Yesterday when swinging on the swings in a children’s playground,

(YES YOU READ RIGHT )

a song came into my head…

‘And you say, just be here now

Forget about the past, your mask is wearing thin

Just let me throw one more dice

I know that I can win

I’m waiting for my real life to begin’

I remember watching Scrubs as a teenager and finding this song so sad and beautiful.

I just thought it was about people dying.

I didn’t really get it.

Cut to yesterday,

I was at my current day job and had gone to the park.

I was playing on a swing.

And I was properly loving it.

I was laughing.

And

Making the people I was working with laugh too.

I got off the swing and thought to myself

‘Shit! I really enjoyed that!’

Walking back to work, I realised I was having a good day.

I wasn’t waiting for the end of the day to come.

I wasn’t waiting for bedtime to come.

I wasn’t waiting for the next meal to come.

I wasn’t waiting for the next big job to come.

I wasn’t panicking about what was going to happen in the future.

I wasn’t holding on to everything that happened in my past.

I was LIVING IN THE NOW.

I was living my actual life.

For longer than I’d like to admit, I have not been living in my actual life.

I was always waiting for the end of the day to come when I could go to sleep and forget.

I was always praying and hoping for my future to come NOW. 

I was never living in my real life.

If I was at work, I would be counting down the hours.

If I was out and about, I would be counting down the minutes to the next meal or when I could leave.

And I think a lot of us can admit to this very thing, sometimes, if not a lot of the time.

Waiting for your REAL LIFE to begin.

But your real life is NOW.

It has begun.

And if you’re not happy in it…. then something needs to change.

You need to ask for help.

You need to reconsider how you are managing your time,

How you’re talking to yourself,

How you look after yourself,

How you love yourself.

I am not BUDDHIST,

however in Buddhism,

there is the concept of the SIX REALMS in the Buddhist wheel of life,

which humans access and live in.

One of the realms is the REALM of HUNGRY GHOSTS.

(On that point, I highly recommend you read the book ‘The Realm of Hungry Ghosts’ by Dr Gabor Maté. A book about addiction in all its forms from drugs, to workaholics and how addiction is present in us all)

In the REALM OF HUNGRY GHOSTS, humans are not happy with the present moment so REACH OUTSIDE OF THEMSELVES. 

I’m going to quote Dr Gabor Maté directly,

‘This is the domain of addiction, where we constantly seek something outside ourselves to curb an insatiable yearning for relief or fulfillment. The aching emptiness is perpetual because the substances, objects or pursuits we hope will soothe it are not what we really need. We don’t know what we need, and so long as we stay in the hungry ghost mode, we’ll never know. We haunt our lives without being fully present. ‘

Whether delving into 

the FUTURE 

or 

TRYING TO RELIVE THE PAST 

or 

using ADDICTIVE SUBSTANCES to escape

or 

using OTHER DISTRACTIONS to escape from the present moment.

I have lived in the ‘realm of hungry ghosts’ for far too many years.

Afraid of living in the now.

And my life, in moments, was utterly miserable.

So how do we change our MINDSET?

How do we COMBAT this?

Obviously if you have an actual mental health issue, then you need to access proper medication and long term therapy.

It’s not like you can wake up one morning and be like

‘OH HEY THERE LIFE, I WILL LIVE YOU TO MY FULL POTENTIAL’

It DOES NOT WORK LIKE THAT.

And any person who tells you that… well I’d take it with a serious pinch of salt

(Like I do with my porridge 💁🏼‍♀️)

Here are some things that I have found USEFUL

These suggestions have come from other people when I ASKED for HELP-

Mindfulness

Do you ever find you’ve gone through a series of actions on AUTOMATIC PILOT?

That you’ve paid for your food shop and can’t remember if you put your card away or left your keys at home?

Your brain has been everywhere but THIS MOMENT IN TIME.

Mindfulness is a meditative practise to engage with the present moment.

A lot of mindfulness practises are based on focussing on your breath.

And when a thought arises, instead of pushing it away or fighting it….

You acknowledge and let it pass.

Headspace and Calm are both great apps for practising mindfulness.

If you have difficulty with this, there are physical mindfulness practices.

Such as mindfully eating a raisin. Smelling it. Rolling it over your lips. Looking at it. Tasting it slowly.

Or focusing on a physical object, feeling all of its textures.

Or aromatherapy oils, engaging your breathing and inhaling the smell.

Or focusing on your surroundings. Mindfully walking observing everything you can see and hear.

FEED YOUR SOUL

Do more of what you LOVE!

Genuinely. 

It’s so SIMPLE.

But so many of us DO NOT DO THIS.

Add the things and people that you LOVE into your life more.

Whether that be READING, or COOKING or CHASING PIGEONS IN THE PARK, or LAUGHING at STUPID YOUTUBE VIDEOS, or watching ‘CYST POPPING’ videos (like my own mu – love you Mum.)

It could be GOING TO AN ART GALLERY, or WALKING IN THE WOODS or WANDERING ROUND THE SUPERMARKET or SEEING YOUR BROTHER or DOING A JOB YOU ACTUALLY ENJOY.

When you add more JOY to your life, even if you FEEL LIKE CRAP…. the joy will slowly increase.

For example, I love music. I love listening to it. I love dancing to it by myself. I love singing along.

I was working so many hours. Isolating myself. Not eating. And listening to THOROUGHLY DEPRESSING AND ANGRY MUSIC.

I put on some upbeat Davie Bowie and my brain was like ‘NOOOO THANK YOU!’

And was ANGRY with myself for even trying.

Now, through persistently trying to change, I am actively bopping and DANCING along on the tube.

I’m seeing more of my friends.

Changing what day job I do.

Cooking more.

I’m adding the THINGS I LOVE back into my life.

CHANGE

If something is broken FIX IT!

If you’re front door was sawed in half and hanging off it’s hinges for the whole world to come in, you wouldn’t be like,

‘OH IT’LL BE FINE!’

And do nothing.

You would CHANGE and FIX the DOOR.

If there are things, a job, people or a current situation that make you miserable, CHANGE IT!

You do NOT HAVE TO ENGAGE IN THINGS THAT MAKE YOU UNHAPPY ANYMORE!

I think a lot of us feel a certain amount of guilt about this.

You DESERVE to be HAPPY! 

So change the things that make you UNHAPPY!

You cannot change some things

Okay, let’s be reasonable for a second.

There are some things that you CANNOT change.

I hated my FACE for a long time.

I have a pointy nose and my face is not symmetrical.

Unless I invest THOUSANDS OF POUNDS INTO CHANGING IT (which I do not have)

It is not going to change.

And neither do I want it to change.

Or say for example, you are going through a rough patch in your relationship. Work on it!

Fix the things that can be fixed.

Change the things you can…

And learn to ACCEPT and WORK ON the things you can’t.

And on that note, I’m going to be uploading blog posts less often (so not on a daily basis),

I’ll still be updating the Joyfull Joy Food social media accounts mostly daily but also giving myself a little more space to enJOY my actual life.

I will continue on sharing with you all.

Your real life is now.

Stop waiting for it to begin.

Make it happen now.

Live your life now.

Terry’s Chocolate Oranges are MINDFUL.

For my non UK readers….

A Terry’s Chocolate Orange is an orange flavoured chocolate in the shape of an orange, broken into segments like an ORANGE.

Because you have to eat each segment, individually, you have to eat in mindfully.

Unless you eat the whole thing FULLY WHOLE like an absolute animal/GENIUS.

I’ve created a Chocolate Orange person that requires you to live in the present moment to taste all of the different flavours. Engaging fully in your senses.

I’ve sweetened and flavoured the oats with orange zest and orange juice.

And topped it off with orange segments. So it’s super orangey, super flavourful and crammed full of Vitamin C helping your body absorb the iron and the magnesium from the cacao and dark chocolate.

I’ve also used Pip and Nut’s Chocolate Orange Almond Butter which is UNBELIEVABLY TASTY and FLAVOURFUL. And refined sugar free. But you could use an alternate nut butter, or orange flavoured dark chocolate.

I encourage you to fully engage in this porridge and fully engage in your life.

Mindful Chocolate Orange Porridge

What you’ll need:

• 45g oats (double quantities as you go if making for more than one person)
• Plant based milk (enough to cover oats)
• 2 tbsp of cacao
• 1 tbsp of Pip and Nut’s Chocolate Orange Almond Butter/ 1 square of Orange Dark Chocolate
• A pinch of salt
• 1/2 tsp of cinnamon
• 1/2 an orange zested and juiced.
• Orange segments/ Clementine segments to top.
• (Optional) 1 square of dark chocolate

How to make it:

• Juice and zest half an orange. Seperate the orange into segments and put to one side.
• Put oats into a pan or bowl with the cacao powder, cinnamon, pinch of salt, orange juice and orange zest.
• Top with plant based milk. Put enough plant based milk to cover the oats and a little more.
• If heating on the stove, heat on a low heat, stirring gently. Keep stirring till at consistency that is PERFECT for you.
• If heating in microwave, heat for 2 mins. Stir. Heat for another 2 mins. Heat for 1 min more if you like your porridge THICK.
• Top with chocolate orange nut butter/ 1 square of orange dark chocolate, orange segments and a square of dark chocolate (double chocolate – #liveyourbestlife)
• Sit down with your oats, smell the orange and chocolate, look at the colours and mindfully taste the porridge taking your time to enJOY.

I say this again and again, but CHANGE does NOT happen overnight.

But we have one life, start living it.

Much love,

Joy xx