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Laura
Hi! I'm Laura, a 23-year-old millennial girl discovering who I am by sharing my life experiences on my blog. You'll find me writing about me discovering my personal style, my growing wanderlust or giving any sort of style, uni or mental health advice.

If you ever have any questions, notes or other things that you want to know, feel free to email me

styleandsushi@outlook.com

From July 2012 all items marked with a (*) are gifted items or PR samples. Posts on this blog may contain affiliate links or sponsored content. Please read my disclaimer for more details.

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TRAVEL

WHY I'M LIVING IN THE MOMENT THIS SUMMER

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We live in this age where social media and sharing pretty much every step of our life has become normal. Sharing and being constantly on my phone is something that has slowly crept into my life. With the added pressure and stress I feel from university I noticed that I am living less and less in the moment. I spent time on my phone and I spend time working on university. Nothing else. I spent way too much time analysing things that happened in the past or stress about things that could happen in the future. This has been on my mind a lot lately, because there's only so long that this kind of routine can continue to go on for. Stress and burn out symptoms were just a few side effects I suffered from being constantly like this. Both also came with very overwhelming feelings that only made me long for things in my past more, such as high school or middle school - "back when life was still easy".

These emotions have really inspired me to write a couple of my most recent posts. You might have noticed that lately I have been writing a lot about wellbeing, mental health and self-care. In those posts I share my experiences in life and how I deal with them, hoping to relate to, inspire or help you as a reader. One of my biggest points of focus for me personally this summer, is to focus on myself. My wellbeing and making sure I feel mentally strong, stable and energised again. One of the first steps in that process is to try and live and fully enjoy every moment of this summer.


Reality check

If you would have told me three, four, five years ago that I would be writing about living in the moment, focusing on meditation and to be appreciative of blue skies and birds chirping, I would have probably laughed at you. Obviously I was already addicted to my phone in 2014, but I was too young and naive to really understand what that meant. Yes I loved my phone and social media, but back then it wasn’t tiring me out (yet), or if it did, I would just think it was because I binge watched something until the early hours. Nowadays I can feel extreme pressure from myself, to push myself further and to create new, refreshing content you like. This is something you might relate to as a blogger, or just as a uni student or in your job. I feel like there is this pressure to stay relatable, to keep refreshing your ideas and to stay relevant to appeal to others. The main reason for that being is that I am a major achiever, I like to achieve the best things possible, but lately it's been affecting my mental health.

Over the past few weeks I have been really trying to put my phone away more. This has really helped me worry less about what is going on on social media and makes me feel less guilty about not 'creating content' whenever I spend a day in town with a friend. I try to separate myself from my phone more, as it can easily soak up all of my time in a day. Sometimes I do feel guilty about not sharing anything on my social media channels, especially when you’re not doing anything exciting that day. We feel this need to share whatever we're doing, even when we're not doing anything. And if I do or don't do anything and don't share it online, I feel guilty even if my mental state improved by it. By trying to not create and share an overload on content online, I have noticed that I have been spending less time on digital devices. This has really contributed to making me feel happier and it has made me more appreciative of things happening in my life at that moment.


It puts life into perspective

As much as I enjoy social media and sharing things of my life online, it can make your daily habits, tasks and activities feel dull and boring. I honestly think this means I have lost sight and appreciation of those mundane, daily life tasks. It can also really make you lose sight of the things that are important in your life. Obviously your past, present and your future are big learning points for your life, but living in the moment at that time has really helped me put things into perspective. It's a different kind of perspective too, as often we reflect on our past to prevent mistakes in our future, but by living more in the moment and validating what emotions you feel makes you work harder and strive for better things. It can also help bring back motivation or to keep you motivated in life.

When you think about big events in your life, such as birthdays or graduations, you can often grasp memories or look back on photographs from those big life events. Why not do it with small things in life too? Really try to find gratitude in smaller and daily activities that made you feel happy, such as making time to read, a lie in or spending time with loved ones. Remember to also try and find gratitude in darker moments in your life too, because those sad, frustrated or angry events happening in your life can also bring you heaps amount of gratitude. I for instance learnt so much about gratitude by some of the biggest challenges that have been thrown at me.

 

My mantra for going back to living in the moment

I still can get caught up in overthinking future situations and overanalysing past situations. It’s whenever my breathing gets hitched and I can’t seem to find any peace in my body. It usually takes me a couple of minutes to actually realise that I am feeling this way. The only thing that can help you through this is a little mantra I have learnt to adapt in my life too: your feelings are valid, acknowledge your feelings, remember to breathe.

It’s perfectly normal to feel this way. Your feeling are obviously valid and you should never let anyone tell you otherwise. Validating your feelings is the first step in processing it. The second step in my opinion is to acknowledge those feelings. You are feeling this way and you are allowed to feel anxious, stressed or overwhelmed feeling. Once you have acknowledged and validated your feelings, it’s time to try and focus on your breathing while trying to let those thoughts go. This is something I find the hardest to do, as it’s hard to prioritise yourself and your own wellbeing with an endlessly long to do list or if you are out in the world trying something new.


Make time to enjoy those precious moments

Planning in time to 'live in the moment' doesn’t really come natural to me to be honest. I am a major planner and find it quite hard to spontaneously plan fun activities. It’s just not a trait I have in me, I don’t do too well with surprises and impromptu activities. I like to make a weekly and daily to do list and finish those tasks. One thing I have started doing different lately, is to plan in at least 1 fun activity a day that helps me live in the moment and appreciate that day.

Some days this means I like to read before I go to bed. Now that it’s super warm out, I enjoy sitting in the garden in the morning on my own. There’s no scorching sun yet, so it’s still quite cool and I then drink my iced coffee. At that moment I am just there, present in that moment by focusing on mindful things such as sounds, or the lack there of, I hear around me in the morning. Other 'fun' activities I like to plan in for myself are to see friends, go for walks, and - I can't even believe I am saying this, because I, again, would have laughed at you if you told me 5 years ago, but going to the gym. Going to the gym is also something that is really making me more mindful and aware of my day to day surroundings.

Living in the moment and being more mindful throughout the day might not feel like you need in your life at first. I was exactly like that a couple of years ago. With my life slowly becoming busier as an adult, I feel like mindfulness and living in the moment have both become very important to me. It keeps me sane. It brings positivity in my life and brings gratitude towards small, daily activities and times.

How do you try to live more in the moment?

SHOP THIS OUTFIT


Reacties

  1. Yet another great post on important topic Laura, have to say you're killing it with these wellbeing/mental health/self care posts at the moment! ♥︎ And reading this made me realise I should definitely take your advice and at least try to learn to live in the moment and enjoy what's happening right now, instead of constantly planning planning planning what is going to happen in the future! I also just realised that I've completely stopped with my gratitude journalling habit ever since coming home to Finland for summer - definitely something I need to get back into!!

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    1. Ahh thank you so, so much for your kind words Pinja. I'm so glad you're enjoying all of my wellbeing/mental health/self care posts at the moment. I really enjoy writing about them too. I really hope you can find the time to get back into gratitude journalling and learn to live in the moment and enjoy what's happening in Finland. It's so good to be back with your family and friends, which makes it so good to really soak in all of those happy moments! xx

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