Weekly-Wrap Up

It's time yet again for the next installment of your Weekly Wrap-Up! This week I've scoured some fab reads for you to enjoy/contemplate/procrastinate over including a look at all the makeup hits and misses from this years prestigious Met Ball Gala as well as some new Internet sensations doing the rounds on YouTube mixed in with a couple of fascinating stories to marvel over. Pop that kettle on Damsel, and enjoy!

- I adore good old-fashioned tea parties. Try out these beautiful flower tea recipes as an accompaniment to your next party! http://teabeyond.blogspot.com.au/2012/02/tea-101-how-to-brew-blooming-tea-flower.html

-Sampling services have become all the rage lately, allowing you to sample products from high-end brands at the low-end of the price tag! http://www.allure.com/beauty-products/2012/beauty-sample-services#intro

-Word of caution! Do not open this page if you are on a diet! http://dzineblog.com/2011/02/36-best-cupcake-designs.html

-A friend of mine performed a tarot card reading for me the other week, and I must say i was impressed. Try it! Even if its just for fun! http://psychicandastrology.psychicguild.com/2011/03/07/tarot/the-art-of-tarot-reading/

-This clever young chap sent a very original cover letter to Wall Street which saw him landing a job the following day. http://au.businessinsider.com/student-sends-great-cover-letter-for-internship-at-bank-and-its-now-going-viral-on-wall-street-2013-1

-It was Punk Pride at this years Met Ball. Here is a selection of some of the fabbo beauty and hair looks from the night! http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/07/met-gala-beauty-2013_n_3224175.html which look is your fave?

-Europeans dress better than Americans. Do you agree? http://www.bangsandabun.com/2010/03/europeans-dress-better-than-americans-fact/

-Feeling crafty? These cute egg cozy's are super adorable and will keep your egg nice and 'boiled' during these cooler months! http://crochet.about.com/od/cozies/tp/free-crochet-egg-cozy-patterns.htm

-Wonder what it means when your crush shuffles his feet while hes talking to you? These body language reading tips will help you to decode his 'shifty' behavior! http://www.cosmopolitan.com/sex-love/body-language/#category1-1

-Ever wanted to see what it looks like inside the walls of Buckingham Palace? Thanks to this 360 degree virtual tour, you now can! http://www.royal.gov.uk/virtualtours/BuckinghamPalaceVirtualTour/throne_room.html

-Why nobody likes the "Facebook You" http://www.themastermindproject.com/why-nobody-likes-facebook-you/

-Ever wonder why pirates wore eye patches? http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/04/09/why-did-pirates-wear-eye-patches.html

-It's Mothers Day today, and I came across a gorgeous selection of black and white portraits of models and their mothers. Good looks must definitely run in the genes! http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/02/24/magazine/look-models-mothers.html?_r=0

-If you are anything like me and hate looking at yourself in photos, this post will help shed some light on why some people just aren't, well.. photogenic. http://slowmama.com/randommusings/on-not-being-photogenic-and-friday-links/

Well, look out Sweet Brown! Charles Ramsay, who helped rescue three women in the Cleveland 10-year kidnapping hiatus has become an Internet sensation with the remix of his interview going viral.

 

Spoken Word tells you why you should never let an exam result decide your fate

“People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

― Abraham Lincoln

Get The Rut Out Of There!

We've all found ourselves stuck in a proverbial rut at one point or another. You might be knee-deep in one now. It's a horrible feeling, and what's really frustrating about it is that it usually occurs when everything in your life is going well. It's always when your comfortable with how things are that you find yourself in a groove that you've unknowingly dug yourself. You're no longer excited about anything anymore. You have no energy. Someone seems to have put out the flame of desire that once burnt strongly inside of you. And worst of all you can't really put a finger on what exactly is causing you so much 'blah-ness' towards living. Today i woke up feeling down. Not depressed, but not happy either; somewhere in between. I like to apply the word 'meh' to this kind of weird limbo-state of feeling. I woke up 'meh' today and I didn't know why. Everything is moving along in my life - granted, not as quickly as I'd like but moving nonetheless - my family are all happy and well, my friends are a constant source of support and happiness.. but somehow I just wasn't feeling it. I felt like a drifting cloud. just floating around  in every day life waiting to bump into something interesting. Fixing my hair in the mirror just brought me down even more. I looked like a walking zombie. No pizazz left in my eyes, even my hair failed to cooperate into going up into a 'high' ponytail. Yes, I felt meh. and this meh-ness was choking me like a black cloud.  See, life isn't exciting anymore. I've done all that was to be done. The past four years I had been working towards accomplishing my diploma and now Ive accomplished it. I've applied for countless jobs and have gotten promising feedback from at least a couple with a chance of securing one. Still, it feels as if I'm stuck. Limbo-town is a place I know quite well, and its a place where I'd rather not stay for too long. Thing is its hard to get away from there. You have to rely on the next bus to come and collect you but unfortunately the buses don't run on a set-schedule, they come and go as they please so you're never quite sure when your next bus will come. Limbo-town sucks. And its boring. and the people there smell funny. I need to get out of there, and pronto! There is an express train that comes more frequently, but the catch is in order for you to be able to board you must have found your inner sparkle. And such a thing is very hard to find in Limbo-town. What is inner-sparkle, and what does it look like? Inner sparkle is that firing pizazz of spark deep inside your gut that fires you up and spurs you on when found in said-rut. But you have to summon it up in order for it to work. How? By finding something - a goal, a dream, an inspiration - to fuel its fire. You must ignite your inner sparkle and propel yourself out of this Limbo-Town rut, Damsel!

Don't just sit there! Go out and do something - anything! Whether that be visiting your local florist and buying a colorful bunch of flowers for your room, painting your nails a whacky color, or applying to volunteer at your local food shelter.

Jump-start that inner sparkle by hitting the gym! Exercise helps us to regain control of our lives and keeps our bodies and minds moving.

Remember back to when you were a kid. Remember that "When I grow up i want to be.." routine? Try it now. What do you really want to be and do? A doctor? go online and search for relevant courses in your area, or visit your local university campus, volunteer at your local hospital. Always wanted to write? Get out a notepad and pen and commit to writing something for the next fifteen minutes.

Listen to uplifting, soul-shaking, motivating music! Crank it up and let the beat move through you and awaken that inner-drive to go out and grab life by the horns!

Switch up your routine! Change the alarm tone on your clock to something up-beat and funny, take a bath instead of a shower, travel a different route home, always hit the gym in the evenings? go first thing in the morning. Drive to school or work? walk or ride your bike or catch public transport. Always listen to that pop CD? chuck in some heavy metal or punk.

Meditate! For the next 10 minutes sit or lie down, eyes closed, and focus on your breathing. Picture in your mind all the things which makes you happy and all the things you are grateful for. Then play make-believe! Get that imagination running. Picture yourself in your "happy place" (we all have one!) and I promise that when you sit back up you will feel more energized and motivated!

The Confidence Bootcamp

Image: http://fabulousmag.co.uk/tag/make-over/

Let me tell you one thing about confidence. Growing up, I never had it. I was tall and awkward, painfully shy, and a little bit of a nerd. I got teased a lot. I didn't have many friends because I was too scared to talk to people. I couldn't even look my teachers in the eye at school. I dreaded having to buy something from the school kiosk. I spent every P.E lesson hiding out in the toilets or at the sick-bay. And I can't begin to tell you the amount of times I faked 'being sick' as to get out of situations that would be out of my comfort zone. Then, one day my year 7 principle offered me some words of advice. "Confidence is like exercise. The more you practice at it, the more you train, the more you will get better at it and eventually it will become second nature to you." From that point on, I began treating my loss of self-confidence the way one does to treat puppy fat; I exercised and trained hard until I became strong at it. Think of your brain as a muscle. The more you feed it with positive thoughts and affirmations the more confident you will become. "Confidence is like a muscle," explains Michelle Landy, the author of The Confidence Workout. "We need to use it to keep us strong." And just like you would in preparing for a marathon, you have to begin by starting small and building up.

Every marathon or slug-sesh at the gym is started off with a warm-up first. Warm-ups help us to prepare our minds and equips our body for the work-out ahead. It is during your warm-up where you decide what you want to achieve or get out from your work out. So in the case of warming-up your self-confidence, it is essential you begin by 'stretching' through committing to do small challenges everyday. Be it smiling at every person you walk past on the way to work, or complimenting a stranger on their shoes. Confidence begins as a result of small, manageable actions. "The key to building real confidence is to always keep stretching your comfort zone" explains Jordan Bates, author of website Refine The Mind. By stretching our comfort zones little by little, we are essentially conditioning our bodies to be able to handle bigger challenges or resistances. Start this warm-up today by writing on a list five things that you love about yourself. That may be your ability to use humor in awkward situations, or your mad pottery skills, or your ability to parallel park. Anything that makes you feel good about yourself - hobby or quirk - write it down.
This practice helps us to recognize our positive attributes and the things that makes us feel great. It trains our mind to focus on and look for the good in us therefore limiting self-doubt. Now look through your list. Doesn't that person sound incredibly awesome? Who wouldn't love you!

The next step in our boot camp is the star-jump. Still fairly low-impact yet powerful in getting that inner-power flowing. Write down every person; be it actor/actress/model/politician/scientist/or person in your life such as your best friend, mother, father, etc. who you admire the most. Next write down the top attribute they possess of which you would also like to possess. Is it their ability to keep a conversation flowing? The way they dress? How they are able to command attention and respect from anyone they meet? their awesome organizational skills? The way they don't care of what others think of them? You get the drill. Write it down. Now its time for a bit of meditation. I want you to pull out your metaphorical yoga mat and close your eyes and imagine yourself possessing these same qualities. How would you talk, act, walk if you had this quality? This act of visualization helps us to see the person we want to be and causes our sub-conscious mind to tell you conscious mind to act appropriately. Want to be more approachable to people? Visualize yourself as a happy, smiling, approachable person. Want that CEO position? Visualize yourself sitting at the that desk. Want that dream house? Visualize yourself as already living in it. The mind thinks in pictures. If you feed it negative images you will only attracts negative things. But feed it images of things you want, and it will manifest in your everyday life. What you see is what you'll be. Remember that.

Now the hard-yards. We are gonna amp up this workout by doing some heavy-lifting. You've already listed all your awesome qualities, and you've already imagined yourself as a confident and happy go-getter, but its one thing to sit and imagine then it is to actually go out and practice these skills on the running track of everyday life. I want you to pick one thing from your list that you want to work on. If you've chosen say 'To not care what others think' then I want you to start off by wearing an item of clothing you love, but have always been too afraid to try on because of what others might think of it. That old lady at the office who always gives you the hairy eyeball when you walk past her? I want you to smile and say "how are you today?" or even a simple cheerful "hello!" would suffice. Even just a smile. Start off small, and work up. Challenge yourself every day by doing at least one thing that's out of your normal comfort zone. "They don't have to be big, life-changing events; small things that keep you in touch with the edge of your comfort zone will do." says Landy. The more you train, the stronger your self-confidence will become. And like any work-out, you always feel ten times better after you've done it.









Visit Michelle Landy's blog here http://michellelandy.com/blog/