Peace in a Pod

The idea for this post occurred to me during a week where I’ve actually been really occupied with solo travel plans, so it seemed apt to put pen to paper (read: fingers to keyboard) to speak to the concept of travelling as a party of one, and why it is something you should never rule out. First things first, solo travel does not need to be an entire holiday where you are on your own 24/7 (but if you like the sound of that, by all means shoot for the stars, doll). It can take the form of booking a spot on a tour group who run a set itinerary, or getting in touch with independent guides in the area beforehand who can suggest and arrange activities for you (all to be covered in future posts). So just bear that in mind as you read this. We are not talking seclusion-in-a-cave-for-a-week here (but go for it if that sounds like heaven). When I sat and contemplated the life lessons I have learned from experiencing solo travel, I came up with 3 main lessons that I’m willing to share here. But t...

(I would like to preface this opinion piece by stating simply that: this is my opinion, on what is clearly a sensitive and nuanced issue, and it is subject to change as I change. My intention is never to preach, to hurt, or to make anyone feel bad, and I hope I can address this particular topic with sensitivity and respect. After you read this blog post, I would be more than happy to engage in conversation with you should you wish to discuss any point in further detail.) The idea for this post was sparked by a conversation I had recently with a group of friends in which the topic of cosmetic surgery was mentioned. Not gonna lie - I was a bit taken aback as the conversation continued and I discovered just how polarised our opinions were. I personally don’t feel any draw towards lip fillers, Botox or anything of the sort, but I support bodily autonomy and everyone’s right to choose. That said, it made me wonder why we as a society are so taken up with physical appearance and what this fi...

Feminism is the belief that men and women should have equal rights. It is literally that simple. A person doesn’t have to burn their bra, grow out their body hair or ‘hate men’ to be a feminist, and whoever told you that has a lot to answer for. Despite significant improvements in the lives of women (in the Western world) over the last 50 years, there still remains a gap between the ideal and the reality of what it means to exist as a woman in society. I don’t plan on getting into every aspect of feminism in one post - to try to do so would be extremely naive - so consider this the first of many discussions around a very meaningful and worthwhile topic. Today I want to get into what it means to be a successful woman. Chats with other women my age and older, as well as reading feminist literature over the last year in particular, have really helped refine my understanding of how success in life is portrayed to women. So basically there is a narrative in society that is sold to girls fro...

I think I have mentioned once or twice throughout this blog that I enjoy a good journal prompt now and again. More often than not, journal prompts look like questions, and they are designed to induce self-reflection which is then expressed in writing. Your response can be as long and detailed or as short and concise as you please, and you needn’t share what you have written with anyone if you don’t want. As I responded to a few prompts over the weekend, sourced from a website called Psych Central , I came across one which went like this: “If I could talk to my teenage self, the one thing I would say is…”, and the first thought that flowed out of my pen onto the page kind of took me by surprise, in a way, because it made me notice something about how I spent my teenage years. My response was this: “I am the source of my own happiness”. I couldn’t help feeling that this was quite a deep, profound thing to realise, almost 10 years on from adolescence. However, when I thought about it furt...

Aloneness. Independence. Me-time. Being in one’s own company. Whatever you want to call it. As the years go by in our technologically advanced world, it is getting harder and harder to truly be by ourselves. And the thought of being by ourselves is something that actually scares the living daylights out of us too. We avoid being on our own insofar as we can help it. Whatever it is we want or need to do, it seems imperative for many of us that we be accompanied while doing so. Going to the bathroom on a night out, seeing a film, attending a match, going for a walk, holidaying. We would rather not do any of these things if it means going alone, and, rather worryingly, that includes the one about the toilet. And then, those times that we are by ourselves, in a waiting room, or on public transport, or when we get a few minutes of a break throughout the working day, we immediately gravitate towards our phones. We need to be scrolling, texting, checking notifications, consuming information i...

2020 isn’t over yet so I feel dissuaded from saying anything definite and final about it. The universe still has 4 weeks to Punk us before calling it a day. But if there is anything at all I can say about this year, it is that, so far, it has been a teacher, and a harsh mistress at that. Among the many lessons in which it schooled me, probably the biggest and most important one was in regards to control: having control, not having control, the anxiety linked to things being outside my control, and basically how to manage it all before I am eaten alive. From a young age, I relished the feeling being in control gave me. I am the eldest of four, so usually for my brother and sisters it was my way or the proverbial highway. I was in charge, I picked the games we played, I determined how long we would engage in each activity before I decided I was bored and we were all going to do something different instead, I wrote the Santa letters because my younger siblings’ spelling and grammar were n...

Don’t give me that look. I know the one. When you hear the word ‘meditation’ and straight away images of dreadlocked, baggy-pantsed, incense-burning hippies singing ‘Kumbaya’ come to mind. While the idea of meditation or mindfulness seems very new and trendy (especially to the Irish), it has been around for thousands of years, playing a huge part in Eastern religions. Having said that, you don’t need to be a Buddhist monk on a mountaintop to be able to meditate; cultivating your own mindfulness practice is actually easier and more accessible now than ever before. I would like to preface this post by informing the reader that this here is merely an introduction to meditation ( my understanding of it anyway), and will not address its every facet. I felt I needed to do a series of blog posts around the concept of meditation and mindfulness because to try to condense it all into one would be like trying to put the ocean in a glass. The Cambridge dictionary definition of meditation forms a...

For me, peace is everything. It is the overarching principle after which this whole blog of mine is named, after all. So much so, that I use peace as a yardstick for measuring how my day went: did I have peace in abundance? Or was I missing it? Peace is out there for us all, it is comforting, and it is needed, if we are to make our way successfully on this earth. Before we venture any further down this road, we must agree on a definition of peace. I do not mean it to describe the interim between war, the down-time where all seems calm, on the surface, tension bubbling like stew underneath. My understanding of peace is one of a deep-rooted sense of contentment - a feeling of safety, like an impenetrable bubble. Not bliss per se: bliss is fleeting, and the idea of it, in my mind, is one that does not coexist with life’s troughs, only its peaks, and even the most naive of us knows that that is not how life goes. Where light is shone, shadows are cast. And that’s just simple physics. Peace...