Love from, Florence Grace

Hi, I'm Flo and I have a problem... I can't say "no".   Okay, not in the literal sense. Obviously I can say the word "no". "Flo, do you want a banana?" "No thanks!", "Flo, do you think Donald Trump should be president?" "No, no, no, no, absolutely no". I think what I can't say "no" to is kindness , being nice, people being nice to me. And it's starting to become a real issue. If someone asks me to do a favour and my initial reaction is to say "no", all the individual has to do is tell me some heartbreaking story about why they need my help so much (my dog is sick/my mum needs me to go shopping with her/I'm seeing my parents for the first time in ages) and I will say a big fat " yes ", even if I don't want to, or sometimes even physically can't, causing me to rearrange my own plans to help somebody else. Which in the long run, sure its a nice thing for...

They say your biggest competition is yourself. You vs. You.  I would have to agree with this. I am my biggest competition. If I do something more than once, I hope- and expect- to get better at it each time I do it, regardless of how long I've already been trying it or how long it's supposed to take to get better, or even if you can get better!  A perfect example of this is my running. I have now been for three runs since the start of the month and am already forcing myself to be better than I was on the previous run. When I first started, I stopped at every other lamp post. On my second run, I stopped about 10 times. Yesterday, on my third run, I stopped twice. I know you're supposed to pace yourself with physical exercise but I can't help it. I want to be better every single time.  It's the same with my writing, my blogging, my freelancing. I want to create better content than last time, make more money than last time, have more views than last ...

The female body. We all have a love/hate relationship with ours, right? For me, it's been almost a lifelong issue. No, I've never had an "eating disorder" so to speak, but as I've grown older and have learnt more about teenage body issues, I have seriously considered the fact that I may have suffered from body dysmorphia. Now, I'm not about to sit here and self diagnose, wallowing in pity. But I want to try and prevent other young teens going through what I have gone through and share with you all what I have learnt. Since I was about 7 years old, I was always aware that I was much larger than all of my friends...or so I wrongly believed anyway. We couldn't clothes swap at sleepovers because I was afraid their clothes wouldn't fit me...so I'd sit and do make up, or watch instead. As I reached 10, 11, 12 and started to care about boys and the school discos, I was acutely aware of the fact that not only did my tummy stick out way more than everyo...