4 Videos You Should Watch

I'm kind of struggling to think of a good title for this one, so the above will just have to do. This may seem like a slightly lazy post, seen as the videos themselves are doing all the talking but I love the idea of spreading great ideas and knowledge across the internet and so I thought I could use my teeny platform on the web to help do so. I love receiving video links from friends about topics that they think might interest me or that's peaked an interest inside of them, and sparked a discussion. The internet is a great place to stumble across like minded people or even better, people that can open your mind up to ideas you'd never considered before or given much thought.

Hopefully the videos below will be of interest to anyone reading this and will at least give you some food for thought on a few topics. So I won't waffle on any more, they mostly speak for themselves after all...

So my first 2 videos are by the same YouTuber- justkissmyfrog. I discovered her videos a couple of weeks back and I've been going through her channels back catalogue since. She focuses heavily on books and I do love those videos, but my favourite videos she does are actually just the more relaxed chatty ones centring on one particular talking point. She's one of those YouTuber's that I'll be sat there nodding along  thinking 'why haven't I seen someone mention this before in a video? she's putting exactly how I feel into words'.

Being Alone: A video about being ok with just doing things alone and not sharing all the parts of our day with someone to validate them. This one really resonated with me, especially as some one who is single and often misses that element of having a significant other.

Not Like Other Girls: I can't seem to post this one here so you can click HERE and it will take you to the video. This one was something I'd never actually given much thought but as soon as I started watching the video I got exactly where Leena was coming from. She talks about internalized misogyny and the idea of the 'cool girl' being the type of girl who shuns anything deemed too feminine and basically how that's a load of bollocks. Leena talks about her own experiences when she was younger of deliberately shunning make up due to the fact that she thought it showed people externally that she 'wasn't like the other girls'. I can relate to this, not in a make up sense (I've always been a lover of make up) but in the sense that in the past I've spoken about certain things I liked and described them as 'things guys are into' or I've been told 'you like that oh, that's unusual for a girl'. I mean its easy to come out with things like that when it's so ingrained in us the idea that certain things are unusual for me to like purely because I'm a girl (I'm very guilty of this) but I really need to stop myself from feeding into that idea and I think she puts across some great points about this in her video. I'll stop now before I start waffling and I lose track of this list. Go watch it.

I could honestly post so many of Leena's videos but I want to throw a couple more videos from other content creators into the mix. So if you like what you've seen I'd really recommend looking up her channel on YouTube and hitting the subscribe button.

If The World Were 100 People: WATCH THIS NOW. No, in all seriousness, this video will give you the biggest reality check you could have in just under 3 minutes. It breaks the world down into 100 people and there are a lot of sobering figures throughout. For example 77 would have shelter and 23 would not. Even down to the less important 'needs' in life, like internet access, only 44 would have access to the internet and 56 would not. I found that particular figure quite poignant, obviously there are much worse indifferences pointed out and horrific inequalities globally but the internet one struck a chord because so often you hear or read people saying that the internet is wonderful because it gives anyone that wants to the chance to express their thoughts/feelings via an on-line platform (which in lots of cases it most certainly does) but in actual fact so many people will never get the chance to access such a wonderful platform to do so. That particular stat, which in all honesty shouldn't come as a surprise to me really, but often I am ignorant (trying to change this- i promise), made me think about how fortunate I am to even be able to blog. Even if just one person reads it, I get the opportunity to have my voice heard on the internet and that is wonderful. Of course the video does raise many other important issues and I don't mean to gloss over them as an opportunity to talk about my privileges, I just wanted to acknowledge that particular one and take a moment to realise how much I appreciate the fact that really I have been one of the incredibly lucky ones in the lottery of birth, to even end up being born in a suburb of Manchester in England and able to do things like write this post.

Body Image and Feminism: Lucy is another YouTuber I discovered recently. This is a great short video that opens up the discussion of body image and where we get our validation from. She makes some interesting and honest points about how she feels about the fact that she has gained confidence about her body through the validation of men and whether or not this contradicts her feminist ideals.

If you watch any of these I'd love to know and we could maybe even start some discussions of our own stemming from one of these videos, that'd be ace. Or if you have any videos you think I might find insightful or interesting pop them in the comments.

Remember to subscribe to me via the bloglovin button or search for 'TheSafeHarbour' on there to find me, I'd really love it if you did!

Helena 

x

January Blues

So, I only have two previous blog posts, both written in Summer of last year but today I feel the urge to write again with the possibility of blogging on the regular from now on. I don't want to box myself into one category blog wise right now so I'm just going to write whatever I fancy I guess, from the frivolous to the more personal shit. I hesitate to use the word 'deep' there because I often find that word thrown around too much whenever anyone tries to talk about feelings, which creates this awkward barrier of 'wait I shouldn't speak about this or that because so and so might think I'm being too serious or heavy going'. When in actual fact it would do us all the world of good if we didn't worry about opening up to other people with the fear of being stigmatized as too serious or difficult. Woops, already started on a mini rant.

 I guess by now you've gathered that I'm about to talk about feelings and all that complicated crap that goes on in my brain. I've not been feeling great recently, I'm on a waiting list to go back to CBT and I have a major case of January Blues. At the end of last year I was feeling slightly optimistic about the start of the year, I had a last minute trip to Amsterdam booked for the first week of January and I was looking forward to the idea of leaving some of the bad parts of 2015 behind me and moving into a new year. Well January is drawing to a close now and I feel determined to find some good in the month, despite my over all low mood, maybe it will be therapeutic for me to get it written down and maybe (hopefully) it will be of interest to you.


I saw some of the beautiful Derbyshire countryside.

First of all mid January I went to Dovedale (can we have a moment to appreciate how darn cute that name is), it was a lovely sunny winters day and my dogs absolutely loved exploring somewhere different to our local parks. I love walking somewhere quiet when the sun is setting and I always feel more peaceful anywhere where there's water. I'm pretty sure that's a thing and I'm not just an oddball, watching water move is relaxing right?

Next up, a couple of days back me and my parents went to Lathkill Dale to walk my dogs for my Dad's birthday. Here's a few of Lathkill, the weather wasn't so great but the scenery was equally as charming.

It's definitely made me want to venture out into the outdoors more and explore more of the Peak District. Usually when I go on walks I don't go much further than what Manchester/Cheshire has to offer. Just being somewhere with no people around and so much natural beauty was calming too, I'm not going to say it made all my worries go away but it helped mute everything a little.

I de cluttered.

I'm not going to include photos for this one, I feel like no one wants to see a pile of my unwanted things in packages ready to be sent off. It's also maybe not the most exciting 'highlight' of my month but it is something that I can draw positives from. I have a pretty small box room so junk piles up quickly and without really realizing it I'd become quite the hoarder, especially with clothes. I'd hang onto it and think 'one day i might wear that', knowing full well that by that point I'd either hate it or I'd never fit into again unless I decided to cut down on my cheese obsession and get serious about exercise. So I decided I'd either give bags of it away to charity or sell the barely worn/never worn items. Now I know I might sound dramatic here but honestly getting rid of a bunch of stuff that never gets used makes you feel pretty good, knowing that its gone to a better home and also being able to pocket a little bit of money on the side for it. It turns out de cluttering your stuff does ~kinda~ help de-clutter your mind. I need to remember to keep doing this one.


I went to the Van Gogh gallery and it made me want to be creative and shit.

This isn't the point where I tell you I'm now going to rent out studio space and become an artist. I can't paint or draw a thing. Seriously, not even a basic doodle. I do like to go to galleries though and admire art from a I~know~nothing~about~why~this~is~good~but~that~looks~cool stance and the Van Gogh gallery in Amsterdam was spectacular. His work is so varied- portraits, self portraits, landscapes. Some of them are very dark and moody and then others like 'the pink peach tree' are on the very other end of the spectrum. I was just in awe of how much he painted in such a short amount of time and quite inspired to learn he only learnt to paint at 27. It's not often you learn about one the 'greats' picking up their skill as late on as that. Obviously I'm not now saying that I'm about to become an incredible artist or creative driving force but I would like to try my hand at something in the arts whether that be to relearn the piano (I stopped when I was 14) or just learn to draw something basic or write something creative or go to a class. Anything really, even if its just something small, I feel like I should at least give it a go and try and get any creative juices I might potentially have flowing. That sentence looks weirder typed out than it did in my head but we'll stick with it.

There we have it, January blues with a slightly positive twist? I didn't want to just write a super 'this is how you feel good' unrealistic post because sometimes you can't just snap out of it with a Buzzfeed '10 ways to feel happy' article and you can just search for the good in a sea of not so good feels. Maybe there will be a 'Fantastic/Feel good in February' post or something next month hmmm....you never know.