Positivitty

Hi all, I'm feeling loads better now.  Turned out to be a rather nasty long lingering cold I had in the end.  My sinuses still aren't quite right into the second week.  Unusual for me.  My colds usually last about 4 days max.  And last week it felt like a big dark grey cloud had parked itself permanently over my head.  I felt everything was gloom and doom and didn't feel as though I'd got much hope about anything.  I was behind on my writing, I seem to have fallen out with someone and I can't think why and just generally I felt like life was giving me a ticking off!  I hate being at odds with life or friends and family.  

But while doing some research for my next book (I know I'm slightly behind on the other one thanks to the cold but launching on Amazon real soon) I came across a page of quotes and memes.  I can't tell you what that did for me.  My bible is my go to place as well but these memes and quotes just seemed to lift my spirits up as well.  Really.  And then the 'cloud' lifted, my friend wasn't mad with me after all and life is back to being just hard and happy and not difficult and dreary.   I want to share with you some of my favorite ones which I think are apt for me in my plus size journey of health and happiness and I hope they inspire you in some way too.

Stay beyoutiful  bigYoutifuls!

RayRay xx

I Am Not My Weight!

I don't know.  At the end of a week of feeling poorly I just wanted to reach out and say that!  There's no time like when you're sick to start to wish your body was well. You don't think to yourself when you're sick "I wish I was thin", no, you just want to be well.  You just want a body that works.  Wishing your body well again has nothing to do with whether you're fat or thin has it?  Wishing it 'well' is a sizeless need. Do you get what I'm saying?  If 'well' can mean just working properly then why do we say when dieting and trying to be thin that we want our body to be 'well' as well?  Doesn't make sense but it's just been accepted as something people say in relation to health.  You know, we really need to start actually listening to people who want to give health advice and watch what we are listening to.  A lot of the times people repeat something they've read somewhere, unsubstantiated stuff, but because its in print it's repeated as the truth but if your really listen to it it doesn't make any sense at all.

This is how we have the kind of hang ups about our weight and our body that we do.  Really, start to make your own health discoveries.  Learn the science of your own body.  Don't just rely on other people's thoughts on such an important issue to you.  And if people want to be helpful then let them, listen politely but do check your 'sense-o-metre'.  Work out what they are saying and if doesn't make a whole lot of sense challenge it.  If it stands true under your scrutiny then it's worth you doing the extra research yourself after that before you follow advice or commit to something like that. Time for us to educate ourselves coz guess what? Sometimes the experts get it wrong!  

I realised this week while I was ill that I really haven't been kind to my body.  Not in the way you imagine which is by not feeding my body good food and giving it enough exercise but something more terrible than that.  I have criticised and abused my own body with my words and the way I feel about it.  Am I sounding just a little silly to you right now?  Well, I'm not being.  What we say is powerful.  Even to ourselves.  If we speak negativity we inject negativity into ourselves and what is good will 'die' in such an environment.  But if we speak positively then positivity flows through us breathing life throughout our hearts, minds and also our bodies.

I need to start to respect this body.  Irrespective of who else might like to have an opinion about it.  My body is mine.  Like having a child.  Others might think my 'child' if I had one was unattractive but I would only see the beauty in that child like a the mother and I would love it unconditionally.  In a similar way (although not quite the same) I need to embrace, see the beauty in and love my body.  It's mine and no else will love it the same as me.  So I need to learn to love my body.  Unconditionally.  It's weight is irrelevant!  

Bottom line.  I am a plus size person with a bigger body which I need to appreciate and love whatever the size.  This along with my mind and my heart make up who I am and I just wanted everyone to know that there's one thing for sure....

I am not my weight!  I wish people would stop making it about that. I am fat but my life is not centred around just how much fat I have.  What a thing to focus on.  Stop.  Everybody please stop.  Love your body or start to learn too.

Stay beyoutiful  bigYoutifuls!

RayRay xx

PS - A happy happy happy birthday to my one and only niecey.  Mwah! xx

Poorly Me!

Yes, I have been poorly with a long lingering cold it seems.  I've had it a few days and I thought it would be over by now but I've woken up today to find I am still in the grips of it! 

Of course I am feeling pretty sorry for myself and hating the feeling of runny eyes and blocked nose.  I was very lucky that my mum decided to visit just as it started so I was well cared for at the start.  She's gone now and I'm missing her and her wonderful 'pampering' of her 42 year old daughter!  Lol.  What a baby I am!  

Anyway, I hope you are all well and having a great start to this week.  The cold has delayed the work but the Alexandra Grace book on Plus Size Living will launch this week.  I'll post the links on here to Amazon, Twitter and Facebook etc.  Do check it out when it arrives and pass it around the plus size community.  The more reviews the better.  Would love to hear your thoughts on it.  It will be priced reasonably don't worry and if you like it you might enjoy the next book which is half written!  There will also be a separate blog for Alexandra Grace books as well so make sure to look out for that and join up.  Will post links.   

But for now....I'm drinking my soup, taking my meds, wiping my runny eyes, blowing my blocked nose and retreating back under the covers. 

Speak soon!

Stay beyoutiful   bigYoutifuls!

RayRay xx

Celebrity SOS!

   

Around the world these last two days the world has been mourning the loss of two of its brightest stars.  Lauren Bacall, one of my favourite past time actresses and Robin Williams.  Lauren was almost 90 and Robin just 63.  Lauren's family will mourn as deeply as anyone's family who lose a loved one no matter the age.  I lost my own father last year and though he'd lived a 'good age' and was suffering towards the end I did not want to lose him.  Losing him was hard and I felt it deeply.  So my thoughts are with Lauren's family as they go through this.  

Robin's family will suffer all the more if it is possible to grieve that much deeper when a love one is lost because he chose to go.  I can't know how that must feel.  I will not try.  He felt so sad and so moved within his spirit to end his life on earth and I do not judge.  I only mourn for him along with many other fans across the globe.  

I thought I knew this funny man.  How much laughter did he bring to me in my childhood.  I will never forget "Nanu Nanu".  My childhood was made just a little happier from watching him on the TV.  When I think of him I think happy.  So now I have to think he made me happy but I didn't care to know whether this person was happy.  It never occurred to me.  After all, we reason with ourselves, what has he or stars and celebrities like him have to complain about?  They make so much money.  As if they don't deserve a right to feelings or happiness because they make money.  What's wrong with us?  I have come to understand that celebrities are now such 'prisoners' of their celebrity status that they are never allowed to stop performing.  Even when they are in the privacy of their own homes.  The world says "personal lives? what personal lives? they belong to us! (Errr.....no they don't!  But let' continue I'll tell you why).

Some people blame the media, the PR gurus, the entertainment business etc.  And they are.  They are all to blame.  In part.  Of course lots of celebrities throughout time have struggled with their personal issues.  In my generation the one most notable episode was Britney Spears:  The Cray Cray years.  Anyone remember that? I hadn't seen anything like it.  She seemed to be going mental before our very eyes.  I did not think that girl would recover.  I really thought she was going to stay mad.  And even while she was disintegrating into her own personal hell the PR people around her just exploited her.  She was news.  But she must have had a strong family behind her.  They bulledd her back from the brink.  Thank God! Then it was Amanda Bynes, Justin Bieber, Chris Brown etc.  These young stars were rebelling against the pressure stardom had brought them.   The older stars wouldn't dream of making such a spectacle of themselves but they must suffer the same issues.  

  

I can't speak about Robin's reasons for taking his own life.  Of course not.  Not my business and I don't know and unless his family decide on their own to say why I don't need to know.  I only express my sadness for him and his family and will leave them alone.  Because I feel that in part it is because of our interest in stars and celebrities which has got so unhealthy, we, their fans, the public, the audience, we, have become their nightmare!  We are their puppet masters and they are the marionettes who must dance to our tune or we will not pay.  But perhaps it's time to realise we are asking too much.  Celebrities are still people.  They feel and hurt just like we do.  We should give them the space to express themselves in private when they are 'off duty'.  Instead we follow them around, spy on them, trash them because we want to know what they do in their personal lives.  We need to get a grip!  Leave them alone!  You watched your movie.  Got what you paid for.  Their personal lives are not yours to watch.  That's not what they are selling to you.  You are asking for more than you have paid for.  What do you call that if not slavery?  You have made them slaves to you.  I'm not saying all celebrities are innocent beings beyond reproach.  What I'm saying is they do the job they are paid for.  Asking for more is wrong.  We need to examine ourselves.  When we buy celebrity magazines etc we are perpetuating this wrongdoing.  It's okay to keep slaves is it?

I'm not about to make this a plus size issue but I will say that as a plus size person in a non-forgiving slim world I too am slave to the world.  I should understand even more the pressures celebrities go through because we plus size are the other group the world has decided to 'own'.  Telling us how to eat, to dress and to act etc.  I started this blog to speak out against fatism and fat shaming and to start to embrace the person I am and begin a journey to health my own way and not the world's.  It's not easy.  Maybe celebrities acting out is their way of saying they're not taking it anymore.  They want to find their own personal journeys to who they are and not be 'made' and owned according to how the world would like to see them.  If the road to their happiness and well being is blocked we risk losing them.  They are people too and every life is precious.  

We have lost Robin.  We have lost Lauren.  I hope some part of their lives, if not at the end, was lived happy and free.  Away from our prying eyes!

Rest In Peace.

RayRay xx

PS -  Just read this below.  He told us he got 'bummed' sometimes.  Nobody thought to say Robin, whats going on, how can we help?  We didn't because we were too busy laughing!  We were too busy filling up on the good he made us feel and forgot to give back in turn.  Lets pay more attention people. 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/11/robin-williams-mental-illness_n_5670367.html?utm_hp_ref=celebrity&ir=Celebrity

Feel The Fear and Do It Anyway!

You don't even need me to tell you that!  You know and have known this your whole existence!  But you allowed yourself to be weighed down by other people's limitations and restrictions to govern what you do.  How do I know this?  I let it happen to me.  For many years the things people said to me in my youth shaped who I became as an adult.  Some spoke positively and others negatively.  Some spoke positively but all I heard was negativity because whatever they said I read the actions which accompanied those words and they said the same things.  Doom and gloom for the fatty!

Somehow my being bigger to some people meant that they thought I could not access certain areas of life.  It was to be the penalty of living  'heavier life'.  And I believed them.  They meant well.  Preparing me for the big cruel world out there.  I even appreciated it.  Whenever I was denied a chance I would be told or shown through action that it was because that wasn't right for me.  Too big, too fat, too black, too young! Other people believed they knew that much about me that they could determine where better a fit to box me.  I confined myself to that box for the longest time until such time I had to break out of it!  I watched others progress before me knowing deep inside that I was actually capable of doing as well if not better but not wanting to come out from the security of the box made for me.  A kind of 'Stockolm Syndrome' thing.  The box had turned from my prison to my home inside my head. I thought it was as far as someone like me could go.  But one day I began to feel deeply unhappy.  I started to feel scared.  I didn't know why these feelings kept nagging at me.  I started to become irritable and even started getting heart flutters.  Suddenly I was aware the box was still my prison and not a home at all.  As I grew the box got tighter around me.  Choking me.  I wanted change.  But change was the deep dark waters that if I dove into would swallow me up!  I didn't want change!  Did I?

Yes, the truth was I did.  But again I sat on this for a long time.  I wasn't strong enough I told myself.  I would surely fail and be even more of a laughing stock than usual.  No I couldn't risk it.  Even when I got praised at work and promoted I could hardly believe in it.  A lot of the times I'd been bypassed for promotion because people took a look at me and made a decision based on what they saw not on how I performed.  I was mistrustful.  But I started to prove myself.  I took charge in meetings and came up with genious strategic business ideas.  I shocked them.  I shocked myself!  I had started to feel the fear but had done it anyway and it had paid off.  It started something in me I could not stop.  I packed in my 'life', my comfortable position in the life race and went back to university!  I was as scared as anything!  A middle aged woman (almost) going back to school?!  Leaving the comfort of a monthly salary to become a poor student in the middle of a recession was the epitome of crazy!  I was.  Crazy with ambition.  All that locked up ability needed somewhere to go.  And it's going.  Into my studies, my writing and everything else I didn't dare do before but which now is waiting on that list for me to get to.  I still feel scared.  But it's better than that other feeling.  You know the one I mean, the one where you know you can but don't or won't for fear of everything big and bad and scary!

It's a more prevalent feeling of this when you're a bigger person I think.  Not always, that's true.  Some bigger people get it early.  But sometimes you don't even need a box built for you - you build one for yourself!  Today I just felt I wanted to encourage you whoever you are reading this.  Plus or no.  To stop listening to other people and listen to yourself.  What has God placed on your heart, if you believe?  Feel like you think following your dreams is foolish? Like you're too weak to do it?  Well I'm here to say don't worry God will give you strength whether you believe in Him or not!  Because God placed strength in us all.  If you're foolish and weak then you have two of the best requirements right there already!  Why?  Consider this verse from the bible?

"1 Corinthians 1 verse 27

But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty!"

Amen! And Amen!!!  That's me. 

And that's you too!  So that thing you've been wanting to do but have been to afraid to do it?  It's time.  Get started.  Google is a good place to start and easy to find about your thing.  From there you can see where to really begin.  

Come on! Feel the fear and do it anyway!

  

Stay beyoutiful  bigYoutifuls!

RayRay xx

PS - My book will launch next week and be available on Amazon Kindle. Finally!  The first of many hopefully.  It is a guide to living happily as a plus size and a recount of what I have been doing to achieve this happier state.  It's a very personal style of writing but I hope it will reach out and touch some people looking for some encouragement.  I am writing under a nom de plume (Alexandra Grace) as I am writing other books in different genres and so don't want to confuse.  I'll be sure to share that with you when the day comes. xoxo

Summer! Summer! Summertime!

It's been a fairly decent summer.  I would not say before now for fear of jinxing it somehow but it truly has been a warm one here in the UK and across Europe.  We've had such grey weather over the years in the UK one wondered if we would ever remember how beautiful this place is when the sun is shining upon it.  I'm from Africa originally so I know all about the sun.  The African sun is the sun at it's most golden and life giving. It's hot yet nature offers a gentle cool breeze simultaneously making it bearable to be under.  It makes Africa the beautiful continent that it is.  So believe me now when I also say that there is nothing like the perfect English summer's day.  it's beautiful! In that rare occasion when the sun shines just after spring and just before the summer the temperature is perfect!  It's neither hot nor cold.  It's just right.  And there is so much air.  You breathe and breathe and breathe beautiful air on a day like that.  But that day is short lived.  It is, if it is, there only for a short time before it starts to really warm up and all the moisture taken up into the air with it!  Then it's humid.  Hot and humid! 

I don't complain.  As hot weather has been so rare these last few years it's the chance to get out on to the Green that's wonderful.  A life indoors all the time slowly becomes a SAD one.  Yes, that's a real affliction for I had it once.  I'm used to the dark grey winters now.  But SAD stands for Seasonal Affective Disorder.  It's a winter thing mostly.  Anyway, back to summer.  We're so grateful when it's here and we get out as much as we can.  But for us plus size this can be a bit of a challenge when the weather heats up past comfortable.  We sweat a little more and the energy seems to drain the energy right out of us when we exert ourselves a little more.  It can feel like it's a real chore going out into the hot sun.  We are tempted to stay indoors in the cool, near the fan and with plenty of cool drinks to hand.  If you're lucky enough to have a garden where you live you might venture out as far as there.  But the rest of us make do with the Greens and Parks and mostly have to go to work, school, etc.  I tend to always pack a few essential things in my bag in this weather and I'm going to share them with you.  They help me a great deal so hopefully this helps you too. 

1.  Switch to using a back pack in the summer.  A stylish one if it's important.  There are plenty designer leather made back packs with the appropriate gold or silver hardware on them online and even in stores.  Get a fairly large one but not too big it 'breaks your back'.  In the hot weather having your arms free to swing makes walking easier.

2.  A mini hand held battery operated fan is excellent for keeping you cool out and about. Always pack the right extra batteries in your bag as well.  Bu if you prefer the old type fans made from paper, light card or fabric pack this instead.

      

3.  It almost doesn't need saying but pack a bottle of water or a drink of your choice.

4.  For this next item in my country we grew up calling them 'slops', no idea why, but maybe one day I'll find out and tell you all about the different words I learnt growing up.  Quite funny really.  Anyway, always pack a pair of flip flops.  They are light and useful when your sandals become unbearably hot, sweaty, sticky and tight from your feet swelling.  You can keep them in a bag.  When you swap them with whatever shoe you're wearing you can 'lock up' your smelly shoes in that bag.  Make sure it's a bag that will do that.  Some people don't enjoy the flip and flop of flip flops so here's a tip.  Add a bit of elastic to each end of the flip flop and it turns it into a comfortable light sandal and doesn't flip about! ;) 

5.  I don't know about where you live but in the UK sudden showers are a possibility so I would pack a foldable and large umbrella.  You can get large foldable umbrellas online.  A tiny one is not going to help cover you.  A word of warning if lightning is about just stay under cover of buildings etc and don't go out into it! These bigger brollies (almost golf size) do fold up nicely and you can still save space in your bag.  Alternatively if you prefer there are larger rain coats.

                     

6.  Lastly, essential toiletries are up to you but they should include wipes to clean your sweaty brow and folds every now and again, a drying deodorant, lip balm and hand creme.  Always carry your essential medicines as well.  Particularly anything for a headache.  These always seem to be prevalent in the warm weather.  

Always be prepared for any type of weather!

Stay beyoutiful  bigYoutifuls!

RayRayxx