You have gifts & talents. How are you using them?

Each and every person on this planet has gifts and talents that are unique. You might be a naturally gifted athlete. You might have a musical talent. You might have a gift for making people feel special. You might have a smile that instantly lights up a room. You might be able to make a really good cuppa. You might be a gifted communicator. You might be a talented scientist finding the cure to cancer. You might bring joy to people through dance. You might be really good with a hoover (something I pride myself on ;)). These are just a few gifts and talents that you might have - there are millions more out there. So take out a pen and paper (or your notes app if you're more digitally inclined) and make a list of at least 5 of your own gifts and talents. Go on. Do it. And don't be shy, we all have things that we're good at and I won't make you show your lists to anyone else, so you can be honest with yourself here.

Have you got your list? Good, you can carry on reading. (If not, go on, make that list - I dare you!). Read over your list. That's a nice little list you have there. You're a pretty awesome human being. Give yourself a nice little hug for your gifts and talents. It's more than okay to be proud of yourself and we all need to acknowledge our good points from time-to-time.

Read over your list one more time with a question in mind: how am I using my gifts and talents? If you're a naturally gifted athlete and you haven't put your trainers on in over a year then think about this. If you're musically talented but your guitar is collecting dust then something is up. If you have a gift for making people feel special but have spent the whole week in your living room watching catchup TV then something is wrong. You get the picture. If you're not using your gifts and talents then my first piece of advice for you is to change that. You have been blessed with these gifts and talents for a reason and your first duty in life is to use them to bring yourself pleasure.

But don't stop there. If you are already using your gifts and talents to bring yourself pleasure, then read over your list again and ask yourself: how am I using my gifts and talents to help others? If you're a gifted athlete but you're just going on that daily run to keep yourself fit then what's the point? If you're a talented musician but you keep your music to yourself then why bother? If you have a talent for hoovering but you only hoover your own bedroom then what good is that doing? Hopefully you get my point. Run to train for a race and raise money for a good cause. Play music in a public place to bring people joy. Help your housemates out by offering to hoover the whole house. Use your talents to bring hope and joy to others.

Use your gifts & talents to spread the love! 

I want to develop this point by celebrating some of my inspirational friends who are using their gifts and talents in extraordinary ways. I am blessed to know a whole bunch of people who use their gifts and talents to really make a difference to the lives of other people, often with little or no rewards. But they do it out of love, compassion and hope, and this is what we should use our gifts and talents to express. So as you read through this little list of inspirational people I am honoured to know, I encourage you to think about how you can use your gifts and talents to serve the world, after all, what's the fun in keeping them to ourselves?

• Vicky Ferguson who uses her gift of overwhelming love and inspirational personality to support the street children of Mombasa through her project Glad's House. 
• All of the team and volunteers at Street Child United - especially Joe, Jo, Karin, Jess, Alex, John, Elisa, and Ruth - who use their amazing array of communications talents, organisational gifts, and huge hearts to work day-in-day-out to ensure that street children are provided with a global platform to be seen and heard. 

Street Child United volunteers in Rio de Janeiro, April 2014

• Garth & Gill Hewitt who have used their talents of music and their gift of love to create support for various causes in Palestine, Nicaragua, and South Africa (to name a few) - you two are inspirational!
• My Mum who has used her gift of looking after children to volunteer for various toddler groups and Sunday schools over the years.
• All of the project leaders related to Street Child United who use their gifts and talents relentlessly and with unconditional love to help street children within their respective communities. You are all incredible.
• Tom Hewitt who has used his talent for surfing to create the inspirational Surfers Not Street Children project in Durban, South Africa. 
• Clarity Coddington who uses her creative talents to consistently inspire children in schools and on the streets from London to Rio de Janeiro. 
• Laura Youngson who uses her gift for science to support The Lightyear Foundation and her talent for enthusing others by making them feel like they can always contribute.
• Chloe Szakacs who is a gifted yoga teacher and is using her talent to provide free weekly yoga lessons for the homeless in her hometown in Canada. 

Chloe who is using her gift for yoga to inspire the homeless. Image source: http://tinyurl.com/nnvgnao

This list is by no means comprehensive of all the inspirational people I know, and how gifts and talents can be used to make the world a better place. But I wanted to share just a few examples with you to show how you can use your gifts and talents to not only bring happiness and hope to yourself, but also to others. Happiness and hope are not meant to be kept to ourselves, they are meant to be shared, and what better way of sharing it than using your gifts and talents to create it?

No matter how big or small your gifts and talents might seem to you, you never quite know how just by using them with love you'll be able to make a difference.

So I challenge you to look at your list one last time. Appreciate the gifts and talents that you've written down. The world needs you to use them. It is your responsibility to think about how you can use them to bring happiness, joy and hope to others. Know what you have to do? Go and do it. 

Namaste y'all!

Love Lucy x

Are you happy? If not, whatcha gonna do about it?

I'm sure I'm not the only human being in the world who regularly asks themselves the question: am I happy? Asking this question is a way of checking in with ourselves, and is essential in helping us to maintain a positive mind-frame. It's a question we all deserve to answer "yes" to, at least most of the time. So, ask yourself: am I happy?

What even is happiness anyway? According to the Oxford Dictionary to be happy is "feeling or showing pleasure or contentment", "having a sense of trust and confidence", and "being satisfied with the quality and standard". With this in mind, let's deepen our questioning, ask yourself the following three questions:

1. Do I experience and express pleasure regularly in my day-to-day life?
2. Do I have confidence in myself and those I surround myself with?
3. Am I satisfied with my quality of life?

Once you've asked yourself these three questions, I am almost certain that you'll have a better gauge on your current state of happiness. In all honesty you probably don't need these extra questions to know whether you're truly happy or not; if you're candid with yourself you'll already know in your gut, but these questions can be useful in understanding either why we are happy or unhappy and which area of our happiness may be lacking.

In my experience, if just one of these three areas is off balance then your overall happiness will suffer. And trust me, I've learnt this lesson the hard way. I spent years of my teenage life and early-twenties stuck somewhere between mildly unhappy and deeply sad. Some of the responsibility for this can most definitely be placed on hormones and my susceptibility to depression and anxiety, however I believe that it was also because I wasn't questioning my state of happiness; I was simply accepting it as something that I couldn't change. Or perhaps I didn't want to change it, after all maintaining happiness is hard work and many of us are scared to allow ourselves to actually be happy.

But I reached breaking point. I was coming up to twenty-four and I decided that I didn't want to spend another moment being unhappy. For me the realisation of arriving at this moment was a long journey; on reflection I think it's a journey that began because of yoga practice. Yoga allowed me to have the head space to look inwardly at my true self for just a few hours a week, and over a period of about two-and-a-half years I realised that a) I was not happy b) I deserved to be happy c) I could be happy and d) I was in charge of my own happiness. As a result of this over the last year I have made my happiness my mission, and boy does it feel amazing!

I started by asking myself the three questions.

1. Did I experience and express pleasure regularly in my day-to-day life? No. I did not. I was scraping through life, accepting circumstances that were not bringing me pleasure, and not appreciating things that could.

2. Did I have confidence in myself and those I surrounded myself with? No. Self-confidence is something I've always struggled with and due to various reasons I found it hard to have confidence in those I had made closest to me.

3. Was I satisfied with my quality of life? No. I wasn't being true to myself, I wasn't doing what I should have been doing with my life, and I wasn't living where I should have been.

I then had to do something about it. It has not been easy. I've had to make some serious and tough decisions, I've had to make big lifestyle changes, and I've had to take a long hard look into the mirror to give myself a bloody good talking to! But it is possible. You are not stuck. You are not your state of mind. You have the power to be happy.

I imagine that for many people the answers to at least one of these three questions will be similar to my answers from this time last year, and that is perfectly normal, but the actions you need to take will not necessarily be the same.

But what did I do?

1. I gave myself a massive virtual shake and made myself acknowledge everything in my life that I could get pleasure from. I've always exercised regularly, but I made myself exercise with awareness and with gratitude as to what my body was allowing me to do. I took more notice of what I was eating and began to have fun with trying and making new healthy recipes. I spent as much time as I could in the outdoors, taking simple pleasures from the natural world and exploring London city by foot.

2. I then gave myself a stern talking to. I tried to focus on my positive attributes, and would tell myself that any negative thoughts were not permanent, not true, and I could acknowledge them but I did not have to accept them. I made big decisions as to who I surrounded myself with and focused on my amazing family and friends, and began to really appreciate the pleasure and support they gave me.

3. I moved back home to live with my family. I made a big decision to give up a "proper job" to train to be a yoga teacher and to follow my heart. And ultimately, although it may seem like I've moved back a few steps, this has been the best thing for me and I can now see a clearer happier path ahead.

As I've mentioned, the actions you'll need to take will not be the same as mine. You are unique, and your journey is your own. But I hope that by sharing my experience you will be reassured that you deserve happiness and that you are in control of your own happiness. You and no one else. Yes, that can be a little terrifying, but it's also amazingly encouraging and inspiring.

There will be external factors in life that will dictate your happiness to a certain degree, but it is your responsibility to find your inner happiness, and once you've mastered that I can almost guarantee that you will find the uncertainties in life will test you but they will not break you.

So I encourage you: look at your state of happiness, if you're happy that's great - well done you, keep it up! - but if you're not, then choose to do something about it. What is blocking your happiness? What can you do about it? What are you going to do about it? And then do it! It won't happen over night, and it's more than likely that you'll have to take baby steps to get there, but work at it and it will happen. And if you're already happy, or when you arrive at your happiness, do everything you can to maintain it. Happiness is something that you really have to work at, so once you've got it pour your heart into it. Spend your time doing things that contribute towards your happiness, be with people who make you happy and who in turn you make happy, and keep working on your true self and your purpose in life.

For me the most amazing lesson I've learnt from all this is that if you are happy and if you uninhibitedly express that happiness then the people around you will respond with even more happiness and your whole bubble will become a generally happier place! Don't believe me? I dare you to give it a go!

If you have any questions about happiness, life, yoga, anything (!) please leave me a comment below or send an email to lucyvicjackson@gmail.com and I'll be more than happy to have a chat.

So go, find your happiness! Time is precious. What are you waiting?

Love Lucy x

What to do when you're feeling blue

Psychologists largely agree that there are six basic human emotions: anger, fear, disgust, surprise, happiness and sadness. It is our ability to feel these emotions, to recognise these emotions, and to handle these emotions that makes us truly human. Truly beautifully human. Our emotions set us aside from other creatures; they inform our words, our actions, and our decisions on a daily basis. In my experience, we cannot really control our emotions, they come and go based on our surroundings, our experiences, our hormones: we are in a constant state of emotional change - it's all part of our human nature. Now I'm not about to launch into an essay about emotions, and I'm not claiming to be a qualified psychologist, but I've been feeling a little blue recently, so I thought it might be helpful to get it all in writing - after all, bloggers are mainly preaching to themselves!

On a daily basis our social media feeds are filled with photos of our friends, celebrities and influencers having fun with their friends, visiting nice places, enjoying great food, and generally painting a rather happy existence. John's had a great night, yoga girl is on the beach (again), and Sarah's tucking into a delicious meal - everyone's happy and more than willing to share it with the world. Happiness is well documented in social media land. 

Anger, fear, disgust and surprise all seem to have their place too - Fred tweets his anger to South West trains that he can never get a seat in the morning, people all over social media are pretty fearful about ebola, everyone's expressing their disgust about the latest child abuse case, and Laura's surprised by the ending of Gone Girl. (Disclaimer: not all of the examples here are fact). It seems that these five emotions are each well documented and accepted within society and people are not afraid to discuss them. But in my experience this isn't so much the case with sadness. 

Due to the recent tragic loss of Robin Williams, depression and other such mental illnesses are discussed more frequently in the media and myths surrounding these illnesses are gradually becoming demystified. However sadness is not to be confused with depression. Depression is a mental illness, sadness is simply a human emotion. Yet sadness makes us feel so uncomfortable, even embarrassed. So, let's discuss sadness. Let's dispel the discomfort and accept that it's part of our human nature. Quite often we ignore our sadness and simply let it pass. But what if we used it as an opportunity to grow and to embrace feeling fully human?

Let me put it out there: sadness is normal. It is a normal part of being a human being. It is simply a human emotion, and one that we must feel to be completely human. And really that is a beautiful thing. It's not something to be embarrassed about or to shy away from. It's okay to be sad from time to time. It simply means you're alive. 

When you're feeling down try to focus on things you're grateful for and things that make you happy

That being said, no one wants to be a sad Sally too often, so I thought I'd take this opportunity to share some of my tried and tested tips for overcoming those times when you are sad. Firstly make yourself a good cuppa and then:

1. Acknowledge it. You're feeling sad - acknowledge how it feels, recognise it as sadness. How does it feel? Why do you feel this way? Perhaps you've had a bad day at the office, perhaps you're grieving, perhaps it's your hormones. Acknowledging that you are sad and addressing why is a great first step to using it as an experience to learn from and to grow. 
2. Talk about it. Find a friend, a relative, anyone who is willing to listen and just talk it through. Why are you feeling sad? Is there anything they can do? Do you simply need someone to listen? But once you've talked it through with a couple of different people try not to dwell on it. Listen to their advice and try to move forward. It's great to acknowledge it and to have the courage to talk it through, but there's only so much people will listen to, and you won't grow if dwell on it for too long.
3. Quiet time. Once you've acknowledged it and spoken to other people about your sadness, have some time alone to process it. Quiet time is your time to process emotions, to process experiences, and to heal and grow. I was feeling sad for much of last week so on Friday night I came home, rolled out my yoga mat under the stars, did a yoga practice, and then sat quietly for about half an hour just being quiet and having a good cry. And that's okay. I was sad, so I cried. I'm human. That's what being human is. And embracing that human emotion actually does us a world of good.
4. Focus on things you're grateful for. Being sad does not mean that you're being ungrateful, so even when you are feeling down remember to practice gratitude. Even use that happy social media feed that you've been presenting to the world as a tool for this - remember what an amazing holiday you had in the summer, look at that photo of you with your friends - just try to be grateful. And try not to think about the things you don't have at present; U2 were perfectly right when they sung "what you don't have you don't need it now" so just be grateful for all the things you do have right here, right now. 
5. Make a plan. My short term plan-making advice would be to do something that makes you happy almost instantly - don't sit in your quiet time forever just dwelling on your sadness; you've acknowledged and processed it, now it's time to get over it. Meet up with a friend that makes you smile, go to a gig, go for that run, dance around your living room - just do something that will be fun. And if you're sadness is rooted in something more long term, i.e. you're always getting sad about your job, or you're always sad about not having money etc., then make a more long term plan of action. This way you're being proactive in finding a solution and you're less likely to get so sad about it in the future.

So don't be afraid of sadness, embrace it as part of your humanity. Of course if you think your sadness could lead to depression, or if you think you are depressed, then do seek professional help. Also if your sadness is rooted in something such as grief then this process will take a lot longer and the wounds will be harder to heal, but hopefully at least some of these tips will be useful to you. 

The Beautifully Healthy Project is all about celebrating the Beautifully Healthy version of you, and to be Beautifully Healthy is also to be Beautifully Human, so take everything that goes with that. The happy, the sad, everything. Just be you. Just be human. 

Love Lucy x