Gratitude List

Things I'm grateful for this month:

Christmas
Chocolate advent calendars (not just for kids! lol)
The X-Files being back on TV (on new channel Lifetime)
McDonald's festive menu 
Mayberry Garden Centre
The weather being warmer than it has been
The From Heartache to Joy free summit that I'm signed up to currently
The  e-book Unleash the Magic I got as a free gift from listening to Sonia Miller's call

The Love Project- Self Love

Sorry I've taken a while to post this, I got behind with things. :)

Continuing the self love theme, here are a couple of posts on the concept of beauty and how you're actually more beautiful than you think you are:


PE article on beauty

https://melodyfletcher.com/2011/07/24/what-if-youre-a-lot-more-beautiful-than-you-think-you-are/


I think that not feeling beautiful is something a lot of us struggle with, we never feel good enough or pretty enough but is there such a thing as "good enough" or "pretty enough"? And when will we feel that we truly are those things? On the other hand, there are people who say their beauty holds them back and gets in the way of forming relationships ,because people feel jealous of them or intimidated by them. It seems hard to understand if you're not someone like that but for the people who go through it, maybe it is as bad as not feeling beautiful enough.

The posts above can help you to see that there are different standards of beauty in the world, so there will be at least one person out there who thinks you're beautiful and probably many more! But the more I read, the more I realise how important it is that you think of yourself as beautiful* and that you have self worth.


*24/5/14- I just re-read this and realised that I originally wrote "think yourself beautiful". I think I meant, "think of yourself as beautiful" but "think yourself beautiful" is a good phrase, especially in relation to the Law of Attraction!

Also, here are a couple of posts on self love and being fine as you are:

Update 19/8/21- Site now gone.


http://www.thebridgemaker.com/happiness-is-self-love/

http://www.thebridgemaker.com/okay-not-to-be-perfect/



P.S. I'm signed up to the From Heartache to Joy free summit which is going on currently. You can listen to calls from personal development and Law of Attraction experts and spiritual healers. Some do healing live on the call and you can also listen to replays. Check it out here: http://fromheartachetojoy.com/series6/

Gratitude List

Things I'm grateful for this month:

Hallowe'n (it's technically last month now but never mind!)
Bonfire Night
Maria Kang
EverythingIsWithin.com and the free e-book Create Your Dream Life, that I got for signing up to the newsletter!
Toffee apples (had one for Hallowe'en)
Dance Moms- I do find Abby really annoying but it is entertaining and they had it on every day this past week, so I've been watching a lot of it and got more into it, lol.
eBay
Ginger beer

The Love Project- Self Love

I'm starting with self love. I really am not an expert on this, I find it hard to have love for myself sometimes but I expect a lot of other people do too. I've been reading some good posts on self love and self worth recently.

First of all I would recommend the posts on A BLOG ABOUT LOVE on the subject of being more vulnerable in order to connect with others. They involve realising that you have self worth, which I've come to realise is very important. I went through a phase of reading the first step over and over and it helped me feel better. Check out my post about the vulnerability steps here: https://fallingpetalsuk.blogspot.com/2013/09/a-blog-about-love-posts-on-vulnerabilty.html

Also this post about how your worth isn't connected to what food you eat or how much you weigh is very good: https://dannyandmara.com/2013/08/self-worth-your-weig/ (formely A BLOG ABOUT LOVE)

And here's another post about dating and verbal abuse: http://www.ablogaboutlove.com/2013/02/dating-verbal-abuse.html

Update 1/4/19: Post now found at this link: http://dannyandmara.com/2013/02/dating-verbal-abuse/


The message is that your self worth shouldn't be based on the way someone else is treating you or on whether you're loved by someone else or not. Good message. :)

Here's another good post from Gala Darling: http://galadarling.com/article/100-ways-you-can-start-loving-yourself-right-now

Finally, I only just came across this blog the other day and found a post on self love:   http://thepowerofchange.me/why-self-love-is-key/#sthash.qlQ0pd2H.dpbs (Link now inactive)


I hope someone finds these posts useful. :)

P.S.I'm signed up to Love Myself, Love My Life, the free self love and acceptance programme that's going on currently. They are broadcasting live calls and replays from self help experts on loving and accepting yourself. Check it out here: http://www.lovemyselflovemylife.com/

The Love Project Introduction

I decided to do a project on love because I would like to have more love in my life. I would especially like to have a loving, long term relationship with the man of my dreams! But I also think I don't feel enough love in my daily life, especially for myself. So I'm going to explore different types of love-e.g. self-love, romantic love, family love and friendship. Maybe not in that order, still got to make up my mind but it will start with self-love anyway. :)

I'm completely making this up as I go along! But let's see where it goes. First post coming soon. :)

Gratitude List

Things I'm grateful for this month:

The leaves starting to turn on the trees
Buses
Breakdown services!
Truffles cafe
My traditional fried breakfast at Truffles
Free self help downloads- I got free downloads when I signed up to the Love Myself Love My Life webcast event: http://www.lovemyselflovemylife.com/
Cheese scones
The Splendour Falls by Rosemary Clement-Moore- I'm re-reading it

A BLOG ABOUT LOVE posts on vulnerability

Update 1/4/19: Site is now Danny and Mara About Love, so have updated all links. :)

I recently found the self help blog A BLOG ABOUT LOVE,  now Danny and Mara, which is run by Mara and her husband Danny. A few years ago, Mara went through a very bad time; she had infertility and marriage problems and then her marriage broke down altogether. This left her in a very bad place. But she began working on herself and trying to feel better and her life completely transformed. She became happier and everything in her life improved. She was then introduced to Danny by a friend. They started emailing each other, fell in love and got married in May 2010. :) A BLOG ABOUT LOVE  is their joint project where they share their love story and the things they've learned about becoming whole, happy, fulfilled people.

I really recommend these posts on vulnerability and connecting more with others. That's something that I find hard to do. The three steps are Own Your Worth, Let Go of Fear and Love for the Sake of Loving.

Step 1:  http://dannyandmara.com/2012/03/vulnerability-step-one/

Step 2:  http://dannyandmara.com/2012/03/vulnerability-step-two/

Step 3: http://dannyandmara.com/2012/03/vulnerability-step-three/

There's also lots more helpful stuff on the site, on the subjects of self worth, being happy and relationships.

Gratitude List

Things I'm grateful for this month:

The sunny, hotter weather we're still having
Pintrest (check out my Law of Attraction (LOA) board here: http://pinterest.com/moonsparkle84/loa/)
Sabrina The Teenage Witch (been watching old episodes, lol)
Sam Stern cookery books
Helpful people
Friends
Facebook
Notebooks

Depression and Suicide

I thought I would post some links to sites about depression and suicide, since I know many people are struggling with these issues. I've had depression since I was a teenager and have had suicidal thoughts before. Although depression is talked about more these days, lots of people still aren't comfortable with the topic and suicide is seen as a very taboo thing but sometimes it's good to talk about it.

The first two are articles on suicide and the third is a link to The Journey of Hope site, which had lots of posts on mental health. Hopefully they might help some people. :)

Suicide:


http://ryzeonline.com/dirty-soul-words/ *

http://www.metanoia.org/suicide/

Update 16/8/22: I'm getting a antivirus warning for the Metanoia link above and the page doesn't seem to be loadng (the Suicide link specifically). The main page seems to be working ok.

Depression/mental health:

http://www.neseret.com/


*5/9/19: Site now gone.

Law of Attraction

The Law of Attraction (LOA) is a universal law that means you attract everything in your life, good and bad as a result of the things you've been thinking, the beliefs behind those thoughts and the "vibrations" you're giving out. That's on the most basic level. According to LOA, if you change your thoughts and beliefs from negative to positive, you will raise your vibration and feel better, which will allow you to get the things you want in life. You can do this through a process called "manifesting". You can also just use it as a way to work through your negative beliefs and feel better; just improve your life in general. There are lots of ways to manifest, including affirmations, visualisations, using a "Vision Board", writing intentions and gratitude lists. What you want to do is "flow energy" towards the thing or experience you want to have and these are all ways to help you do that. It's similar to magic really, when you perform a spell or ceremony you're focusing intent. Let's look at the different techniques.

Update 10/8/24: This post is 11 years old, so now links or sites have changed. I've updated links where I can. :)


Affirmations 

An affirmation is a statement that you can use to improve your life. You can use them to make you feel better about yourself and/or manifest something you want. For example you could say affirmations for things you want to believe about yourself such as, "I am a worthwhile person", "I am beautiful" or "I deserve all the good things in my life". Or you could use them to help manifest things that you want e.g. "I am in a wonderful relationship with my loving boyfriend", "I love my new job in advertising" or "I adore driving my bright blue New Mini Cooper/Subaru Impreza/BMW/insert car" (lol). The idea is that you read the affirmations over and over (people often recommend reading them out loud) until they sink into your consciousness and you believe them, and then the things you said start to come true.

Gratitude List

Things I'm grateful for this month:

Chocolate
Good library books that you want to keep reading like How To Read The Air by Dinaw Mengestu
Good teenage supernatural books like Infinite Days and Stolen Night by Rebecca Maizel
The fact that libraries were created so I get to read all these books for free! :)
Sky+
My new t-shirts
The last month of proper summer
Living near the countryside


I'm doing the Personal Excellence 21 Day Gratitude Challenge, check it out here:  PE Gratitude Challenge

Gratitude List

Things I'm grateful for this month:

Summer and the hot weather
Roses
My garden
My camera
My CDs
My CD player
My iPod
Books

Gratitude List

I'd thought I'd start a monthly gratitude list. :)

Things I'm grateful for this month:

My family
My cats
The warmer weather
My belly dance class
Living near a beach
Music
The internet
Iced coffees, especially McDonald's new ones!

Top 10 Self Help/Personal Development Blogs and Sites

I became interested in self help a few years ago. I originally started off looking for self help for depression but after searching on the internet, I came across all kinds of things and started to read personal development websites and blogs too.

I don't think Self Help and Personal Development are always quite the same thing. They're both about helping yourself, but personal development seems to be more about improving yourself and actively working on goals, rather than just looking for tips on coping with depression, anxiety, physical illness or conditions etc. I was originally going to include both on here but then realised I had more personal development type sites on the list, so I will probably do a separate post on self help for mental health later.

Update 23/5/24: It's now 11 years (actually exactly 11 years today!) since I wrote this post. The internet constantly changes and websites come and go. Most of these sites are still here though (although some have been updated/altered), so I hope that people can continue to find them useful. :)

 1. Personal Excellence (Formerly The Personal Excellence Blog)

This blog is run by Celestine Chua from Singapore and its purpose is to help people "achieve their highest potential and live their best life". It contains articles on a variety of subjects including achieving goals, better time management, dealing with difficult people and how to find your life purpose. There are also tips on how to life the best life for you and living a healthy life. 

Celes also runs challenges such as Live a Better Life in 30 Days (30DLBL) and 21-Day Journalling Challenge (21DJC). I took part in both of them and enjoyed them. Personal Excellence has an active community forum and you're encouraged to take part but if (like me) you prefer taking part in challenges privately or you'd rather just read the articles, there's still plenty you can get out of the site, including free e-books and a newsletter.

Silent Moon

This is a really beautiful piece of music called Silent Moon, also by Jia Peng Fang. It's melancholy but relaxing. The video is nice as well. Hope you enjoy it! :)



                                         Silent Moon- Jia Peng Fang

Your miracle arrives - Karen Salmansohn

Your miracle arrives - Karen Salmansohn

I saw this and liked the quote and picture, so thought I'd post it here. :)

Cherry Blossoms

I thought I would post this video of a piece of music called Cherry Blossoms by Chinese erhu player Jia Peng Fang. It's a beautiful, relaxing piece of music.

For more on Jia Peng Fang, visit this link: http://www.pacificmoon.com/html/erhu.html

Welcome to Falling Petals

Welcome to my blog. :) I already have another one: Star Sparkle Blog and when I started that, I wasn't sure what exactly I wanted to do, so I started out posting about different things, like music, film, TV etc. Then it evolved to being mostly about music with occasional other things. Recently I thought I'd like to start another blog that was more kind of spiritual/philosophical. So here it is! I decided to call it Falling Petals because at the moment I'm re-reading one of my favourite books The Tale Of Murasaki by Liza Dalby, in that they write a lot of poetry which is about things like petals falling as the season change and I thought it was a beautiful image. I I'm not sure what exactly I'll post on here yet, but I'll see as I go. And let's see how it works out. :)

Here's a video that I found on YouTube of some falling petals, I think cherry blossom (sakura in Japanese).

Update 28/2/20: Unfortunately the original video is gone, which is a shame because it was beautiful! But here is another nice one of sakura falling in Japan:

And here is a video of chery blossom falling in Lewes (a town in my county Sussex: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qsp3J98YQQo

And another one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9uWnjupv9T8 *


*8/2/19: Video now gone.