Dealing with overpowering emotions.

Today's post is going to be a lot more serious than the majority of the posts I shall write.

It's something that I think most of us will face in our lives at some point, and a lot of people struggle with on a daily basis.

I'm currently facing a tough time at home right now, and I thought maybe it was important to share my thoughts, feelings and advice on the subject whilst I'm trying to understand my emotions.

What are strong emotions?

Strong emotions are usually negative, such as anger and depression, and can often be difficult for people to control.

Strong emotions can also be up the other end, however. A lot of people can get excessively happy, which is obviously a much nicer feeling to feel.

Why do people feel strong emotions?

A lot of people feel these emotions, particularly negatively.

Emotions can be difficult practically impossible to deal with at the best of times, especially during a difficult time in somebody's life.

Contributes to these emotions could be stress. This could be through school, work, college, life itself, home issues, etc etc... Life is a tough thing to deal with, for even the most care-free of people.

Some people find it harder than the average to deal with their emotions, particularly if they have a certain medical issue, such as depression.

How can emotions be dealt with?

I'm obviously not a doctor.

I'm a young girl, and I can't give out medical or necessarily reliable advice for you to go on.

However, I have experience, and I know for a fact that, even though it can be hard, emotions can be dealt with, even at the most difficult times.

• Keep your chin up. I know this is a piece of advice pretty much anybody will say to you. 'Think positively!' The most common response is often 'I can't', or 'I'm trying'. If I'm honest, trying is the best thing you can do. You have to just think positively about whatever's wrong in your life. If there's something causing you a strong negative emotion and you feel knee-deep in stress, you need to pick out the positives. I know I'm not exactly one to talk - negativity is my middle name. However, with the help of my super-duper positive and uplifting boyfriend Jack, I can often see the positive outcomes in every situation. It is possible.
• Do things you love. This isn't always the answer. Sometimes people are too filled with things to do and their lives are too jammed-packed for them to do things that they will enjoy. However, if you have the time and emotions are running high, do something you know will make you smile. Even if you aren't in the mood, do it. If there's a chance it'll make you smile, why not try, instead of simply feeling sorry for yourself? Usually, if I feel sad, I take the time to watch my favourite American TV show, Ellen. I also research pandas and, of course, blog. What do you think I'm doing now? :-)
• Talk to someone you trust. I always find it ridiculous when people say keeping things in will just bottle it all up, until eventually you burst. However, when I do vent my feelings to somebody and just let it all out, it helps me feel so much better. I know that there's someone that I can rely on or turn to. Just having it out there in the open helps me feel more confident that the situation will improve, and knowing that the person is trustworthy helps me see that as a positive. Just letting out your emotions takes it off your chest. If there is no one close to you that you feel you can trust enough to talk to, remember, there is Childline. I have used them many a time.
• Turn to your faith. This doesn't necessarily mean your religion. Of course, if you have a religion, it can be a massive help to your life. It's something that you can trust in and rely on and rules that you can live by to help yourself to be a better person. However, it mainly means turning to things that you believe in. Your beliefs in life will help you to compose yourself.

The main thing in life is having somebody there.

So, whatever you do, please make sure that you have somebody to support you through difficult times.

It will make a world of a difference.

I'm off to watch some Ellen now, and talk to my gorgeous partner.

I hope that some of this has made a difference to you, although I know that reading advice for me when I'm angry, upset or anxious changes nothing.

It's all down to you to make the difference, and with just a little bit of help from others, I know you can do it.

Good luck.

With all my love always,

Elly. xox <3

-- P.S. I would like to apologise for Jack's blog on Sunday. I tried to delete it but the old man wouldn't let me. Sorry!--

Meet Jack!

Hey. It's Jack.

I've hijacked gone onto Elly's Blogger today! Don't ask me why, because honestly, you do not want to know  I have no idea!

Elly is sat on the floor playing on the Wii if you're interested..
"Jack. They're not interested.."
SHUT UP. I'M an INTERESTING PERSON!

Seriously.. voices in your head.. you've got to hate them sometimes...

Anyway, hi. I'm Jack. Elly's boyfriend. And yes, before you ask, I am incredibly insane sexy.

You've seen pictures of me, I know... and I'm surprised your computer actually survived such a large amount  of hottness. Just ask Elly. She would totally agree.
"No she wouldn't." Urm.. be quiet.. I know what my own girlfriend thinks. "No.. you really-" Be quiet now voices.. time to sleep..

Now, I do have a reason for doing this completely random blog post. The reason is to tell all you lovely people about the fact that Elly LOVES pandas. Like.. they're her FAVOURITE thing. "More than you Jack?" Yes. Actually. Yes.

And that's all. Elly loves pandas. And I'm Jack.

Nice speaking to you!

J.

Major Confidence Boost.

I think this is probably the first week in a while I've only done a minuscule amount of schoolwork!

My week has been amazing, but so busy!

I've been doing Work Experience this week at a pre-school opposite my house.

All of the children most of the children are as good as gold, and I've found it's really helped me to gain confidence, and have the opportunity to be independent and responsible.

It's strange, because something I'm not used to doing in my life is acting mature.

I'm the baby of the family, apart from a cousin that is the same age as me, and just one younger that cousin only a year younger(although he probably has a higher mental age).

Being around such young children really made me feel like I had to mature a lot. I felt so responsible for their safety in particular, and I had to push aside my clumsiness and carelessness and really take every single thing I did into consideration.

I wasn't used to this.

However, in the short number of days so far, there have fortunately been zero accidents involving me!
In fact, I've done a pretty good job of caring for the children.

I've even got over my fear of assertiveness and managed to be strict with the naughtier kids.

I feel I've taken a large step forwards with my confidence.

• I've gained the ability to talk to new people: I've made a few new friends, spoken to lots of adults and got on very well(usually, I'd ask friends I was with to go buy something for me in a shop, because i was "too scared" to talk to the adults), and spoken in front of the class many times without feeling shy or embarrassed.
• I've been more confident about myself, especially in public. Jack and I went to a barn dance on Saturday. It was so much fun, and I participated eagerly in almost every dance. A year or so ago, I would have cowered in the corner, concerned I'd mess up or do something stupid, and worried that everyone's eyes would be on me.
• I really feel that I've grown up an awful lot. Although I can still be childish and silly and an awful brat sometimes, I can now hold mature conversations with adults, vary my character depending on the situation and be responsible for others, myself and my things.

I just thought I'd share all of this to you, to let you know that if you, like me, thought you were completely helpless... Well, there is hope!

Enjoy being young while it lasts though, by all means.

With all my love,

Elly. xox <3

Ohmygoshwhat?

Can your brain take it...?

I'm one of those depressing people in life who absolutely loves the world's Great Unanswered Questions!

I am an extremely opinionated person, and I'm sure if you gave me a topic of debate, I'd have plenty to say about it.

However, a lot of the things I think about on a weekly basis tend to be the sort of topic that would bum out the entire room in a classroom debate or family gathering. People don't like to put the world into perspective and think about what's up there, who's up there, and what exists beyond the stars...

Here are some of my favourite questions that totally get my mind boggled:

1. Is there a God?
2. If God made the universe, who made God?
3. Is there a meaning to life? If so, what is it?
4. What is the point of living a good life if we are just going to die?
5. Is there any form of spirituality to life? Heaven? Hell? Ghosts?
6. Are we here for a reason, or is it just luck and coincidence?
7. Are we the most intelligent living thing in existence?
8. What is time? Does it continue when we all die?
9. What are memories? Are they illusions? If there are no memories, do we have free will?
10. If God created everything, why did he create Satan?

I probably shouldn't torture myself with these thoughts - half of the time they petrify me!

On the other hand, I just absoultely love thinking about things that nobody can answer.

A lot of the time, thinking about something that is completely beyond somebody's understanding will spin them out, make them feel worthless and probably depress them for a day or two.

Me on the other hand?

These questions tend to make me feel better about my life.

I hate inequality in society. I have exceptions for certain things such as authority within work places or within households, but to me, equality is totally important.

I don't like the idea that Scientists are so desperate to find out all of these things that we probably didn't need to know anyway. We live and we die, that's my motto, and we don't need to know all of these facts if they'll be no use to us anyway.

These questions make me feel happy because:

a) I like to know that nobody knows the answers, not even the smartest of people, and it makes me feel just the same as everybody else.

b) Really, the little things in life that get me down aren't so important. We're just a tiny little speck on this big blank canvas. We're not particularly that significant. This makes me feel better about who I am and how important I am in society, because really we're all just in the same position.

I hope I've made you all think about things and put things into perspective...

If you want to share your views I'd be happy to listen, I'd love to debate with you about my opinion and share my views on any of the above matters or any other questions you'd like to share.

I hope I haven't bummed any of you guys out too much :-(

Enjoy your weekend!

All my love to you,

Elly. xox <3

The Boggle Sign.

I have an obsession with a game called Boggle on the iPad.

For those of you who don't know, Boggle is usually a board game where on a 4 by 4 grid you have 16 letters. You have to make words by joining the letters horizontally, vertically or diagonally, but you can't pass over a letter you've already used or use one square more than once.

On the iPad, it is completely addictive, and whilst my 43-year-old Mother averages a score of approximately 36, I race ahead with scores of 60, 70 and 80.
My high score is currently 87, but I don't like to brag or anything... ;-)

But here's a sign if I've ever seen one.

I went onto Boggle for the first time in a while yesterday. And if that's not a sign of complete and utter nerdiness in itself, the four letters across the top of the grid perfectly spelled out:

G E E K

... Well, then, Boggle.

That's just rude.

Love and best wishes,

Elly. xox <3

The Chance To Be Popular!

I wonder how many of you would grasp the chance to be popular if it was right in front of you.

Imagine if it was right there; a sign on the school bulletin:

Recruiting new members into our super popular friendship group! Any geek accepted - we will transform you.

Would you take it?
Would you even glance?
Would your eyes widen so much that they almost pop out of your head!?

Imagine that... The opportunity to be popular... Leave all your 'geek' past behind, become somebody else, live a life of popularity...



I thought about this today.
In my friendship group at school, we're not exactly the most popular people.
We're eccentric and different - 'quirky', you might say.
We have many friends, and we're all close within our group and get along well (most of the time!). However, we're not exactly the coolest kids around.

That's okay, though, because we have each other. However lame it sounds, it's true, and it's nice to know that we have a group of friends who can always support each other no matter what, knowing that we're all in the same position.

There are friends recently within our friendship group that have slowly moved away from us. They've sidled over to a more 'popular' group of people who don't participate in perhaps the most sensible of things.

This made me consider the word popular. What does this word mean, and why do we use it?
Watching those people who were my friends tag along with those stupid and egocentric people made me think that they really weren't popular at all.
Their status within the school now hadn't altered. They were just the same as they were before, just participating in things that I view as completely idiotic, ignorant and self-harmful.
As they tagged along with their newly found 'friends', acting all big-headed with their rebellious ways and their harmful habits, I really thought about this word, and I thought to myself:

You stupid people! You're not popular at all!

Why hadn't I seen this before!?

It's not being 'cool' that makes you popular. Cool isn't even a relevant word!

Being 'popular' should mean something to you. It should be about having an ideal amount of people surrounding you that love and care for you for who you are, not the stupid things you do.
You should be 'popular' and 'liked' because of your personality.
You should be surrounded by people that treat you like somebody who should be valued in life, and care for your needs.
You should be included in what you do, not left to tag along or watch from the side.

This is what popular really means to me.

So I beg to you, fellow geeks.
If you have a group of people similar to you who really care - even one friend who treats you the way you should be treated - then please do not trade the gift God has given you for something that won't even mean anything to you in a few years to come.

You have love and care and support in your life.
What more could you wish for?

 Love to you all,
Best wishes,
Elly. xox <3

A Little Bit About Me! - Part One

I actually decided I would do two posts today.

My 'about me' section on the right-hand-side was limited of space, and there was too much that I wanted to share with you about my life and everything in it!

So...

Before I start on my main entry for today, I thought I'd do my little 'About Me' section on here, but make it...

Massive!

I don't want to bore you with my entire life story, but I want to talk more about things you'll probably be interested in or you'll be able to relate to! If I'm going to be blogging for a long time, I want to give my readers the opportunity to understand me as a person, know who I am and what I do, and know that they can relate to me. Most importantly, I want you all to realise that I am entirely genuine.

There's only three things I'm going to talk about for now - I think these sessions should probably be in small doses!

This post may be a little boring compared to the usual - I don't care if you read it all, just skim through or even skip it entirely! It's up to you. :-) enjoy!

1. My Instruments

Something you all need to understand is that music is something so important to me and my life!
In my tiny little box of a bedroom, I altogether own: one full-length electric piano, a ukulele, a classical guitar, an acoustic guitar(a beautiful one! Tanglewood: spruce and mahogany!), and two harmonicas(keys C and D).
Without being a total preacher, music really is an amazing thing. It can move someone in ways words will never have the power to do!

                    Sorry about poor quality, but that's blackberries for you!
I self-taught myself all my instruments, and I adore every single one of them, specifically the piano.
I could spend my whole life on that thing and never get bored.

You can listen to a few of my covers here: www.youtube.com/pianoprincessify

2. My schoolwork.

Something that you might say is 'abnormal' about me is my love for school.

Sure, sometimes I get so tired I'm unwilling to participate, and sometimes I complain early on a Monday morning...

However, I actually enjoy learning and expanding my knowledge.

It's not something I will often openly admit, but here. You have it in writing.

I like the idea that everyday your mind expands, and if you try really hard, you can fit so much knowledge into that small space inside your head.

If you imagine writing everything you knew down onto paper, just think about how much room it would fill! Your bedroom? Your entire house? Your whole village!? I guess it depends how smart you are...

There are, of course, subjects I don't enjoy so much, such as PE! Obviously, the fact I'm so tall and dorky means I'm incredibly elegant utterly clumsy and hopeless!

Subjects such as Maths and Science however are my strong point, closely followed by Childcare.

I often spend my spare time making things like this:

Fun right!?

Bet you can't think of a better way to spend your free time than with a bit a massively overpowering amount of Chemistry! ;D

3. My teddies!

This is sort of a bit cringey to talk about, but, I absolutely adore my teddies.

I think I actually have.. 15 in total?

I just can't get rid of any of them - haven't you ever seen Toy Story!? L

I'm in general quite childish.

Although I can be completely mature and adult-like (when I want to be...), I have a child-like nature that makes my personality. :-)

I love fairies, magic, teddies, throwing tantrums, running around like an idiot (you really don't want to see that!), etc etc...

My teddies complete me. :-) I don't know what I'd do without them.

So I suppose this concludes Part One of 'A Little Bit About Me'!
I don't really enjoy talking about myself, and you're lucky I unleashed my secrets upon you. I shan't be doing that often.

I hope I didn't bore you too much, but I do hope it let you know a little bit more about me and who I am :-)
Today I will be producing another blog entry, or at least starting it! I'm hoping to have it uploaded by tonight, and if not, tomorrow afternoon!

Thank you so much for your support over the past week (a week today since my blog's been up and running, and already 103 views! Wahoo!)

With all my love,

Elly. xox <3