I have chaos in my soul!

Hey-Yooooo! This week has been CRAZY!

Do you ever think to yourself ‘What is this Chaos around me?!’. I have had to do some serious thinking to figure this one out. Luckily, I have had the time to do that! The time to do that has been starting this Million Step Challenge (https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/laura-mannion5). So basically, I have from 1st July to 30th September to walk a Million steps.

When I first signed up to this a few months ago, I honestly thought it would be pretty easy. As life seems to, time just sort of skipped and all of a sudden it was 2 weeks ago and I realised I had not prepared at all. So I ordered one of them watch things that track your steps and other things and I started to get moving again. I have just come out of a fibro flare-up, so for weeks before I had been in survival mode; work and as much mum stuff, and everything else had to go out the window until the flare-up passed. A flare-up also means that I lose muscle tone and fitness. Every time I have a flare-up it effectively means that I start again with my health and fitness, but it’s ok because I do and I’m proud of myself for that.

I’m on day 8 of the challenge and I have, no doubt, already annoyed a bunch of my facebook friends with holding myself accountable by posting my daily steps. That’s ok. Because one of my conclusions from all this analysing time is that I only know I’m living if I feel like I’m dying 😂 I have had such good support from my friends and my family it’s been worth potentially annoying others.

Anyway, to go back to this serious thinking…

via GIPHY

I figure that Friedrich Nietzsche was right on at least on one count…

I’ve realised the Chaos isn’t around me it’s inside of me! It’s in us all and embracing it is the way forward. We’re all “dancing stars”. My Meems gave birth to me and my “dancing star” siblings; I have 3 “dancing stars” but that’s not the only take home I get from this quote.

Every day we live, we make decisions and actions. We have families and hobbies and careers. We often don’t realise the impact of our actions especially when those actions delay our happiness. Happy people are the most productive, they are aware of their actions but can forgive themselves for their imperfections. Just imagine with me a moment; the ramifications of happy you and unhappy you. Here’s my versus:

Happy Loopy is positively affecting her children; takes a positive action to improve herself and her family’s lives; can accept compliments and criticism; can analyse negative feelings and MOVE ON; can appreciate people and what they have to give; has inner strength and uses it; is calmer generally; more aware of surroundings. The list could just keep going! We are complicated creatures after all.

Unhappy Loopy wasn’t aware of her impact, positive or negative, on her children; often allowed self doubt to decide her actions; rejected compliments and took criticism as insults; analysed negative feelings and stayed for tea; tried very hard to avoid people altogether; had inner strength but wasn’t aware of it and only occasionally would let the lioness be free; calm?!… mmm nope!; surroundings were always scary.

I would LOVE to know a) What Happiness means to you? And b) What’s your Versus? Feel free to comment or contact me directly with yours!

Finally, a massive thank you if you got all the way through this! As a thank you I want to share this glittery, sparkly, summer-y, special birthday creation that I made for my son’s girlfriend this week… it made me smile and I hope they make you smile too! I am always interested in feedback, good, bad or ugly so if you have an idea for me or want something included in a blog, just want to give feedback or have a story for me please email it to [email protected] or post in the comments.

Lets get inspired together! Loopy Laura xx