How To: Get Shit Done

Allow me to tell you something you already know: Life’s all about balance.

Some days you eat healthy and drink plenty of water.
Others you do a late night trip to maccas with your boyfriend singing “double..double dinner, double dinner, double dinner double dinner” to the tune of Game of Thrones and order steamed buns.

Some days you wake up early without an alarm feeling refreshed, actually do your laundry, hang shit on the clothesline (!) and then proceed to fold. and. put. it. all. away.

I know. It astounds me as well.

Other days you moan and groan, dragging your feet and proceed to tell anyone in a meter radius how you feel every god damn minute.

Seriously, if you could go an hour without saying how tired you are, you could achieve anything.

I recently wrote about Procrastination and how it can rule your life like some sort of negativity-fuelled overlord that feeds off untidy kitchens, full vacuum cleaner bags and your own self-loathing.

This time, I want to tell you how to grasp the rope of Productivity and get out of that sinking sand.

I would say once and for all, but lying isn’t my strong suit.

Don’t set the bar too high by jumping in the deep end.

Hun. You’re not Drake and why would you want to be you can’t go from 0 to 100 real quick. Habits take time to change, so allow that for yourself. Start with making adjustments in your mental attitude and reward yourself for the progress you’re starting to make. Having good support from those around you is important. Sometimes people will raise their eyebrows at you for making changes. You need to have faith in yourself and only listen to those who want to bring you up.

Take note of when you’re doing things that make you feel good.

This is also known as being mindful.
A way that I’ve found to completely rewire my brain is at the end of every day, write down 3 things you are grateful for. It can be so simple. Sometimes mine are just being grateful that I have 2 eyes that work and all of my fingers and toes. 

Then, at the end of every month, it’s a good time to reflect on how you’ve been feeling and acting. Making a conscious effort to do this means that you will be able to identify what you’d like to work on and more importantly, what you’re doing well at. 

The more often you consciously do these two things, the easier it gets. You form a type of muscle memory in your brain and it becomes automatic. You will suddenly be so grateful and happy while also being able to recognise what you bring to the table life-wise which I have found to be so important for my self-worth.

Indulge (and then get back into it).

The more you deprive yourself, the more you will be drawn to the things you are avoiding. Get the duvet day out of the way and get back amongst it tomorrow.

If you don’t do it, don’t expect someone else to.

In other words, don’t put things off hoping that if you don’t do it, your partner/flatmate/mum will pick up the slack. No sugar-coating here (I’m on a diet) be harshly honest with yourself. There’s no such thing as “it’s not my turn to do the dishes”. You’ve literally just made that rule up so you can do fuck all.

Don’t do things for anyone other than yourself.

If you do things “for” someone with an expectation behind it, you’re not being kind you’re doing a weirdo business deal that the other person has no idea they’re part of.
And that’s really unfair.
Also, it increases the chance of resentment building and decreases the chance of you continuing to do the good things. Your motivation is coming from an external source which means you are putting that power in something other than you.
You will wonder why no one treats you the way you would treat them and essentially put yourself on a pedestal built from false pretences.
Find it within yourself. You will hold it and nothing can take it from you.

Obviously, things happen in life that will get you down and it can be so easy to absorb the vibes other people (and even events) emit. And when you’re feeling like shit, you won’t want to do anything!

Building that resilience is extremely important. 

There’s that saying “an entire sea of water can’t sink a ship unless it gets inside of the ship”. Taking care of yourself is the equivalent to fixing any holes in your ship so the little things in life won’t get in and weigh you down.

Build yourself strong. When things are thrown at you, take your time to take care of yourself, feel what needs to be felt and keep doing the things that you know make you feel better. Don’t let those bad vibes come in too far and undo all of your good work.

I hope you have a productive and happy week!!

Keep being you

Megan x

How To: Love Your Natural Skin

This weeks blog, I wanted to share some personal stuff that I haven’t really told anyone before!
I want to do this in the hopes that it may help someone out there. Even if it’s just in a small sense to help them feel like they have someone to relate to and maybe give some comfort in knowing they aren’t alone and that it’s more than okay to be you. (approx. 7 min read xx)

Ever since I was in primary school, I remember feeling self-conscious about the way I look.

I had rosy red cheeks and very fair eyebrows which also had a red hue on the skin behind them.
I’m sure this is far more common than not, but I didn’t have any friends who looked like me.

Other kids used to say weird shit to me like “do you shave your eyebrows?”.

Also in my family I would be teased. Families often joke with each other and that’s totally normal but in particular, one aunty would tease me about my chubby cheeks, “huge” arms and barely-there brows. Which made me feel like the odd one out. A weirdo.
However, I was young and assumed everyone in my family loved me anyway, no matter what I did or looked like.

But I can recall the final instance that really got to me.
I was about 7 or 8 years old and we were lining up for the yearly class photos.
You know the one, when you had to go sit with everyone in your class and look all keen, finally get the picture and then shuffle off into another queue to smile like a geek for a solitary shot that your mum would dish out to the grandparents.

The geek herself aged about 7?

Anyway, it was in this queue that the principal came up to me and asked me to “wipe that lipstick off my face” to which I replied with a blank stare.
What lipstick?
He then held up his thumb and tried to wipe. my. eyebrows. off.

He let out a confused “huh” sound before he realised and scuttled off back to his office.
I was stunned and not sure as to who was the most embarrassed by this interaction.
But I went inside feeling really sad and, well, ugly.

This feeling stuck and I fully dwelled on it becoming hyper-sensitive to comments about my appearance.
I started comparing myself to my friends and I remember I would stop eating my lunch and throw it away in some sort of compensation, as though I didn’t deserve it.

It was somewhat of a relief when a year or so later I went through chemo and all my hair fell out. Like, at least now I matched.
My rosy-red cheeks disappeared entirely as there was little life left in me.

As my hair started growing back around age 12, I discovered makeup.
All I wanted to do was blend in to the crowd so I learnt how to cover my redness and pencil in my brows.
I finally felt like I looked somewhat normal.

I can’t say I was excited about leaving Intermediate and heading to high school. I wasn’t excited about anything, really.
But I was ready to leave behind the awkward in-betweener stage of my life where I was only known as “the girl in the blue beanie” or, my favourite, “Smeagol”. To be fair I was sick af and did actually look like this lol so at least they we were accurate.

So, I continued playing with makeup through high school.
Despite the other girls who would take the piss out of me for it. I resented their hissing whispers but kept practising. I remember hating pretty much everyone at my school and I know I was really hard to be around. I would carry all the side-eyed looks, rumours and backstabbing around with me and bring the negative vibes home.
However, makeup never eventuated into anything more than a tool I used to make myself feel more comfortable about my appearance.

This became rather dangerous as I quickly believed that I needed makeup in order to even leave the house.
I felt like if I looked perfect then nobody could diss me for anything. Like I was taking their ammo away.
Rules started forming in my mind about how I was supposed to look and even friends and family weren’t allowed to see me without my makeup on.
I was so incredibly insecure and actually fearful of being seen without it.

As the years went by, this fear increased in depth and enveloped me.
Now, no one was allowed to touch my face.
Even if a friend reached out and said “oh, there’s a hair stuck on your face let me get it off for you” I would recoil and I’m sure a couple of times I snapped at them to not touch my face.
I couldn’t accept any compliments because I felt like they would never say those nice things to me if they knew what I “really” looked like.

Bout 15 ay

I’m well aware now of how silly all that may seem and how I really held myself back. I can now see how almost childish it is to depend on other people’s validation for your own self worth. You need to have it within you and it can’t be something someone can take away from you.
If you’re not “hot” in school, then that’s all good. You just haven’t peaked yet. Who would want to be the kind of person who wants to live in the past and will never be the “greatest” like they were in high school.

It’s such a shame because carrying around any sort of fear is really unhealthy and I quickly developed social anxiety and multiple types of depression.

Disclaimer: Of course, it wasn’t just my appearance that contributed to my deteriorating mental health.
I suffered from PTSD due to the multiple hospital experiences but, I’d be in denial if I didn’t acknowledge that it played a role.
So to keep it relative to the subject, that is as far as I will disclose here.
I’m so grateful that I now have a full grip on what contributed to my multiple mental health issues in the past. I reckon it’s really important to get to know anything you are experiencing through honest self-reflection and research.
By reflecting back on events, I can pin point what events lead me to feel certain things and develop core beliefs that limited me.
This helps me explain to myself what the hell I was on about back then. It has helped me to forgive others and myself,  learn from it and ultimately get the f u c k over it.
And so, now that I am fully through the dark tunnel and loving my life on the other side, I would be more than willing to share my experiences in further detail in another blog post if anyone would find it at all useful or comforting.

So how did I learn to love my natural skin?
The truth is, I don’t.
Not 100%. Not yet.
But what I have learnt is that I am ok, just the way I am.
By investing in skincare that really works for me and with the help of my amazing partner, I have felt comfortable enough to let friends and family see me without a full face of makeup.
Some even without any makeup at all.
He has also encouraged me and helped me to go out the house to the supermarket with no makeup on at all and interact with the staff there.
This may seem ridiculous to some of you, and that’s ok because that means you’ve never felt so incredibly low about yourself so I’m genuinely happy for you.

Speaking openly about it definitely helps too.
My good friend said she could relate to this. She said something about her own insecurity that really rang true, “it’s just a characteristic like curly hair or brown eyes. It’s just a part of you not something you should feel you have to hide.”

It may not be every time I leave the house that I feel comfortable enough to wear no makeup, but the amount of times I can is increasing.

I hope this “back-story” post has helped some of you to feel like you’re not alone in your past experiences and that you’re allowed to be you, no matter what that looks like.

I’ll be doing more posts about my natural skin after my vaycay!
I got my brows cosmetically tattooed a few years ago and after a few consultations this year, I’ve been informed that the woman who did them pretty much fucked them up lol sooo they have to be fixed now. Yay.
I will definitely be blogging about this experience too with advice!
There will also be a post on my skincare routine featuring before and after pics of my bare skin! So stay tuned and follow if you’re interested in getting some great skincare tips.

Keep being you,

Megan xx

Megan is the CEO of Maverick Cosmetica
Maverick is a New Zealand online makeup store out of Megan’s home on the beautiful Kāpiti Coast.
All orders $50+ receive FREE shipping NZ wide
Buy any 2 Antipodes products + receive a free Reincarnation exfoliator or Grace facial cleanser while stocks last xx

What Would You Tell Your Younger Self?

I’ve heard this question being asked many times and after a conversation with my partner in the car yesterday it shone some light on how I would answer this…
With the help of my good friend Lauren Conrad xx

1. People try to bring you down because of their own fear and insecurities.
   You are just a mirror showing people what they’re doing or NOT doing and people may be threatened by that.
   If you are having a great time and using skills you are developing to be creative and you want to pursue that, you may show people that they aren’t making the best of their time.
   So they may make jokes at your expense to cut you down.
   This is the classic Tall Poppy Syndrome.
   As hard as it is to hear, some of your friends may not want you to do well. They may want you to be happy, but not happier than them. They may cheer you on and hope you succeed, but not more successful than them.
   So if your friends take the piss out of you, just laugh with them. Because in the future, your skills will be being put to good use while they will be sitting on the same couch they have been for the past decade.
   This is sad but I can guarantee you, you won’t regret getting good at something and making something of it.
   Value the friends who genuinely love seeing you ascend and tell you, you inspire them. They’re the lights in your life.

2. You’re allowed.
   
   To be happy, to love yourself, to dance in front of the mirror, to sing terribly, to like the way you look, to be proud of your achievements. You is fine.
3. Empathy is important.
   
   Not just for understanding your friends and helping them through any tough times they may be experiencing, but also for understanding why someone may be treating you unfairly.
   Taking the time to ask yourself what kind of day they may have had (or even what you know about their life) will help you to not take things so personally.
   If you genuinely believe you haven’t done anything wrong and someone is bringing you down, they may just feel threatened or jealous as they are comparing their deepest self to your projection of who you are.
   They don’t truly know you so they cannot truly judge you.
   If something someone says to you pushes a button and “hits home” then don’t feel the need to attack them in defence but instead think about why that matters to you so much.
   Is it something that you don’t like about yourself? Something that you do outwardly as an action that you feel contradicts your core beliefs?
   Then take that as an opportunity to change and to grow as a person.
   It may seem cheesy but the only person you should be better than is the person you were yesterday.

4. Stop shopping at Supré.
   
   Just. Stop.
   
   
5. Be mindful about what makes you happy.
   
   When you feel excited about something and motivated by something, take note! Because these things make up who you are. You are most beautiful when you speak about what you’re passionate about.
   If you don’t, you will lose that and completely forget what made you happy.
   The question “what do you like to do?” will draw a daunting blank space in your mind. You will have no idea.
   Knowing what makes you feel good is so important for self care and also for what you may want to pursue as a career option.
   Follow and listen to your heart and you’ll never be lost.
   
   
6. You’re allowed to say no to things you don’t want to do, it’s fine.
   
   
   Self care is the most unselfish thing you can do.
   If you take the time to make sure you have a calm mind and healthy view of the world, everyone you come across will feel that from you.
   You will greet people with a smile and you will shine your light on them and that can help people who may be in a dark shadow at that time.
   If you can leave people feeling better than when they met you, then you’ve cracked it.
   Every time you leave the house you cast a stone into the world and you cannot measure the distance or power of this ripple effect.
   So best to put your best self forward.
   
   
7. You’re not that funny.
   
   You don’t have to say everything that comes in to your mind. Shutting up once in a while will do you good.
   
   
8. Take no shit.
   
   In saying all that, don’t be a doormat.
   Don’t make excuses for friends to the point where they can just treat you like their emotional rubbish bin and after every interaction you feel used and exhausted.
   If they are too far up their own ass and only want you to be a “yes-man” and tell them they are always right then this is a red flag.
   These are the types of people who just dump their issues on you.
   If when you try to show them to another point of view, so they can gain understanding that may help solve their problem, they attack you and hurt you deeply, tell them. Because you don’t need to conform. You are merely disagreeing and standing up for what you believe in.
   In this instance there’s no need to attack them, just communicate.
   Just say it.
   This is brave to do and even though they’re your friends (and they should know you aren’t trying to hurt them) they still won’t like it.
   But it’s better than bottling shit up and people having no idea they’re hurting you until you erupt and just cut them off.
   Give them a chance to change like you would want them to do for you.
   However, if you find every time you try to tell them how you feel, they attack in defence, you’re better off distancing yourself.
   You don’t need that shit.

   

9. You’re not fat.
   
   But you will find out what that really is so stop making shit up and learn to like running.
   
   
10. You actually do become like the people you hang out with.
    And that should concern you.
    Be selective about the types of people you let in to your inner circle.
    Because once they’re in there, they can hurt you deeply.
    Be careful what you tell people.
    Not many people actually care about your best interests or helping you work through your current issue so that you feel better.
    They just want a story to tell.
    
    

11. If anyone makes you feel like you’re not good enough or you’re an embarrassment to them, leave.
    

You don’t need to perform for them. Ever.

Thanks for reading! Until next weeks blog..

Keep being you

Megan xx

Megan is the CEO of Maverick Cosmetica.

Maverick is a New Zealand online makeup store out of Megan’s home on the beautiful Kāpiti Coast.
All orders $50+ receive FREE shipping NZ wide
Buy any 2 Antipodes products + receive a free Reincarnation exfoliator or Grace facial cleanser xx

A Train Of Thought …

We’re getting deep this week, come take a dive into my mind …

Do you ever just sit at your happy place like the beach or in the forest and get thinking?

Getting real deep on your shit like how far you’ve come, how beautiful life is, how hard you’ve worked to get to this point and that if you had done anything differently then maybe you wouldn’t be where you are now?

Do you ever think how far you still have to go, but because you actually want to get there, it’s now exciting instead of daunting?

About how now you can rely on yourself to carry you through?

And yeah, it’s heavy shit, but like most people, you’ve now learnt how to put pain to the side.

Every now and then have a good cry and allow yourself to feel what demands to be felt but now it’s only a bad 5 minutes instead of a bad day, which used to seep into a bad week and then a bad month and a bad year, next thing you know it’s a decade later and you’re still hurt.

Don’t listen to anyone else about how to deal with your shit, don’t even listen to me!

If you can find something that actually helps you, whether that’s going for a walk with a mate or by yourself, talking to someone that’s passed away, or writing a public blog post lol then that is what you should do and fuck anyone who tries to judge you!

Living authentically, with passion and love, is cool.
It’s way more fun! Not being afraid to cut out anything or anyone that you feel is holding you back from prospering is definitely a good idea.

Everyone’s problem is a problem if it’s a problem.

Chew that one round for a bit.

My good friends reminded me of something I had said after a bend one time “just because I haven’t eaten in a year and you haven’t eaten in a week doesn’t mean I’m hungrier than you are. We’re both hungry”

Everyone’s problems are a deal the universe has dealt so that you can learn the lessons you need to learn, and get to the places you’re supposed to be.

Earth is school for the soul.

Everyone has their own positives and own negatives. Try not to compare someone else’s highlight reel to your behind the scenes.

No one can have yin without the yang.

In saying that, I don’t believe everything happens for a reason because sometimes horrendous shit just happens in life and there’s literally nothing good about that event.

Maybe sometimes you just have to carry it with you and find a way to accept it.
That can make you into a better friend / parent / child / sibling ’cause you’ve actually experienced some flip sides to the regular Main Street life.

Whoever became a good sailor from calm seas?

You’ve crashed into a million pieces, you find yourself now having to scrape them all back up. You cut your hands trying to put them together again (and again) and then all of a sudden, you’ve done it!

It is part of your history, not something to disguise.

Your right people, your tribe, your family, will see that in you and see you as more beautiful and special because of your fucking spirit.

So cheers to you, grab yourself a wine and have a bloody good weekend. You deserve it. xx

Megan is the CEO of Maverick Cosmetica.
Maverick is a New Zealand online makeup store out of Megan’s home in the beautiful Kāpiti Coast.
All orders $50+ receive FREE shipping NZ wide