Virago Health!

 As you may know, I am the proud owner of a podcast called Virago Voices, which is all about women's empowerment. 
I started this podcast out of my love of chatting to people and my desire to make the world a slightly better place for the next generation of girls. 
With this in mind, I recently had an experience where I shared some information on women's health on my social media, which led one of my followers to get a diagnosis. On hearing this, I thought about my privilege; being a doctor and being passionate about women's health means I have a lot of knowledge and access to knowledge on common women's health conditions - and potentially a better understanding of normal and abnormal. It led me to think, why not use my podcast as a vehicle for making more change, in the field of women's health! Something I am very passionate about. After discussing with friends and talking about it on my social media, I have created Virago Health. A weekly chat with subject matter experts on women's health issues...

Virago Health: 
"Virago women are fierce, they are the women who are unapologetically who they are, they are challenging societal views of what a woman should be, and pushing forward the fight of equality. Some people describe virago women as a violent and unpleasant woman, but here at the podcast we call them heroic warriors
.
Here at Virago Voices, we are passionate about Virago women being spotlighted. Equally, we believe their health is important if they are going to be able to fight for their place in the world. 
As a doctor, our founder is passionate about women’s health and wellbeing. And therefore, inspired by a recent event, we have decided to introduce Virago Health, a weekly episode, interspersed with our usual Virago episodes, to discuss common topics in women’s health with expert help in each field we discuss. We also will answer your women’s health related questions through our episodes. 
.
To keep up to date on the latest podcasts, follow Virago Voices on Instagram, Spotify or Apple music! 
.
Please note we cannot give medical advice, for this you must speak to your doctor."

Tune in to stay updated, and forward the podcast to your friends and family! 

Progress

Let's start with a story... Recently I have been getting into running, with gyms closing due to Lockdown 2.0. Whilst out on a run the other night, at around 2km into my journey, a female runner sprints past me. She is approximately my age and size. Yet she ran past me. 

I gave myself a hard time, feeling that I should be faster, asking myself why I was so slow compared to her, trying to speed up to keep pace with her. 

However, around 200m of her running past me, I look up to see she has stopped. The girl stopped, took off her headphones and stopped her watch… she was on the final 200m of her run. Me on the other hand, had still another 3 km to run. 

The more I pondered over this on the rest of my run, the more I compared this to life. And to my horror, I realise I do this every day without realising. Particularly with other women. I beat myself up about my inability to keep pace with people who are at completely different places in their life than I am. 

And if you constantly do this, with an array of different people, you build this expectation, this race for yourself that you will never be able to finish. Which then leads to feelings of failure, when actually people are simply at a different place in their run than you are. And guess what… that is totally fine. You are still running, aren’t you? You are still finishing your race, who cares about what people are doing around you. 

So next time you see someone achieving “more than you”, someone you feel is overtaking you on your journey, just think about where you are at in your run, and how important that is to you. Focus on you, focus on your run. 

Don’t try and keep pace with people in different positions on their journey, keep pace with yourself. And always remember to enjoy the journey!

Launching my podcast

I am writing this blog post to make an exciting announcement: Today is the official launch of my first ever podcast. 

I chose to do a podcast because I’ve learnt that I am much better at saying things as opposed to writing them down. Eloquence on paper is not my forte.  

The podcast is called Virago Voices – the reason for this is stated in the introductory podcast which I have just released, so I won’t spoil the surprise. The aim of the podcast is to empower women. I aim to do this through dialogue with amazing women. Each episode is named after the inspiring woman with whom I am chatting.  I aim to capture those conversations that you have with your girlfriends over coffee, in the hope that the listener will be able to relate in some way and feel empowered by the conversations that we are having.

Listen to the introductory podcast here, explaining the meaning behind the name and what the podcast is about. (At the minute it is only available on Anchor Fm and Spotify, but is in the process of uploading onto Apple Music)!
I hope to release an episode per week!

If you are or know any inspiring women, please get in touch!

Lockdown Love

Idly listening to music on youtube the other night, I was overwhelmed by the sheer number of adverts between videos relating to dieting during the lockdown. I want to address this.

A little reminder: lockdown is stressful enough without having to worry about your body! If you are getting less exercise because your favourite gym is closed or you feel out of routine because you are unable to do your normal activities, that is ok!

No one is expecting that of you.

I know that Instagram is full of people who have transformed into personal trainers and weight loss coaches. Just remember that Instagram is the perfect part of someone’s life; they may be actually binge-watching tiger king and munching snacks between these “workouts”.

I just feel like lockdown is the new New Year’s, with people striving to become a “new person”. Why can't we just survive? 

Delving into these diet and exercise fads on my own Instagram induced considerable anxiety so I stopped doing so. I then decided to go a step further. I started unfollowing the content that was making me feel bad. This is called curating your feed. We do it subconsciously, and it is usually detrimental as we end up following all the perfect parts of everyone’s life. 

Instead, let’s do it for positivity. Unfollow the accounts that make you feel bad about yourself and follow accounts that fill you with happiness and positivity. 

So... Let’s not allow lockdown to become the new New Year’s!

For more information about increasing your self-esteem during lockdown, check out Dove's campaign:

 https://www.dove.com/us/en/stories/about-dove/take-care-be-safe.html?utm_source=%5B%25tp_SiteName%25%5D&utm_medium=%5B%25tp_PlacementID%25%5D&utm_campaign=%5B%25tp_CampaignName%25%5D

The Real People Project

Do you ever look through your Instagram feed and immediately feel crap about the chocolate you just munched while drinking your cuppa? Or feel guilty about the pizza you scoffed at the weekend? Does it ever make you feel like you aren’t enough?

If you answered yes to the above questions, then… join the club! However, instead of this story being one of self-loathing, let it be one of self-loving.

After discussing this at length with a good friend, over some wine, we decided that we wanted to change the narrative. We wanted to create Instagram feeds where people felt enough.

And this was the birth of the Real People Project; an Instagram-based movement to display real people and their stories in order to promote body confidence and self-love in all people. 

Since its creation, we have had nearly 50 real people sharing their stories, and have spoken to vast audiences about topics such as self-love, imposter syndrome and body confidence.

The really interesting thing that we have learnt, as founders of the movement, is that firstly everyone has a story, and with that story comes their own struggle of self-love. And secondly, that narrative may not have been anything you may have expected!

So my take-home message is simple. You are not alone if you struggle with self-love, but you can reach out to others and open the dialogue!

Lots of love

The Real People Project

(@therealpeopleproject)

Self Love during Self Isolation

Self-love is difficult at the best of times, not least when your normal routine is disrupted due to social uncertainty. I for one struggle on a daily basis with self-love, which is something I feel that I need to disclose, especially as I run a social media account (https://www.instagram.com/therealpeopleproject/?hl=en) dedicated to appreciating oneself. I link love for myself closely with my mental health; when my mental health is low my self-love takes a hit too, so here is a challenge for both you and I:
Treat your mental health as you would your physical health.

When I feel my physical health is deteriorating I do something to improve it, whether it’s getting more sleep, drinking orange juice or doing some exercise. Why shouldn’t we do the same for our mental health? Mental and physical health are just as important as each other – we are responsible for treating both. Have you found the orange juice for your mind?

I'm Back

Hello world!

So I promised a very special group of people that as I closed one door, I would open another.
A very big dream of mine is to write a book, and I have decided the best way to begin this is to resurrect my blog, and frequently update it with my ideas and thoughts of the world.

Why did you choose to resurrect your blog from nearly 10 years ago... well why not? As I read back through my blog posts, as cringe as a lot of them are, I realised they are a story of my growth as a young woman in society and the development of my feminist ideals.

So please tune in and enjoy...