West Cornwall Pastry

It was a cool day, when I decided to take a walk into town to buy some paint; as I very much enjoy painting. It took me ages to find the right shop and then decide on the type of paint I want. So it's not surprising that on my way home I found myself to be in need of some food. As I walked home I looked around the shops and cafe's for somewhere small and intimate to eat, where quality food is served. I began losing my hopes when a extremely friendly man handed me a voucher for £1 off at a local West Cornwall Pastry restaurant. At first I didn't pay much attention to it and walked right past the place but something inside me (perhaps my empty stomach) told me to turn back. 

As I entered the restaurant I was greeted very by a very kind man who later took my order. As a vegetarian I began to worry that all those ''Apple Pork Pastry's'' will mean that I will leave this place hungry, however quickly I found something for me: Spicy Chickpea's Pastry. ''YES'' I thought to myself, only to find out that there was none left. I decided to ask the waiter if there will be any more of the Cheakpea Pastry, and to my huge joy I was informed that there is one more cooking in the over right now, and should be ready in 10 minutes. 

I sat outside and was surrounded with green trees and a cool breeze blew. I felt at peace. I felt at home. After about 7 minutes my very hot, freshly out of the oven (or heaven) pastry arrived. After a warning form the waiter "Please be careful it's very hot'' I decided to cut a slice and take a bite. Quickly all of my expectations were met as the pastry was lovely. I immediately knew that this is the right place to be. As stated, it was spicy, but not too spicy to eat. The quality of the ingredients were outstanding. I knew that this was freshly made today and I felt the love it was made with. It was then that I knew that I'd be coming back here tomorrow.

Why is falling in love dangerous?

Philophobia also commonly knows as: The Fear of Falling in Love, has been around for many centuries. The well known Queen of England for example, Elizabeth l is thought to have suffered from Philophobia herself. Despite her well known romance with Lord Robert Dudley and her coming very close to marrying Duke of Anjour (brother of the King of France) the queen never wed. Philophobia is not a new concept at all, however it can be difficult to comprehend. One can easily understand the fear of spiders (arachnophobia) or the fear of heights (acrophobia), but to understand why someone may be scared of a feeling, as this is love in its simplest component: love is a feeling, may be harder to get your head around. I will aim to help you understand why some people may not want to fall in love.

First I want you to answer the following questions.

-Do you like feeling vulnerable?

-Do you like giving someone power over your emotions, and ultimately your actions?

-Do you like feeling out of control?

-Imagine taking some cocaine every day of being in a relationship with someone. Does this sound like a good idea?

I should probably start with explaining the last question. Helen Fisher (a biological anthropologist and human behaviour researcher) investigated couples in their early relationship stage, by examining their brains. She found that they had high levels of the neurotransmitter dopamine. Dopamine stimulates ''desire and reward'' feelings, through triggering an intense rush of pleasure, which is the same effect that cocaine has on the brain. In simple terms, does that mean that being in love is equivalent to taking cocaine? Probably not. But the fact that it has the same effect as consuming drugs doesn't sound too appealing. After all relationships are important and should be viewed with a clean mind, being in love changes our brain chemistry, thus changing the way we think.

Back to the first three questions. You know that saying ''Love makes you blind'', well it does.  Love has the cunning effect of making your lover appear more appealing than they really are. Thus making you potentially vulnerable to the one you love. This means your lover could be telling you white lies all day long and you being blindly in love with them, may find it challenging to distinguish truth from lie. Furthermore, it is usually difficult to crack through someone's skin and to truly know who they are. Today we are influenced by a variety of factors that determine whether we like or dislike someone, and as human beings most of us want to be liked and accepted. Agree? This leads to us changing our behaviour in order to be liked. Did you ever lie about liking a particular band or football team, just because other people in your social group did and you wanted to fit it? This type of change in our behaviour is called conformity, in particular it is often referred to as normative social influence. The worst thing about this is that people will often lie to your face just to make you like them, they will tell you what you want to hear, which can ultimately lead to you falling in love with a stranger. And by that time it's too late. Even when the true colours begin to show, you will be too blindly in love to see them. 

What hurts the most about falling in love is that being in love you will develop something called "Trust". With love comes trust, and with trust comes truth. Too often with truth becomes betrayal, and betrayal results in pain, and with pain comes never being able to trust again. Being in love can cause to you trust someone you shouldn't. Falling in love can increase the level of trust you have for someone, making you more prone to revealing information that you otherwise would feel is too personal to disclose. When we are in that euphoric moment it is very easy to make a foolish decision or trust someone with something close to the heart. Now, I'm not telling you to never trust anyone, but learn the lesson now, and just be careful with who you trust. Chose wisely when giving someone a piece of your soul. 

Being in love means becoming attached to someone, and attachment sucks. There is just so many things that you could lose once you're attached to someone. They could die. They could leave you. They could find someone better. They could not feel the same way. They could lose their feelings for you, They could disown your trust. They could break your heart. 

Below is an account of how a philophobic person feels, perhaps you can see why she is scared of being in love, perhaps you can understand why she doesn't want to be in love.

''The possibility of allowing myself to be wholly in love with him is terrifying. What's more terrifying is the fact that I hold little control over my feelings, and I know that one morning I might wake up and be completely and irrationally in love with him. I can feel myself falling deeper and deeper in love each passing day, and every night the fear grows stronger. Something or someone will come in the way of our love and my heart will be broken. I will be broken. Forever. In Pieces. Pieces I will never put together. Perhaps he himself will realise that he can do better, and see that he's worth so much more than me. Me who is stuck in luke warm water. In love enough to stay not to go cold, but not ready to fully enter the passion. That fear of him abandoning me, or me breaking up with him is heartbreaking itself. My mind, body and soul have all fallen in love with him. I've never been in love before, but if love exists then this is it. 

If it comes to me ending us, it would never be because I stopped loving him. No. That is hardly possible. It will be because my fear took the best of me and I'd rather break my own heart than have it broken by him. I can take the pain I inflict on myself but I would rather die than feel pain caused by the one I love.''

Love doesn't come easy. Love is difficult to keep. Love needs to be fought for. It's OK to be scared but give Love a chance... it might surprise you.

Something about Love.

When you’re weak, I will give you strength  When you’re down, I will pick you up. When you cry, I will cry with you. When you feel like giving up, I will remind you why you began. When it rains, I will share my umbrella with you. When the sun is in your eyes I will stand in front and kiss you the way you like. When you’re sad, I will turn your frown upside down. When you’re lost, I will be your map. When you’re lonely, I will sing softly and hold you close. When you’re confused, I will make it easy. When you’re tired of living, I will show you all the beautiful things in your life. When you’re sick, I will stand by you. When you’re worried, I will make you laugh. When you’re happy, I’ll be happy.
Your happiness is a source of mine.

                                                        

Make use of the good things that remain. (LOM)

The Fault in Our Stars

Dear Readers,

My life has recently turned upside down, and I've been going through an emotional rollercoaster pretty much every day. Hence, this is the reason why I haven't been writing on Turquoise.

There is something that I do want to share with you however.
''The Fault in Our Stars'' by John Green. I urge every book worm, book nerd, everyone who likes reading, and even those who don't to:
READ THIS INCREDIBLE BOOK.

''The Fault in Our Stars'' had me smiling,laughing and crying-  I believe that if a writer can do such things through a world of imagined characters, and through the power of words, then he/she is a fantastic writer. It is not only the narrative that makes this book so enjoyable and special, it is the style of writing that it is written in (You will understand once you read it).
The book left me thinking long after I finished reading it, the deeper meaning behind it is definitely worth discovering. The words in this book changed me. It changed the way I think about life, it changed me from the inside. It thoroughly illustrates how precious life is, and how lucky we are to be alive. How we should rise out of bed with a smile, and remember that someone out there is fighting to catch their breath.
John Green kindly, lets us experience true love in the lives of Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters. Damn.. I need to stop now, I don't want to say too much and spoil it for the (silly) people who haven't YET read TFIOS. That being said, I can't stop myself from sharing a few of my favorite quotes with you.

''That's the thing about pain'' Augustus said, and then glanced back at me. ''It demands to be felt.''

''Sometimes people don't understand the promises they're making when they make them,'' - Hazel Grace.

''That's what love is. Love is keeping the promise anyway.''- Isaac.

''...I feel in love with the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once.''- Hazel Grace.

''And in freedom, most people find sin.'' -Augustus Waters.

Now stop wasting anymore time and read this extraordinary collection of words.

Normal Humans (LOM)

You can't fix a crumpled piece of paper. (LOM)

''A teacher in New York was teaching her class about bullying and gave them the following exercise to perform. She had the children take a piece of paper and told them to crumple it up, stamp on it and really mess it up but do not rip it. Then she had them unfold the paper, smooth it out and look at how scarred and dirty is was. She then told them to tell it they’re sorry. Now even though they said they were sorry and tried to fix the paper, she pointed out all the scars they left behind. And that those scars will never go away no matter how hard they tried to fix it. That is what happens when a child bully’s another child, they may say they’re sorry but the scars are there forever. The looks on the faces of the children in the classroom told her the message hit home''

Lesson Of The Month

I decided to include a ''Lesson of the Month'' post each month. Those posts will be either written by me, or they may be something that someone else has written and posted on the internet. I hope you enjoy those posts, and like with all of my posts they will hold a special meaning to me. First Message of the Month post coming soon x

Here's to Day 7!

Something magical has happened 6 days ago.

It may not seem magical or special to you but for me it's one of the most important things in my life (right after my family). Happiness. My own happiness. I believe that if you're not happy yourself you can't bring happiness to the people around you. My happy news is that I feel happy. I've been feeling happy for 6 days now. 

Most people say that it's love that makes you smile, and it's love we live for- and I agree. But unrequited love has the very opposite effect. A broken heart is far from being a reason to smile or laugh, but at some point in our lives we all suffer from a broken heart and it takes time to find the pieces and put them together. It takes time to feel whole again. One must want to move on, to give moving on a fair chance. But once it happens we can begin to feel happy again. While lying in bed 6 nights ago I thought about him, and I realised that the thought of him didn't bother me any more. I felt no warm feeling inside. I felt sad but in a good way. I was moving on, and I was leaving him behind.

The next day I saw him and in a very cheeky way he hugged me from behind. I felt his lips on my neck and then he left, and my feelings for him left with him. I thought about what has just happened and came to a conclusion that he no longer brought butterflies to my stomach. It felt meaningless. It was meaningless. I came home that day and felt in a way that I haven't felt for months. I didn't understand that feeling. It was as though I was re-born again. I danced and sang that evening, to HAPPY songs. No more dark, depressing, blue songs. The next day I felt the same. I was no longer affected by his smile, his words, the way he looked at me. His existence served a reminder of how stupid I was when I fell for him. How I allowed him to make a fool of me. I was a joke, an object of mere importance. Someone he knew will be there for him, someone who will pick him up, someone he can put down. I understand it all today, and I choose to be something different. I have finally moved on. I'm ready for something new. I'm Happy. 6 day's since I'm free. Free from loving him.  

Throwing up what you're keeping inside: Song Writing

A few weeks ago I've discovered the power of song writing.

I found my mind to be full of worries and my heart bursting with emotions.

I knew I needed to let it all out one way or another before I explode.

I found some paper and a pen, sat on the floor and wrote words.

Words. Any words that came to my mind.

After about 7 minutes of vigorous scribbling, my once plain paper was filled with words and short phrases. Not all of them made sense to me, '' Don't eat yoghurt'' held no reference to what I was feeling at that moment, but for some reason that was what I wanted to write.

From that one piece of paper, from those 7 minutes: I wrote 3 different songs.

Of course I'm no Mick Jagger, and I'm not the new Adele but those 3 songs helped me to understand myself and my feelings. They released me of the bucket of emotions I carried around as I was able to tell my story.

Song writing is not hard. Think of it as if you're writing a letter to someone or as a poem.

You can't go wrong with song writing, no one can tell you that the song you wrote is wrong, simply because no one has gone through exactly what you have experienced and no one can tell you what you feel.

Write those lyrics and if you feel ready, you can even sing them out loud. Sing them as they come. Shout, whisper, speak them out. Free yourself.

Hitting Those 2013 Targets

How to stick to your New Years Resolution?

I'm going to give you 5 simple tips to help you be successful with your New Years Resolutions.

1. Make one, or at most two resolutions. Your chances of being successful improve when you focus on one aspect of your behaviour.
2. Don't be too hard on yourself and think of something that is achievable. When you discover what you want to change, improve or learn, set yourself some sub-goals and use them to measure your success.
3. Know why you want to achieve your goal. This will help to motivate you, and keep you on track when you're tempted to give up. For example if you want to save some money and stop spending money on unnecessary things, determine why you want to do this and what you will gain from it. (okay, yes I know everything is needed but there are some things we can live without. Right? No?)
4. REWARDS! YES! Reward yourself when you pass a milestone, be proud of yourself. After all it's an achievement, you're one step closer to your desirable goal.
5. Be prepared to revert to your old ways from time to time, but instead of giving up, remember that you are only human and that it's O.K not to be perfect.
   
   
   Good Luck And I Wish You All The Best In 2013!