The best advice for life...

I sometimes ponder if I had to give someone one piece of advice what would it be? 'Count your blessing'? 'Don't sweat the small stuff?' 'The only person you hurt by not forgiving is yourself'? or perhaps in the words of Elsa 'Let it go'? but then last week I was reading a book my lovely mum had bought for me.

When my sister and I were teenagers we read 'The sisterhood of the travelling pants' (for all the brits reading this it was an American book! So that's trousers not pants or knickers whatever you want to call them!) It was a book full of friendship and love, sisterhood and growth.

In the end there were four books in the series and we left them (then women) in college. However it turns out that in 2011 a fifth book came to life which reunited us with the women now in their late 20's. I shan't tell you the plot because I don't want to ruin it for any fans that perhaps like me didn't know about the fifth book. 

Anywho in the book there is this amazing conversation that takes place between one of the girls and her mentor... "You get older and you learn there is one sentence, just four words long, and if you can say it to yourself it offers more comfort than almost any other. It goes like this...Ready?" "Ready" "At least I tried" and when I read it I thought, 'wow that's it, that's what I believe... 'At least I tried'

Sick, disabled or perfectly healthy can you imagine how enriched our lives would all be if at the end of everyday we could sit back put our feet up and think "Well, at least I tried"

How much courage does it take everyday to take the leap, pick up the phone, send the email, smile the smile, say hello? But what if we don't? What if we fail to do those things because we simply aren't brave enough? How many great life opportunities do we potentially miss out on because we just 'couldn't'.

Life is full of endless possibilities for us to improve ourselves and our situation but we HAVE to go and find them. We have to get our butts off the chair and go in search of them. Last time I checked fed-ex wasn't delivering life experience. (as appose to work experience!)

I don't know a single great leader of my our time (Nelson Mandela immediately comes to mind) that just sat on their backside and was consumed with so much over thinking that they decided not to do 'it' whatever 'it' may be. How easy is it to be all consumed within the quiet contemplation that comes before action that we actually talk ourselves OUT of the action. Yes, there needs to be time for contemplation but the action has to follow!

But Chloe, I hear you cry "I have no time to try" to which I say "Bosh!' If you counted up all the time you spent on social media and decided that indeed that was your action time you would be AMAZED what you could achieve...what you could try! You could learn a new craft if you dedicated just half an hour a day to it, you could learn a new language, you could make a dream come true, heck you could start a new business if you gave up 30 minutes a day for 365 days. Then with the next 365 days you could market it and develop it and let it have more then just your Facebook time.   



I recently sent an email to a small ethical makeup company in the UK asking for permission (out of courtesy) to review their products on my youtube channel. I was so terrified. 

The channel is still so tiny I thought they would (quite within their rights I guess) laugh at me and ask for my interest again in a few months time when I had developed the channel more. However, taking a moment to pause I took myself into the mindfulness techniques I use. By thinking about their response I was already thinking WAY to much into the future. Being mindful is being present. In my present moment I was writing a letter to a company that I really liked the look of. With the mouse cursor hovering over send button again came the butterflies but no, I told myself "In this moment you are clicking a button. There is perfection in every moment and this moment is perfect" I said to my and click, it was gone. Then came the sigh "At least I tried". (and as it happened I had the most WONDERFUL email back the next day offering me a discount to try their products and letting me know they would like to give a 20% discount to all my blog readers and viewers which I will release with that post!)

I have been SO thrilled and totally blown away with the amount of people reading this blog that it encouraged me to start a YouTube channel too. When I decided I would start it up (my blog) I was driven to do so because when I scrawled through the internet looking for blogs (the day I was diagnosed) about what it's like to live with Hypermobility Syndrome there was nothing that had been up dated in the past 10 months.

My mum always says to me 'Be the change you want to see" and so the day after my

diagnosis I sat down and I typed and typed and typed (*1) and I guess I haven't stopped typing since... This isn't a 'Well, at least I tried' it's a "YES! Look what happened when I tried!" 

Of course now there is also YouTube. Can you imagine how much I did NOT want to sit in front of a camera and talk about Hypermobility Syndrome with THE WORLD but when I watched back the first video (*2) I didn't think it was too awful. I felt like it was something that really did sound informative but in a gentle way, sort of exactly how it is when I explain it to people that care to ask me face to face. 

I have this BURNING desire to help the HMS community and for me the way I can do that is by being brutally honest about my experience of the disease but in a positive way. When I started to get private messages and comments about my videos I was literally bowled over. Ok so I may not have 100's and 100's of view BUT let me share with you some of the comments people have written me...

• Your vids are the only things to Cheer me up thx keep up with it 

• Three months in for a diagnosis of Hypermobility/Fibromyalgia after five long years of no one knowing what was wrong with me! In the US. It seems to me that the UK had much better knowledge of EDS/HMS.. thanks so much!

• Your videos are so positive, and really inspiring, and I can relate to almost everything you mention (especially the brain fog!) I've had a very hard time over the past year and my joints have become worse and are now painful all the time, and I struggled with the feeling of being on my own. I knew of no one with this condition, but hearing you talk about everything that I feel and that I can relate to really helps! Thank you for sharing your knowledge about this condition! Lots of love x

• Thank you  so much. I have had HMS for 7 years and i'm only being properly diagnosed now. i didn't understand that my depression was related to hms. it's hard because no one else fully understands the constant pain that i'm in. i was in a wheelchair but because of struggles with my hips, i am now bedridden. it helps to know that i'm not the only one! i'm currently in my last year of school and writing my finals in october. it's hard keeping up with school when i don't go to many of my classes due to this.

• In all honesty I don't admit I cry much but your video had me in tears. I was sobbing tears of relief and of happiness because I realised that I wasn't alone, that yes it is crap but it it's possible to smile through it. I was at the end of my tether, in brutal honesty I had become so suicidal I began planning how and when I was going to do it. Then I watched your video and all of those thoughts rapidly diminished, I sobbed and I felt a huge release because I now know that no, in fact, I am NOT alone. So thank you, you've essentially saved my life xxI am reaching the RIGHT people and blow me down if that isn't what I set out to do! Again I get to roll me eyes (in the good way) and say 'Thank God I tried!' If it hadn't worked out at least I could have said 'At least I tried' 

We do not know what we are capable of unless we TRY. We do not know whose life we will touch unless we TRY. 

I believe every good deed has a ripple effect, you drop a smooth pebble into the pond, that's your good deed but you will probably never know how much impact your pebble as had. It may ripple around the world. It may ripple around your community and you will see the positive outcomes but be prepared you may not. One thing I can absolutely 100% guarantee though is that one day your good deed will come back to you when you least expect it but probably most need it. 

As I touched on in my last post life is for LIVING. Life is not for 'thinking about living'. You could spend your whole life planning your life and before you know it you're checking into the nursing home with a great A-Z coloured coded list of things to do and an empty photo album. 

We have the potential as these emotive creatures that we are to let fear deprive us of some of life's sweetest gifts. You must learn to control the fear, accept it, acknowledge it but go on right ahead and do it anyway (apart from maybe these 'free jumpers' that are throwing themselves from one 60ft building to another, you, you feel the fear turn around then go home you lunatic! ha!) we MUST try. I hope you have blessed with a 'trying' week ahead.... 

And that's the good kind of trying, not like when I say to Tony 'I'm really trying' and he jokes back at me... 'Yes, yes you are' cheeky sausage! 

                                              Blessings to you and yours 

*Footnotes 

1. Read the first post after my diagnosis here; http://www.unexpectedsongbird.blogspot.co.uk/2013/09/fork-in-road.html

2. Watch my first YouTube video here; http://youtu.be/P-AeepZVuZQ