Blog 46: Good news stories

Recently as some of you may know we had some amazing news to share with the world about our Award Wins.

At first I felt a bit uncomfortable doing this as I don’t love the limelight and I usually prefer a more humble approach, but then I realised this is a BIG DEAL and we deserve to be celebrated!!! Not just for me but for all our amazing staff and managers who give their heart and soul to Bliss and what we do. I am so proud of them all.

But really as much as I feel uncomfortable about it, I do need to be ok with celebrating myself… Oh god do you have any idea how hard that was to write and not delete! Lol. Why do so many of us feel uncomfortable about celebrating our achievements … especially women?

So many women have amazing good news stories and we celebrate these with our guests every day. They are beautiful, powerful amazing stories and women who deserve to be acknowledged and celebrated and to feel good about every bit of energy and love that went into what they have achieved.

We have amazing women come to Bliss from carers of special needs children & adults. To CEO’s and career women. To matriarchs of their family. To humble amazing ladies who have loved their families through thick and thin. To those courageous enough to leave situations that were not good for them. For those living with and overcoming health difficulties. To entrepreneurs who have done amazing things. To doctors, nurses, health workers and natural health workers. To students going through massive learning phases. To those who have sailed around the world on a yacht or participated in high level sporting achievements. To media personalities and celebrities. To those who care for animals or work in not for profit organisations. To those women overcoming massive adversities in their life with grace.

All sorts of women from all over the globe with their own important heartfelt stories.
All women who are amazing, no matter how big or small their achievements. To us, no achievement is small, they are all relevant and need to be celebrated and we are so thankful so many can come to Bliss to do this for themselves. And even though it doesn’t play out as a huge celebration it is about all these women giving back to themselves through self love and acknowledgement and having some fun!

It’s not always about shouting things from the rooftops, but sometimes that needs to be ok. It needs to be seen as a great thing to celebrate ourselves. Not something we shy away, or constantly downplay ourselves.

With this social media day and age we have the opportunity to celebrate ourselves and each other more and more … not just with a selfie when we’ve had a good hair morning, but to tell our stories. And you know what? sometimes we will hardly get one ‘like’ but who the hell cares! Write it for you!

I posted about our Awards on FB and was really overwhelmed with the support I received. And sadly it wasn’t until I got those acknowledgements and people saying ‘you should be so proud of yourself’ that I did start to feel a little bit proud of myself. For some reason I needed external acknowledgement to be proud of me. My first thought was ‘oh no I’m just proud of all my staff’. Making myself smaller. Not wanting to shine or be exposed or put on a pedestal that I will no doubt come toppling down off very soon lol.

But I am proud of myself and need to be and I need to overcome other people telling me that, for me to believe it. I need to just know this myself. My staff look to me for guidance and inspiration and I am so proud that these awards can bring them that.

What I am really proud of is not the acknowledgements, but what it took to get there. Well there will be a book on that one day! Lol. The last 7 years of my life have been huge! I am a much nicer person now, but still a long way to go. I have been humbled. I have struggled. I have been oh so lonely. There were times I thought I needed to walk away. I have been through relentless pain and suffering with my health. I have had to make hugely difficult decisions that affect other peoples lives. But I have had the courage to keep going. I have had the courage to stand up and lead. I have had the courage to believe in myself. I have had the courage to make mistakes and fail and the humility to say sorry when needed. I have had the courage to feel the fear and do it anyway.

That is what I am really tear jerkingly the most proud of.

And every time somebody says to me ‘you are such an inspiration’, instead of almost choking and denying it vehemently, I need to learn to be thankful that anything I could possibly do or say would inspire another human being to do something great in their own life. I am working on this! Why is this so hard to believe!!!

Humility is a wonderful thing, but everything in moderation. We do need to celebrate ourselves more. We do need to know we are great just in ourselves without needing the external validation. We need to know it is a great thing to show the little humans in our world that it is great to be brave and put yourself out there and do great things for others and be proud of that.

I wholeheartedly believe that as humans we are craving these stories about one another. We WANT to celebrate others. We WANT to focus on the positives and feel the emotions and gain an understanding of what others are going through. We don’t just need to do this with film and tv. We can use social media, our groups of friends and family and really be ourselves. We can blog or write books and self publish on the internet. I truly believe by sharing the vulnerabilities AND the amazingness we as a human race can feel much happier and fulfilled. And how easy is that!

Bring on the good news stories and celebrating other humans through all elements of media I say. It is time.

Much love, Zoë

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