Odds Off

It was 16 th December 2010 when I decided to give myself a year to go on a year long life discovery. I chose to be a student for a year. So I feel it is only apt that I write a blog on this important day in my journey as this is my so called “last day” to actively soul search and the most remarkable thing happened just before midnight. Something popped inside me and I found my feet. I for the first time in my whole life felt entitled to set boundaries. Set my own boundaries of what I will accept and what I won’t. I found my inner voice telling me what was healthy for me and what wasn’t so on the same evening I spoke up to two people that are incredibly important to me. I did not do it with malis in heart I did it out of love. Love for me and for them. I did it as I have always been so insecure that the idea of potentially loosing someone for airing my view has been paralysingly scary, but not anymore. I went to Costa Rica and learnt that I am actually OK as a person and I work my butt

Confidence can often be misleading. People can go on stage, walk in a room and sing in front of thousands and look utterly confident. Yet deep inside they are trembling. They are slowly torturing themselves. Others can actually feel confident in such situations yet feel insecure inwardly. They can feel uncomfortable yet look as if they have simply arrived home. I find myself sometimes in the latter category. I can walk into a meeting with my head up high and not worry about who is there or the crowd I need to entertain about electronic goods and the new software upgrade that makes this new model to die for! I can mingle with figures of high regard and hold up a counter argument as I view them as simply fascinating people who have got to where they are. I don’t believe they are any better than me or that I am better than them. I believe we are equal as people just the achievements and attitudes towards life are different. Yet I can find myself starting to feel incredibly insecure if I f

This morning I was reading about the mind, about how we live with this internal functionality called the brain. Without it we would not live, we would not have electric pulses shooting down throughout our body enabling us to do what we want. However I have come to realise throughout the years that simply because we are attached to our brains it doesn’t necessarily mean we have to always do as it tells us, as it acts as our best friend but simultaneously acts as our worst enemy! Whilst it enables us to move our hands, walk and talk it also enables us to think. The problem with this I have come to realised is that just as unaware we are of moving our hands, legs, jaw etc. we are unaware of our thoughts. We think away but unfortunately we can’t often stop the damaging thoughts until they have taken over and we are in a pool of darkness. We don’t seem to have the mechanics of dislocating the thinking mind like we would move our hand if it was burning from the open fire. However through the

Whilst I was in Costa Rica I wrote on my blogg that I would not look around me as a cocky confident lass that knew what was around. I would open my eyes a bit more and walked around my own area as a tourist. I have done this. I went on my own into the Corf Castle countryside after dipping my toes in the Purbeck swimming pool and drove until I found this amazing recommended pub. I was the only person there as they had closed shop but the landlady allowed me to have a ½ pint and sit outside even though they were closed. I took the lady up on her offer. I sat down with my cloudy bitter and a packet of cheese and onion crisps. I looked around me and I was amazed at the sight around me. Green hills and thatched roofs, castle ruins to my left and an old pub to my right. I had been for a walk with Matt the day before and sat in the grass bank of the Jurassic coast looking out to the ocean! As I sat there in the beer garden I felt an over whelming flow of contentness of being home. I realis

Yesterday I had an interesting conversation about changing. Not changing clothes or nappies or hair colour but about personal development. Changing who you are. It made me wonder a lot. Can an experience change you forever? Does something simply go SNAP and you have changed? Or do some of us have to grow and learn the lesson along the way? Or are these “changing circumstances” intertwined like a strangler tree uses its roots to take over the other tree? I personally don`t know. I grew up with two conflicting arguments. First one: It is important to change with the times but the second was don´t change for anyone! Surely if you change with the times you are changing for others? Then I ask the question when do we know when we need to change or when we should change? When is change good or bad? Do we lie to ourselves a lot and believe we have changed when simply all we have done is learnt a lesson? Do we kid ourselves that we don´t need to change because we know that with change comes a l

I discovered today that I have no problem making self discoveries about myself but I struggle keeping them. I couldn’t tell you how many times I have made a new years promise to cut out the ice cream and to only eat one rather than the whole package of yummy biscuits… Have I ever stuck to it for more then two hours… the answer would be no! I have the intentions of keeping to it but I find that I give in and then beat myself up about it. I then feel bad having not stuck to a promise I only made to myself and before I know it I am eating two tubs of ice cream to drown my sorrows….. It becomes a vicious circle.. and today I finally figured out a way out of it. Cut myself some slack. I started thinking about how there were things I would have liked to do differently. Things I wish I could have said, things I wish I could have done and so on and then I realized that when we are younger we get cut some slack. We are excused for making “mistakes” or as I would call them learning opportunities

My feet hit the ground after 6 hours on the bus. I didn´t know what to expect…. I had been told this place was beautiful. I was told that here in Rio Celeste that when god created the sky he took a bit of it and placed it in this River called Rio Celeste… I have to admit I was mighty sceptical… My experience of Costa Rica had taken a slight hit this week. My body was and still is refusing the rice and beens, the house I am staying in had gotten much louder and I hadn´t managed to sleep for nearly 5 days. My faith in people had taken a massive hit and deep down I hoped this place would give me a bit of spark back. I needed it. I needed not to miss my family, the country side of England, the old pubs and not being stalked in shops, by strangers not wanting to touch my hair constantly or simply chat to me because I look different… As we luckily went off the bus at the exact right momento without any signs as to where this place was I wondered if my luck was turning. We started walking up

I woke up next to a pool and opposite the beach on Sunday. Took me a few minutes to actually believe where I was. I had gone to a Fiesta (yes indeed another one) in Puntarenas. After that we drove to the beach. I could hear the ocean when I went to bed but I didn´t know it was going to be in front of me! I didn´t want to get up I wanted to enjoy this momento so I did so. I skiped breakfast and listened to the waves and watched out as far as the eye would take me. I waited for Jack to arrive and he jumped in the pool. We sat there in the rain in this warm pool with my new Costa Rican friends, Cristian, Marco, Sean and 2 x Andreas and started laughing at how surreal this all was. However that didn´t stop us from climbing 40 meters in the air and jumping down the bungy jumping tower. OMG the view was amazing. Costa Rica never stops to amaze me. The beauty is beyond this world. I went silent for a good few minutes and Jack started laughing. He looked at me and joked that he had actually

I have invented a new Word!! Skeptilism!! That is what I had before coming out here! Don´t get me wrong! I won´t completely become naive and believe everyone is trustworthy but I will wait a bit longer before thinking everyone is out to get you! It basically started on Monday. I was invited by this Costa Rican Old man to come and meet his family and stop over for coffee. I noticed they sold furniture so I thought yeah why not learn a bit more Spanish and see what they would sell me. After work on the Tuesday I go round fully prepared with my little pocket book dictionary and had practiced how to say sorry but I won´t be buying anything! I was welcomed with a FAT hug and smiley faces all around and a bathtub of coffee and several   cakes. We chatted about the weather (what is it about the weather that is so universal that it is the perfect chit chat topic!!) I in my basic Spanish told them about Iceland and England. They couldn´t get their head around the fact I was working for free on

I have been here for just under two weeks and it feels as if I have lived here for months. I have made so many new friends and met so many happy Costa Rican people. We all stick out like a sore thumb but the welcome is unreal, and it isn´t just because they want to jump into bed with you! J They are so ready to help you and dudes and dudetts I am telling you their love of food and sharing it is out of this world. We are all finding ways of working the weight off! My favorite is this walk I can do around San Ramon and it takes you up the steepest hill ever but OMG is it worth it!! The beauty surrounding this place is paradise! Talking about paradise this weekend we did a trip to a beach called Santa Teresa and let me tell you this, anyone who knows me knows my love of see sun and fun but this beach took my breath away! I have never seen anything like it before. Thank god it was this beautiful though as the trip there definitely tested the Pura Vida way of life. We got up far too late

What can I say! I am here!! And what a a week it has been. I wish I could say I was speechless however you aren´t that lucky!! I have so much to tell already but not enough space or friends and family with enough patients to tolerate it. Took the bus to San Ramon after an eventful journey to the station packed as a Sardine in a car!! and what a beautiful journey it was. I started to get to know the people I was staying with better and it I was skeptical that the friendships that were forming would last through the long hot days to come….. We got greeted by our host families and had to walk with our luggage to the house…. That is when I really realized how hot it is here… the beginning to my muscle building! We dropped our bags off and picked up our lunch boxes and headed straight to work. 5 minute walk we were promised – yeah Costa Rican 5 minutes are 40 minutes!! I am still getting caught out on this one…. Since then we have literally torn down a whole house with only three hammers an