident 2019.

Self love and personal growth: Learning to not guilt myself and taking my own advice.

Lately something has started to click in me.

I've become very aware of my patterns of neglect and have begun to give myself a breather if I don't feel like doing whatever I wrote on my to-do list in the morning.
I'm allowing myself to do what I want in the moment without making myself feel bad. I just promise myself to get back to it when I have a better plan.

This has helped me so much with my anxiety, I can actually enjoy my days and focus on a few chores without feeling sick to my stomach for not mopping or cleaning the windows or whatever task that seems ridiculous to stress about in retrospective. I can just chill. This is so new to me... And I never saw how damaging my old ways were until now.

I'm working hard on being my own sound board.
Trying to give myself advice I'd give to someone I care about, which as stupid as it sounds, I wasn't.
I think we've all been there, telling a loved one not to be too hard on themselves, that things will be fine, just relax, take some time to reflect etc. But we never take our own advice, at least not until very recently.