Self Care Saturday

Hello my angels!

Today is Self-Care Saturday; the day you sit your butts down and take care of yourselves!
After battling gruelling exams or the cold winter air, we all just need a little down time, aka as a treat-yo-self day, brought to you by Parks and Recreations.

Here are some of my favorite self-care treats (pssst: these would make some great gifts...)

Face Masks 


Hello, my name is Gabby, and I'm a face mask addict. I don't know what it is about sporting a bright green layer of clay that makes me feel special, but lord knows my skin appreciates it in times of stress. Freeman sells some great cheap ones, or you can make your own by using natural ingredients (list of organic ingredients for your skin, written by yours truly: http://www.dropofpink.com/2013/12/07/3-natural-ingredients-for-skin-and-stress/)

Aromatherapy

If you know me at all, you know the biggest loss of my life was when I had to leave my beloved candles at home due to my dorm's no-setting-fires rule. How oppressive, I cried! However, it makes it that much more special for me to light a holiday-scented candle this time of year.

Not a candle fan, or want a portable aromatherapy solution? An adorable mini-perfume is the way to go.

Are the winter blues getting to you? A great body butter or lotion with a tropical scent can pick up your mood and smooth out that dry winter skin. Score!

Nourish 

The best self-care ever? SLEEP.
If you want to make your ultimate off-time even more replenishing, find yourself some hair oil and a strong face cream, pop them on before bed, and wake up looking and feeling like a goddess.










Well, that's all I have for today.
Take good care of yourselves:)

xoxo

Gabby

December Darlings

Hello my beauties!

I have been home due to american Thanksgiving break this past week, just sleeping, relaxing, and, of course, not writing. I have no excuse, except for the fact that I had not been home in 3 months? Forgive me, dears. I will never give up on you.

But on this magical day that is December 1st, I decided to share some of my favorite things.
Enjoy:)

1. Beutiful Magazine 

This blog, linked right here, is a cornucopia of body positive pictures, tips, articles.
Please check it out, it's one of my faves at the moment!




2. Crazy Christmas Decorations

I do not care if you don't celebrate xmas, due to religion or hipster anti-comercial principles, you must admit pretty lights and twinkling trees are freaking fun. Unless these are you neighbours, in which case I apologize for the lack of sleep you will encounter, this amazing house I found in Pierrefonds (looks better in real life, so go out and find it) made me want to blast Bing Crosby and throw myself in a snow bank.
I think the holidays, if anything, should be about embracing that inner child, so bust out your inflatable Santas people!

3. Holiday Food Frenzy
This great article on Adios Barbie click here to view preps you for the holiday food anxiety some of us feel around this time of year. I also plan on writing a little something about it, but in the mean time, check out my editor's take on surviving the season.

4. Finals! 
Oh my god, who's excited for a week of massive exams, mountains of papers, lack of sleep, anxiety and the looming pressure of college???!!!!
(not me)













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My loves, I have many wonderful things planned for the month of December, and cannot wait to share the love. But until then, stay beautiful and stay warm!

xoxo

Gabby

October Favorites

Hello my loves!

I am going into a ridiculously busy week, so I don't have time to write yall a heavily researched, 5 page critical essay on the latest Tumblr thinspo nonsense.
But I didn't want to leave you all hanging, so I rounded up some of my favorite things for the month of October! Hope you enjoy <3

1. Hello Life Blog: 

After she gave me a lovely shoutout on Twitter,

I checked out her blog and found it absolutely brilliant. It's very raw and real, but well written. Gurl, I got some competition :P
In all seriousness, please go take a look at her wonderful writings at http://hellolifeblog.com

2. Queerie Bradshaw interview 

Everything body positive feminist Queery Bradshaw said about choosing to love your body, deciding to stop hating it, and putting a bikini on a body to have a "bikini body" literally made me raise my hands to the sky and praise the lords of body image because this woman is preaching the truth. 
I just love how simply she explains it.
Warning: some parts are a little, um, not PG. Just a disclaimer, enjoy responsibly:)

3. Porn Stars Without Makeup

These pictures have been circulating the internet for quite some time now; but I don't think I've ever mentioned them in a post before. I have written about confidence and makeup and their interconnected conundrum (insert shameless link to that article), but I found an expression by Bobbi Brown that sums up what I could write 15 encyclopedia-sized articles about. 

"Pretty, Powerful"
We are all beautiful without, but more powerful, by our self expression and confidence, with makeup.

4. Mid Term Food for Thought

I'm starting to feel the burn of mid terms, which is why I wrote last week's article about anxiety and its obliteration. But I found this picture on tumblr and found it ridiculously appropriate considering my, and many of my friends', stressful educational situation. Calm down, stay strong, and do the best you can. 

And lord knows if you are someone like me whose dreams (and nightmares) revolve around being on the high honor roll, keep calm and repeat the wise Tumblr mantra. (curtesy of setdreadstostun.tumblr.com) 

BTW can we just acknowledge this is the first time in basically 5 millenniums that I brought up Tumblr without raging?! Hoora! There is hope for humanity after all. 

So here is my gift to you, my wonderfully effervescent (SATs are coming up, practice makes perfect!) fudgies. 

Have an amazing week; drink tons of water, get some sleep and smile. 

xoxo

Gabby

The "What You Need" Anxiety Trick

Hello my beautiful fudgies:)

Life isn't always easy.
And if you're like me (easily overwhelmed and curled up in a ball hyperventilating), it can be hard to separate the things the essential elements of life from the abysmal stressors that are barely even noticeable on the grand scheme of life.
But fear not, my anxious butterflies! I come to you today with a little anxiety relieving technique I entitled "What You Need". (post: this is a tad similar to my favourite anxiety trick of all time, read here) 

Step 1: Pull out a piece of paper

Step 2: Draw 2 columns: One entitled "I need..." and the other "I want".

Step 3: In the 1st column, write all the things you need to survive (and be honest, you do not need a 97 on your AP bio quiz to live, that sass ain't cute). For example, air, water, shelter, food, etc.
In the 2nd column, write all of tomorrow's events or situations that are making you anxious, stressed out, overwhelmed, etc. and write how you would like them to pan out. For example, that 97% test score now applies. It's important to make sure you keep it to a short-term basis, because it helps you focus on the day-by-day, one step at a time lifestyle this method helps you develop.


Step 4: look over your list. If you have
a) more items in the 1st column, I hope it makes you realize that there are so many vital needs we take for granted, and as long as we have those, I promise you, you will not die, no matter how terrible you are at biology.

b) more items in the 2nd column. Hi, you're a hyper-anxious perfectionist mess. Welcome to the club, love! But in all seriousness, I hope it makes you realize how ridiculously out of whack our priorities are. We put more emphasis on the tiniest little things that don't really matter when you consider how unimportant you are in the universe. Okay, that might sound a tad depressing, but think about it: you can properly fail that quiz, and the Earth will probably still keep spinning.

Step 5: Go over every single row on your paper. Compare the vital to the insignificant by drawing a "is greater than" (>) sign. You may not finish the exercise until you have convinced yourself that water is indeed more important than having time to curl your hair, that air is more important than scoring all the bonus points on your quiz.

And just give a moment of thought to those who don't even have those basic needs we all take for granted sometimes. Go to sleep grateful and calm, wake up refreshed, and don't die of a heart attack at the tender age of 22. Uh hum, emphasis on the go-to-sleep, too many of my friends think sleep is some extracurricular activity you can attempt if you have a few hours to spare once or twice a week (Ameikha...).

And voila! Anxiety, be gone!

I hope this helps you out my babies:)
xoxo

Gabby

Depression and Suicide: A Tale of Condescension

Good Morning to all of you <3

I am fully aware of how ironic it is that I haven't posted in the last few days but SOMEHOW I am WORKING on LABOR DAY :P
Y'all are lucky I love my job <3

Today's post in going to be a very serious one- but the subject of suicide and depression is a very important one.

I'm going to take you back to Early 2012; my 10th Grade English class:
Our teacher is discussing Romeo and Juliet.
In the middle of her never-ending monologue, she trails off into one of her infamous tirades about, you probably guessed it, suicide.

How selfish an act it is.
How despicable those who commit such an act are.
What were they thinking to leave all those people behind hurt and alone?

This teacher, a woman, is a mother.
And just the thought of her daughter growing up in a home where such ignorant comments are thrown around carelessly makes me downright furious.

Better yet- this woman is a teacher for TEENAGERS.
She has punctured the ears of hundreds of young adults with such hateful spurs.

And she is not alone.
I have heard countless teachers, family members and media personalities voice those same opinions whenever the subject of depression and suicide is brought up.

I am going to bring you even further back in time: the 1980s.
When there was one illness on everybody's mind: AIDS.
People at your local market and people on national TV were saying the exact same thing:
«AIDS is for fags»
«AIDS is disgusting, repugnant, filthy, dirty»
«People with AIDS should be banned, shunned, shot» 

Now do you really think someone who has just discovered they have contracted AIDS is going to happily skip all the way to their doctors' office to tell them?
There should be NO QUESTION whose fault it is that AIDS spread like wildfire as an epidemic.
Us (well, probably not the ones reading this you were probably born in the 1990s like all the cool kids were :P)
More like Us, as a society.

Same thing applies to depression, and therefor suicide.
Depression was officialized as a mental illness in the 1980s, coincidentally.
Yet somehow, here we are, 30 + years later, still treating people suffering from such ILLNESSES (key word here: illness. As much an illness as a cold, as bronchitis, as malaria) with condescension and disdain.
You can STILL hear people say openly and legally:
«Depression is for lazy bums»
«Depression? Just snap out of it»
I'm sorry; have you ever tried to snap out of CANCER?
Yeah, I don't know how easy that is.

Just like AIDS, depression is still being treated like a lower-class illness.
Just like AIDS, YOU CAN VERY WELL NOT KNOW that a person is suffering from it right in front of your face.
Just like AIDS, if we keep making people feel shameful and guilty for an illness they did not choose to have, then
Just like AIDS, the bodies are going to keep piling up.

Prime example: me.
My family had a dismal and ignorant understanding of mental illnesses, always approaching the subject with condescension.
I went 5 years. 5 YEARS without treatment and ended up in a mental institution.
Not. Fun.

I am going to leave you with one last thing:
This past summer a friend of mine asked me what to do about a friend of hers who suffered from depression.
I asked her if they had discussed suicide, and this friend of mine told me that she had told her friend suffering from depression how selfish and irresponsible suicide is.
If I could give her, and all those spewing ignorance like so, one little advice, it would be this:
STOP
BEING
IGNORANT
AND
EDUCATE
YOURSELF.
Do you think the person who is feeling suicidal will want to ask help from people demonizing their emotions?
Your words can be the last drop in someone's glass.
If you want to keep giving your bigoted opinion, that is your creed.
Just don't forget to wash the blood off your hands after you're done.

If you need more info, suffering or just willing to understand more, click on these links
http://www.amiquebec.org/DepressionScreening.htm
http://www.depression-understood.org/
http://www.depressionhurts.ca/en/understandingdepression.aspx
or email me at fudgeperfection@gmail.com

I love you all so very much `<3
xoxoxoxoxoxo
Gabby