Real Talk: What's In My Handbag?

I've read many a 'what's in my handbag?' blog, each listing a fine selection of useful (and usually expensively branded!) items. However, the contents of my bag aren't really like that... I've mastered the Mary Poppins-style packing of fitting an unnatural amount of things in, but unlike Mary, a lot of the things in my bag are not particularly impressive.
But, here they are anyway!

1. Phone
It's summer, and the amount of jumpsuits and dresses I own without pockets mean that my phone has to go in my bag. Much less convenient for song-changing than tucking it into jeans or a coat pocket as I walk around town!

2. Keys
Similar to the phone predicament, summer means that my keys (3 sets to be exact - home, work and car), rather than living in my coat pocket, have to go in my bag.

3. Earphones
I never leave the house without these, ever.

4. Purse
Having a smaller bag for summer means I've switched to a small credit card size purse, rather than my usual fully grown beast.

5. Sunglasses
An absolute necessity right now!

6. Lipstick Purse
To try and organise the chaos of my bag a bit, I have a little purse to house my compact mirror, lip balm and about 3 lipsticks.

7. Instructions
A slip of paper with instructions of how to work my church's camera. (Because I'm pernickety and afraid of forgetting things...)

8. Tissues
Usually unused.

9. Ear Plugs
Not to be confused with the earphones! Loud noises make me dizzy so these are very necessary.

10. Hand Sanitizer
My current fave is by Soap & Glory; it smells amazing!

11. 2 Extra Lipsticks
You know, just in case none of the 3 in my lipstick purse are the right shade.

12. 4Head Balm Stick
This menthol balm is an amazing cure for headaches. Just a few swipes around the forehead and it starts its soothing work.

13. Hair Bobble
I like the twirly transparent plastic ones as they don't create too much of a hair-kink.

14. Polo Mints
As our grandparents teach us, mints are a necessity in life!

15. Receipts
At least 4 or 5. Plus a couple of vouchers.

16. Contact Lenses
As someone who has to wear contact lenses every hour that I'm awake, to be without these would be a complete (and very blurry) disaster.

17. Plaster
You never know when you might need one!

18. Misc
Consisting of 6p, a paperclip and a hair grip.

What's inside your bag? Are you super minimal or do you have not-so-organised chaos like me?

Lisa xx

Real Talk: Going From Negative To Positive

I feel a bit hesitant in writing this blog post because I think the subject matter might be a bit controversial. It isn't light or fluffy, and it isn't about the happy, shiny things in life. It's about an emotion that everyone experiences at different times to different extents: anger.

Anger isn't a nice emotion but is it a bad one? Can it ever be good or helpful? See, when we think of anger, more often than not the images that come to mind are violent and threatening. But what about righteous anger? What about that gut feeling when we see injustice in the world that says, "something needs to change here"?

I also think that even anger that isn't righteous, anger that's born out of irritation or tiredness, is a very natural emotion. It's what we do with it that makes the difference.
Do we let it rule over us? Snap at our loved ones or just plain blow a fuse and shout the house down? Or do we take back the control? Not suppressing the emotion but recognising it, acknowledging it and then finding a positive way to process it and let the feeling out, at the right time.

The other day, I felt so angry. It was one of those times where in the moment I locked the anger inside, so that it just boiled beneath the surface until I was able to leave the situation and deal with it.
Here's what I did to let it out and process it in the most healthy way I could think of:

1. Exercise
Before going home, I went for a walk. About 30 mins of brisk walking in total. At first, all I could do was seethe and silently rant, but as I channelled the energy out through my legs and breathed in the fresh air, something started to relax. The dust began to settle and my thoughts became quieter and clearer.
I began to be able to see beneath the angry emotion and ask myself some questions: What was it about the situation that was making me so angry? Could I do anything to change the situation? Did I need to change something about myself?

2. Slow Breathing
It's amazing the difference that slowing down breathing can make to our stress levels. If  you ever find that your breathing is shallow and anxious, then give this exercise a go:
Hold your breath for 3, exhale for 3, inhale for 3. Do this a couple of times and then when you feel able, start to extend the times of holding and exhaling the breath (this will correct your carbon dioxide levels and force your body to relax); it's a simple exercise that can be done anywhere and gives pretty instant results.

3. Talking
As an introvert, I need some time alone to process how I feel before talking to someone else. Once I understand myself and my reactions a bit better, then I find it really helpful to chat things over with my husband or a close friend/family member.

4. Meditation
Once I got home, I took some time to do a couple of short meditations using the HeadSpace app. It has tailored meditations to fit different needs, including ones for anger and frustration, which were the ones I used. The first one was 3 minutes long, the second was 5. Genuinely, after that combined 8 minutes I felt so much better.

Each of these steps didn't change the situation I was in, but they helped me to get some distance from it, so that I wasn't overwhelmed and could think clearly.
Once we can take a step back and look at things objectively, we can work out what to do to make a positive change.

What about you? Do you have any tips for channelling negative emotions into something positive?

Lisa xx