Home / Poetry and Posts / Tagged: strength

Covid19 - A Time to Remember

 


Now is a better time than any to remember. Remember what life was like before Covid 19… remember the beauty of the simple things in life… remember that people mean much more than things ever will… 

Remembering is a powerful tool. It’s one which we tend to forget! I used to focus on moving forward through life… afraid that if I stopped to reflect, I’d miss something. As I get older, I take joy in remembering. Even the painful memories bring joy. There’s love behind them.  

Life as we know it has been stopped in our tracks. We’ve been afforded the opportunity to slow down. We’ve been allowed to recalibrate. We’ve been provided with the ever-elusive chance to spend time with those we love most. We’ve been given the chance to make memories that we never would have before. 

We’re all trying to make it out of this awful pandemic alive and well. We’ve all got loved ones whom we’re cocooning away… guarding them with our lives. It’s our pleasure and our duty as we remember that they paved the way for us. 

JustHappyTears finds itself in the midst of a sea of remembrance as people struggle with a new normal… people are losing their loved ones in the midst of isolation… funeral gatherings are a thing of the past. Therefore at JustHappyTears we now find ourselves commemorating more and more lives through our poetry gifts as a means of celebrating loved ones who have been lost to Covid 19. It is indeed a sobering task. 

As we sit and ponder our remembrance creations, it makes us remember… who we are, where we’ve come from, what we’ve learned along the way. It inspires gratitude within me for being alive and well, for being able to help cocoon those who need it most and to protect them. Gratitude for the health workers all over the world who are endangering their lives on a daily basis to save the rest of us. To be that selfless is awe-inspiring. 

Many years from now we’ll all look back on this pandemic. We’ll have created our own narratives about what it all meant, how our time was spent, what our mindset was. Some will be forced to remember it as a time of great sorrow, when loved ones were lost and grief was thrust heavily upon them. Others will remember it as a time where families came together, relationships flourished and communities reconnected. Remember it how you will, there’s no right or wrong way but please embrace one truth. You’re in control of the memories you create… let there be love behind them all at this tricky time x

Winter is Coming... #findyourhappy

Winter is Coming... #findyourhappy
Summer is over. We’re facing into deep, dark winter nights… winter is coming!
I struggle with this time of year. I struggle with the change in seasons, the change in weather… but mostly I struggle with the change in my emotions. As a naturally anxious person, this time of year is when I’m at my worst but with a little work on my self-awareness I’m hoping to change that.

The summer brings me peace. It brings me freedom. It brings me a sort of a ‘take the foot off the peddle’ approach to life that I find energizing and exciting… it suits me! I’m relaxed, I’m mostly content and the summer sun breathes heat, life and passion into me that I stock up on to get me through winter. 

As soon as we hit September, the dread hits me… Slowly the anxiety creeps in…It’s the Sunday night ‘fear’ amplified to a deafening measure! On the outside, I’m cool, calm and collected. On the inside, I’m screaming! Everyone’s kids are back at school… this signals time to get back to real life. I’m overwhelmed by expectations…  Unrealistic expectations that I place upon myself in every aspect of my life… targets in life, in my career, family goals… the lists start building.

As a sufferer of Stage 4 Endometriosis, the soothing feeling of the summer sun on your body is lost with the cold of winter. Yes, it’s nice to be able to wrap up on the sofa with a heating pad or hot water bottle with the snow falling outside but those cold gray mornings could never compare with heading out to see a summer sunset on the beach. I almost feel a loss at this time of the year and spend the next six months yearning for temperatures to rise again and spring to arrive.

Well not this year… At Just Happy Tears, we’re working on ‘FINDING YOUR HAPPY’ and we want to help you find yours too. In our ‘Find your Happy’ blog series over the next few months we’d like to share the reasons behind this journey, the trials we face as we travel this road and the little victories that we encounter along the way.

This summer I (along with other members of the Just Happy Tears team) started practising yoga and meditation. In a few short months, it has completely changed my outlook on life. It’s changed how I act and how I think… it’s also very slightly changed my waistline!!

After a tough year in many ways, I need something to help me focus, to regroup and to FIND MY HAPPY again. Summer just wasn’t enough this year. And for the first time in a really long time with just a couple of lifestyle tweaks here and there I’m feeling more confident than I ever have before that I can transition into Autumn with a smile on my face and in my mind. 

There are a few places from which I always seek some inspiration, motivation and advice and without these little daily helpers I think I'd struggle a little more to acknowledge how important self-care is. Nikki Bradley at the Motivation factory, Gavin at Meenan Fitness & Roz Purcell (Natural Born Feeder) are three seriously inspirational people and either of these three offer a great place to start when thinking about a reset. They're straight-talking and authentic. For any endometriosis sufferers out there, you are not alone and @endostrong & @theendoproject are great places to visit for advice and solidarity as you struggle through the symptoms. It's a lonely road but a well travelled one, and a journey is always better with company. 

Check out our  @justhappytearsgifts instagram feed for more influencers who we think are amazingly inspirational.

More on this soon as we continue the ‘FIND YOUR HAPPY’ journey! We hope you’ll join us!

Facebook: @JustHappyTears
Twitter: @JustHappyTears
Linkedin: @JustHappyTears


Happy International Nurses' Day

Happy International Nurses' Day

graduation gifts

 

On International Nurses' Day we'd like to take a minute to appreciate the amazing work they do all over the world. 

Here's a recent Just Happy Tears graduation gift, sent to one of those superheroes. As a society we'd be lost without you. Thank you x