My Experience With: Indoor Skydiving!

I can't quite believe I'm saying this (writing this?) but on Saturday I went indoor skydiving. Anyone who knows me in real life will know that I'm not a particularly adventurous person, but this year I am trying to step out of my comfort zone and expand my horizons.

To sum it up in one word: weird. It was so odd! You basically get two one-minute slots, and an instructor literally holds you up because it is not an easy thing. The instructors were so good, and made the whole experience easier. The wind tunnel is loud, and on my first go I was concentrating too hard on remembering to breathe to be any good at it.

It's harder than it looks. Although I feel kinda silly because I was so worried about it but there were groups of six-year-olds doing it with no problem. Me and my ridiculous mind!

But I DID IT. And I will celebrate this small achievement with everything that I have. And I have this incredibly flattering picture as a reminder. If anyone can look good while doing this, kudos to you.

8/10 - highly recommend!

My Experience With: Getting a Tattoo

One of the things that I did this summer was to get my first tattoo. This is something that I've wanted to get for a while, but to be honest, I never thought that I'd actually get one done. My sister decided that she wanted one for her eighteenth birthday, and she wanted our mum, aunt and myself to go with her.

To say that I was nervous was an understatement. I actually nearly bottled out and didn't do it at all, because while I knew what I wanted my tattoo to be, I wasn't sure where I wanted it. I ended up going with my gut instinct and getting it on my ribs, and looking back I'm so glad that I did.

In terms of pain, it wasn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I'd heard that your ribcage is one of the worst places to get tattooed because it hurts so much, but I knew in my heart that that is where I wanted my tattoo, so I decided to just go for it. It's a fairly new philosophy of mine to start saying yes to more things, so I went for it and figured that if it went wrong, I'd just worry about it later.

As you can see from the pictures, it starts towards the back of my ribs and then comes forward onto the actual bone itself. The first part of the tattoo wasn't too bad at all in terms of pain, it was just a weird, uncomfortable feeling more than anything else. Towards the front, when it was more on the rib bone itself, that was more painful. I actually ended up digging my nails into my hand to give me something else to focus on, and that was more painful than the tattoo itself, so make of that what you will. It's only four little words, so it only took about five minutes, but that was quite enough for me. It was uncomfortable enough that I wouldn't want to have anything bigger or more detailed done in that location.

I got this done at the beginning of September. It's now the middle of October and it's all healed up and done with. I don't even notice it anymore. The first week or so after having it done, the skin was obviously very tender and it made wearing anything a pain, but it was definitely worth it, and now it's healed I forget it's there half the time.

I love it so much, and I'm so glad that I took the leap and got it done.

In case you're wondering what it says, it's 'this too shall pass'. Basically everyone has asked me what it means, and essentially, it's a philosophical saying that means that everything is temporary. All the negative stuff that you go through is only temporary, so don't stress about it, and the positive stuff is temporary too, so always be grateful and never take anything for granted.

My Experience With: Henna Hair Dye

At the ripe old age of twenty years old, I have yet to dye my hair. I've never done it, I've just never felt the need to dye it, so I've always just left it alone. However, over the last year or so, I've desperately wanted to do something different with my hair: either cut it off or dye it, and so in order to test this out I decided to do it using henna hair dye.

The reason for this is purely because it's made with natural ingredients and I don't want to do too much damage to my hair. It's also semi-permanent, meaning it will wash out over a few months, and I thought that this would be a good place to start for someone who has never dyed their hair before.

As you can imagine, henna hair dye only comes in dark colours, because henna itself is a dark product. The one I used was from Lush, and theirs come in four colours: Noir (the darkest, almost black colour), Brun (a dark brown colour), Marron (a medium chestnut colour) and Rouge (with redder tones).

I chose to use Brun, since I have brown hair anyway, and the plan was only to go a little bit darker, without going black. I was really looking forward to it and set aside an entire Saturday in order to ensure that I did it correctly. However, after everything, I was left utterly disappointed. I followed all the instructions to the letter, and left the hair dye on for the maximum amount of time that was recommended and then some, and yet it still made no difference to the colour of my hair. If anything, it made it slightly lighter, as you will see in the pictures.

Henna hair dye is an interesting experience to say the least. It will stink your house out, it takes five times as long as chemical hair dye, and to me personally, it didn't make much of a difference. Maybe I should have used the darker dye, or maybe my hair just doesn't take to henna dye, but I certainly won't be using it again.

Before on the left and after on the right! :(

Have you ever used henna hair dye? Did it work for you?

My Experience With: Yoga and Meditation

Image Credit: https://fitnessrepublic.com/fitness/15minute-yoga-routine-thats-better-than-coffee.html

I started practising yoga just over a year ago because I had heard that it was good for dealing with anxiety, and I was at a point in my life where I was desperately looking for something to help me deal with it.

But I was massively sceptical. My entire thought process was how can glorified stretching make me feel less anxious? And I was the same with meditation. I thought it was about forcing myself to think of nothing, which for me, was impossible. But my practise over the last year or so has shown me how wrong I was.

Yoga and meditation is about accepting yourself for exactly who you are, flaws and all. Yoga is not about the perfect pose, it's about showing up and making that time for yourself. Meditation is not about thinking of nothing, it's about acknowledging your thoughts and anxieties, and then letting them pass.

Image Credit: http://www.practicingmindfulness.com/aboutmindfulness/how-to-do-mindfulness-meditation/

A year on from starting, and I'm so glad I did. It's completely changed the way I think about things.

If you're thinking that this might be the thing for you, then I've found that the best place to look is on YouTube. There's so much good stuff on there, and it's a brilliant place to start.