Forw4rd

Here's a few snaps from a shoot for Forw4rd.
Model : Meg Roach - @meg.roach
Clothes : @forw4rd / @forw4rd_girls

Life comes first

I decided to take a break from writing for a while, for a number of reasons. Summed up in a whole, I really needed some time to myself and to concentrate on settling into college and the UK. I started college in September, and to be honest, at first it was a bit of a traumatic experience. I'm a pretty confident person, but nothing knocks your confidence like going into a place where you know no one and where no one is willing to donate a few moments of their time to have a quick convo, just to be nice. Anyway, that's a whole other blog.

So I've been pretty busy trying to meet new people, college and work. I've been working an awful lot recently cause I passed my driving test and I'm in desperate need of a car so I don't have to get on that bus anymore. This past month or so I've been pretty busy. I went back to Cyprus for a bit, I really needed it actually, just to see my family and friends and to chill out and have fun. It's looking forward to going home which is keeping me sane at the moment ha. These UK winters are harsh man, I don't know how people do it. I've never struggled to get out of bed and now I have to physically drag myself up.

Couple of weeks ago my dad came over from Cyprus as he's going to be on the rigs over Christmas and new year so I went to meet him in Manchester. It was awesome, such a nice little break. We went to see the Killers, they were fucking sick man, honestly I've never seen a band with such crazy energy. The week after I went to see the Kooks in Leeds and they were so good too, always wanted to see them, we had a crazy night out after and all I can say is, the tequila fucked me over big time, never felt so awful in my life ha.

Anyway, with all of this time off, I've suffered in the long run, being weighed down with work but, life comes first man. I've been feeling pretty confused recently, about how I feel about a lot of things and people. I have a lot of conflicting thoughts I've been having to try to deal with, nothing serious, don't worry ha, just stuff that has been playing on my mind a lot.

My life's goal is to always better myself, the only way you can do that sometimes, is to take a step back, re evaluate your entire life, question yourself, think of better solutions and enforce them, and that is what I have been trying to do these past few months. This past year and a half of my life has been the hardest period of my life, and I refuse to sit and fester in grief, sadness and loneliness because I know that's not what he would want, it's not what I want and it is not what my family want. So I've taken the time to think and prepare to take action to cut the shit out of my life so I can live with a pure and happy mind set.

I look over this period of my life, and I am so bloody proud of myself. I've had unconditional love from my family and I have managed to support myself and get myself through this. There are several outcomes and lessons I have learnt and one of them is that life is too short, put your own happiness first and life comes first.  Re inventing yourself is not only for the new year, it is an on going process so just watch this space, I've got a feeling something pretty awesome is gonna come out of this.

September

Everyone loves the first day of the month. It feels like a total fresh start. After the past few months, I have finally cleared my mind of all of the muddle. September, I have decided, is going to be my month. My clean slate.

I have come to a decision to stay in the UK and give it another shot, as I feel like I would've failed myself if I gave in and moved back to Cyprus. Therefore I have chosen another path to go down. Hopefully this one works out for me and helps me settle in a little more.

As I now feel like I have a sense of direction, I do feel slightly more grounded. I feel like I have something to focus on. I understand Alevels are stressful, but I feel I will be able to deal with that kind of stress easier than the stress I have previously delt with.

Anyway, I have decided that September is my month. I did say this a year ago when I first started college ha, but that college didn't suit me, so hopefully this one does. September is my month because it is my chance to turn my life around, I guess. Make some changes and totally concentrate on me. Make some friends, study subjects I enjoy and like I say every Monday, get fitter haha.

Thought of the day.

What is most important to you? Is it your home; job; car; partner; love; freedom; phone; popularity; family?  It's mad to think that people prioritise so many different things as important. So many people prioritise work and money over everything.

Its crazy that so many people put their happiness to the bottom of the pile to be able to pay for their houses; cars; phones; laptops ect. materialistic things.

To me my freedom and my happiness is the most important thing, if you're not happy with something, change it. You only get one chance, so you've got to do what is right for you. No one else can determine what is right or wrong for you, no one can make your life choices for you, it is totally down to you to be able to fix your situation in order for you to be ultimately happy. You have to go with your gut instincts and do what you feel you need to do for yourself.

It took a while for me to get to grips with my feelings in recent months, whether I would disappoint people if I no longer feel the same or want the same things. But at the end of the day, love your family, do your best, do what you love, do no harm and everything will work out your way.

Harome Wedding

This weekend we had a family wedding at Harome, near York. Helmsley is such  a gorgeous little village, it looks like it's out of a movie! All of the buildings are made from stone, there were classic cars everywhere and a beautiful little church. It was surrounded by fields full of horses and has little chickens and ducks wondering around everywhere.

We stayed at a hotel called The Pheasant Inn, I literally felt like I had walked into a different period of time ha! It had a quirky mix of old and new, with rustic furniture, mosaic tiled floors, book cases, pianos, lakes and a swimming pool (which I didn't know about ha).

The breakfast was the BEST breakfast I have ever had. I felt like I could just eat for hours; fresh berries, granola, croissants, salmon and eggs, cooked breakfasts. The view topped it off though, sat in the garden looking at the little lake and the horses in the field. Not to mention the weather was ace too, I'm so glad it was good weather for the wedding.

The rooms were so cute, little stone cottages with an open fire, duck down beds, a really deep bath and good coffee for the mornings. They had black out blinds and curtains so I literally slept so so good, I've never slept so long in my life.

The actual wedding its self was at Saint Gregory's Minister, an ancient Saxon church tucked way, surrounded by fields. It has a graveyard with all of the Saxon grave stones and also commonwealth war graveyard. The church was small but very haunting. The choir were awesome and the priest was pretty cool, he literally cracked open a tinny, while explaining how to maintain a good marriage haha.

The after party was at a place called The Starr Inn, the setting was really gorgeous, it has a big field with random hens and cockerels walking around ha. They had a brilliant singer on, she was so so good at setting the atmosphere. We sat down to have the meal; 10 COURSES! We were eating for about 3 hours ha. I enjoyed every bite, it was absolutely amazing.

The next morning, my friend Airlie who I grew up with in Cyprus came to visit for a coffee. She left Cyprus a few years ago and I have only seen her once since she left. She lives 10 minutes down the road from where we were staying and I didn't even know, such a great coincidence! It was so nice to catch up after not seeing each other for 4 years.

I then had to say goodbye to my family who were flying back to Cyprus, which is always the worst bit. I hate having to leave them, but it also makes me excited for the next time I will see them. Maybe I'll have to book my next trip ha!

My Skin Journey.

For years I have struggled with my skin. Since being 11 I can remember having acne prone skin and it has been a tough battle. I firstly want to say that having acne is definitely a rollercoaster of emotions and can turn out to be very character building. Although it causes insecurities, it helped me over come that and showed me how to be confident and comfortable in my own skin.

When I was younger, I was very very insecure about my skin. I HATED my skin. I couldn't cover it up, I couldn't make it go away and I was told I just had to wait it out. I had been to multiple doctors, dermatologists, chemists, beauticians and makeup artists, begging for a solution to either make my bad skin go away or show me how to make it invisible.

All of these 'solutions' individually were very expensive, and NONE of them worked for me. I spent a fortune on skin creams, scrubs, serums, moisturisers, face masks, foundation, primers, spot treatments, herbs and supplements, the lot. My mom and I did endless research on ways to cure acne and turned to a holistic approach.

This is where the game changed. I realised that all of these harsh chemicals I was putting on my skin were actually harming it more than what it was healing it. I have been told that I should NEVER put anything on my skin that isn't organic, natural or that I wouldn't eat. From here I tried different masks and face washes out of natural products and I did see a slight difference in my skin. This was the first part of healing my skin, not putting harsh products onto my delicate skin.

The next big part of healing my skin was the contraceptive pill. Now I know this is like woah, TMI, but hear me out. I was prescribed the pill I am on because my hormones were totally out of whack. As a result of unbalanced hormone levels, I developed cysts on my ovaries, which at 15, isn't great, so this pill was at the time, soully to get rid of the cysts on my ovaries which were causing me to have really heavy periods, cramps to the point of passing out and cystic acne.

After about a year on this pill, my skin started looking a lot better as it prevented further acne. Now, of course, it is totally natural to have a break out around your period, but its nothing severe. All I am left with now is scarring from beauty treatments in effort to rid my acne but after time , they have began to fade.

When I was younger, I used to cover myself in makeup everyday, just to try to cover up my acne. To me, I thought I looked much better and felt better about myself. At my school, we weren't allowed to wear makeup, full stop. I was told by a few teachers to go and take it off but many of my teachers were aware of my insecurities and turned a blind eye - in all fairness, I only wore foundation and mascara, not a full face of contouring and eyeshadow ect. I can remember one day at break, a girl I knew turned to me and said, 'Why do you wear so much make up to school, you don't need to'. I can remember feeling embarrassed at the time, because it was in front of other people and most of my friends had perfect skin. But this was a huge wake up call for me. The next day I came to school with no make up on and no one treated me any differently, no one even really noticed. This made me feel so good because I was so conscious of what people would think and say about me. This was a big turning point, I stopped wearing make up and my skin could breathe. This also helped contribute to my skin clearing up.

The next big part to clearing up my acne was my diet. I'm 99.9% sure I am allergic to dairy, as most of my family are and I have noticed that I get flare ups when I eat dairy. This is a hard portion to cut out of your diet, especially when you love natural yogurt as much as I do. As a result of this, I have cut out dairy and try my hardest to live a paleo based diet. I try to eat mostly veg, fruit, nuts, seeds and meat to obtain all of the required vitamins and minerals I need. And the one we have been waiting for... water! I try to drink at least 2 litres of water a day to keep my body and skin hydrated. One thing I find is that when I get into a good work out groove, my skin improves because I'm sweating out all of my toxins. And the good old vitamin D, the sun helps fade my scarring SO much.

Lastly, Like I mentioned earlier, I have tried a million different products and skin care regimes. My skin care regime currently consists of, a good cleanser and a natural oil based moisturiser, nothing expensive or fancy, really basic but it keeps my skin clean and nourished. My skin is no where near perfect, but it is good enough for me and I feel it is important to share my experiences and what I do to look after my skin, as it is always changing and developing so I'll be back with an update!

Your vibe attracts your tribe.

I've been thinking about my outlook on life recently. I have always been a really positive person and I have been brought up in a family where we have been taught that your day and your life is what you make it. If you wake up and you have already decided that it is a bad day, you're bound to have a bad  day. My mom always made a good point of trying to put my brother and I into a good mood before school to put us in the right mind set for the day. She always used to say 'seize the day', 'make today your day', 'kick Monday's arse'.

Recently I have been questioning my happiness. Am I happy with my body? Am I happy with my job? Am I happy with my social life? And I have realised that since the death of my uncle and the immediate moving of countries after that event, that I have actually really been suffering with the mental trauma of that period of my life. Because a lot changed, very quickly and I didn't give myself enough time to grieve. I started college and got a job straight away, which is good because I kept myself busy, but I found that it actually made me bottle it up more, which then made me more prone to emotional outbursts and breakdowns. This is the first time I have actually admitted that I am struggling, because I wanted to be strong for myself and everyone else.

I suppose I have tried to keep myself busy by trying to make new friends and throwing myself into my job. And because I have been so busy, I haven't taken time out to heal myself. I have realised I need to concentrate on myself to ensure I am at my upmost happiness and that I am not just going about my daily life because I have to. For months my life has just been, work, family, home. Although I am ecstatic that I get to spend more time with my family, I need time for me, I need time to make friends, I need time to explore, go to gigs, make memories and travel. I need time to grow, and to live a carefree teen life, where I don't have to worry about anything.

And this is where I begin to question myself. Am I doing what really makes me happy? What satisfies my soul? Am I going to bed and making up with a smile on my face? Because at this age I should be.

I have found that I have gotten too comfortable with having no friends and staying in on a weekend. that shouldn't be what my teenage years are about. I used to be a pretty confident girl, but I now feel like I'm boring and unapproachable. Which then leads to  a vicious cycle of self doubt. I do enjoy time to myself, but I really thrive off of the company of good friends and I really bounce off of other people.

So recently I have had a little awakening, like some one has shaken me, slapped me in the face and told me to get my shit together. This is the part of my life like in the movies where I am trying really hard to motivate myself and turn my life around. I have my eyes wide open and I am eager for new opportunity. So to concentrate on myself I have joined the gym and have promised myself I am going to stick to a paleo based diet, to make by body feel good. I am to be spending more time out with friends and family, who make me feel good about myself and push me to be the best I can be and I am taking time out for myself, to progress and accomplish the things I want in life.

Most importantly, I am upping my vibe. I want to attract the right crowd who make me feel good and genuinely satisfy my soul. I want my life to be about having a good time and actually living. I want to wake up with a smile on my face and skip to work without a care in the world. This is the best thing I could do for myself. It is hard, moving county and starting over, especially when everyone else's life is already falling into place, they already have their friends and their network and their routine ect. Whereas, I am completely starting over, and I don't think some people understand how hard it actually is. But I'm determined it'll all work out, it just takes time to settle and meet people and do new things. It will all fall into place and everything happens for a reason, I'll eventually meet the right people and find the right places, I just need to make it happen.