Music Is The Manna: A Guide To Grieving At Christmas

   

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I'm gonna level with you guys,

This year has been a tough one. Not just for me but  I think a lot of people have felt it. I've also noticed the mainstream media being hit with some really tough stuff this year and then add to this the uncertainty of the future here in the UK and you get a very, unstable, painful year.

There has also been a lot of high profile deaths. The one that hit the hardest for me personally though was Stan Lee. I couldn't do justice to a tribute. He will be sorely missed by fans worldwide.

In my personal life, I've gotta say I don't think I've had such a tough year in my entire adult life so far.  This is saying something as in previous years since legally being classed as an adult. I've had years where I faced unemployment, deaths of loved ones, an extremely painful healing journey ( I will get into that a little later) and do I even need to mention, all the health issues I have well documented on this blog.

Yet all of this pales in compassion to this year. It's time to employ that thing I like to do to tell you what's up without boring you so here's my year summed up in a few short statements.

Wow, I'm glad 2017 is over, finally, we get to move on, oh actually no, the heat got hotter. Homeless again? More deaths? Debt? But that's not like me! Let's move to Wales, Nope  London, Back to Wales, London again, Wales to cat sit and then, Accident. Agony!  stuck in Wales. Then finally back to London, only to face the worst storm I've known as an adult, desert sand and what! More debt? But this reality isn't like me!! Oh and the pain's back. Now people leave me. Isolation in the desert, so not fun! Gotta battle on! Keep. Building.The.Blog.And.Sharing.Truth, I'm finally getting somewhere ......

Then the word of the king is hijacked by a narcissist and they convince me to...

Pass The Torch.

But? How am I suppose to earn now??

 Okay faith it is..is that wise? 

I haven't gone hungry and even with all the instability of living arrangements, I have had a roof on my head somehow all year....but seriously though something isn't sitting.

I know that the time to bless others is when you are in need of yourself. Trust me. There is an unseen law at work which is basically the real deal that the fake rules of the law of attraction, tries to counterfeit....but the real thing is far tastier.

Anyways, point made. Tough year as you can see.

Recently I was reminded that this isn't the first time I've reached the holidays with a whole lot of stuff I could grieve about.  It's one thing for all this year-long stuff to be the background thing going on, but I've also had Christmas days which have been spent in tears. I am gonna highlight just 3

How about the Christmas that a family member and I were not talking, and I genuinely thought they would never speak to me again, because we had a disagreement about something they decided to do, and the rest of my well-meaning family were completely confused as to why we just couldn't tell them what the crack was or better still just get over it.

Or how about the Christmas that the guy I thought I was going to marry, broke up with me on Christmas day. It was one of those intense teenage 16-year-old no ones knows how I feel kinda deals. When your that age, your so much more passionate about everything at the time I thought my world was ending, but years later I am SO glad this happened, as I ended up with someone much better and far more well suited.

Finally, here's the one that really broke me. The Christmas day that all of a sudden, completely out of the blue, my brain decided now was the perfect time to throw flashbacks of the day I got raped 3 years previously. I was so broken, all I could do was cry in my room all day, (I'm fortunate to have a family that was always very understanding if I or my brother didn't want to be involved with the festivities) I'm proud to say that I strongly believe in sexual purity and up until I got attacked, I had been waiting, quite happily for marriage one day. This made realizing that I had been attacked all the harder to deal with, and I was only 17 at the time of this Christmas, I didn't want my family to know so I tried very hard to wear a brave face. That Christmas sucked.

Now I know this is not the cheery type of post you expect at Christmas time but the fact is that if you clicked on this post because of the tittle then chances are maybe you can relate to some of this.

If so then I'd love to spend some time today sharing with you how I survive the worst of the grieving thing, as I know that the holidays can intensify emotions, both good and bad.

This is my Christmas present for you today guys, I hope it helps.

Okay, after a un-characteristically long introduction, let's get into it, shall we?

So how I survived all of this is by leaning into my love language.

My best advice for surviving grief especially in the holidays is to figure out what your love language is and lean into it. 

Love Will See You Through.

But what if you are alone this Christmas? Well, then you are perfectly positioned to experience the best love of all...stay with me I've got something for you too here. 

Most people in the self-help community are aware of the New York Times Best Selling book The 5 Love Languages but did you know that Garry Chapman has written many other books including God Knows your love language?

In that book, I discovered that the way I mostly receive love is through words (ha no surprises there then) but the dialect of words that work best for me is music. You see joy is most useful when you are hurting and music brings me a whole lot of joy!

Maybe it does for you too.

God cares about every little bit of your life and since He made you, He also knows how best to help you when you are in a state of grief. I know that we are all different, but I believe that a majority of people reading this, will likely have some sort of connection to music because I don't believe your reading this is an accident. I believe that heaven is calling out to you, to let you know that God sees your pain and He has the answer. Love is the answer. Joy can be your lifestyle. 

Music Is My Manna, Here are 3 Ways I Use It.

The first is to find a song that allows me to dance the grief out of my body, even if only in the short term. This can especially work if you need to be strong for a loved one for a few hours. What I do is take my mp3 player to the bathroom, lock the door and dance like cray for the duration of the song. The more upbeat the better.

This method, I recommend you check out my previous post. I cover it better there. (In fact, that whole post is about using music to mend a broken heart, it's useful as a companion to this post)

The second method is to connect with the God that created me through music. This is not about being religious, it's about spirituality. The connection is electric. I know it may sound odd straight off the bat, but if you try it you won't be sorry.

Here's my top choice as of right now for this method.

Finally, there's the obvious choice of crying it out. This can be good for you too. Grief is not one size fits all, we all do it differently, and it doesn't occur in one step after the other, your emotions do go on a bit of a roller-coaster when you are grieving. Hopefully, these songs will help you get to the point of tears if you need to, but please be gentle with yourself.

1.Blink: Revive - Blink is the track that gets me every time.
2.The Storyteller Collection: Amy Grant- Oh How The Year's Go By should not be missed.
3.Identity: Colton Dixon - Another Side is beautiful.

Bonus! Here are 2  Great Resources To Help With The Grief Process.

https://tedxinnovations.ted.com/2016/06/15/5-tedx-talks-on-coping-with-grief/

I hope this has served you well.

Whatever you are doing this Christmas, I hope you have a warm,joy-filled holiday season. Remember joy is not a feeling, it goes much deeper than that. If you need a refresher then please feel free to go back through some of our older posts.

 If you want to reach out to us, the best place to do so is Facebook, here's my personal link.

Although it is the holidays, I will be checking this inbox frequently. I am currently working on sorting out our email box so in the meantime, I will treat Facebook messenger with the same level of care I would our email account. If this doesn't work for you though, I will also be checking all our other social media platforms regularly.

Please share this post with anyone you think it could help. That would be the best present ever. 

If you are in the position to/led to support us then please feel free to donate to this site via this page.  We are currently working on a curriculum and eBook around the theme of exhibiting and experiencing joy when you are hurting. Any donations will go towards helping others via this website.

That's about it.

Merry Christmas guys! Have a good one!

We will be back with the final part of this series next week!

10 Awesome Musical Masterpieces To Soothe The Soul (Not Christmasy At All)

Okay before we get rocking and rolling on this one, I have to remind you guys that this is gonna be personal opinion so if you don't dig my tunes, your music sucks! 

That's cool, maybe next post will be more your thing. Catch ya later!

Also these links are all Youtube, obviously we don't own the rights to any of the music/videos posted here, if any of them disappear however I am sure you will be able to find the tracks on your streaming service of choice, based on the info we have given you. Also not therapists here of any kind, this is written from personal experience and is ALL personal opinions. Results may vary. 

Anyways, let's get on with it!!

I happen to love a lot of different genre's of music and my day job involves obscure music so with that in mind, I highly doubt that you are going to know every single track, but if you do please comment me and let me know and we can be music twinzies!😤😎💜

Let's start by dipping our toes into something you may know....

1.Enrique Iglesias - Takin' Back My Love feat. Ciara

My guess is that if you are are looking for music to soothe your soul then you are likely not in a great mood right now. 90% of the time, that is usually due to a relationship of sorts going south, and so Enrique Iglesias got  you covered babe.

Now if you are like me, more of a rock chick/dude then don't worry I've got you covered but I want to ease you guys into my favorite soul care choices because I know they are odd choices, so taking you on a little musical journey is all part of the fun.

Moving on.

2.Framing Hanley- War Zone

Once you have had a good cry at the fact this thing just happened to you, next it's time to get mad!

Now there are a lot of great choices that could go here, but I have a rule of only allowing myself to feel rubbish about my part in whatever just happened for the duration of this song (or songs like it)

3.Bon Jovi You Give Love A Bad Name

Now it's time to get mad at the person/situation in question, for this one it's gotta be Bon Jovi. It can be really good for the soul to get your inner rock star out and sing into a hair brush (or atleast mime the words) and just put all your passion into your performance, even if it is in your own room with the curtains closed. Rock ballads are best for this, in my humble opinion and personally, I've had the best results with this when listening to Bon Jovi.

 4.Dappy-  No Regrets

Now that, that is done, it''s time to reclaim your power. I had to give this a little thought because I was stuck between so many great artists, but I've settled on this one because I think that it is most likely to land with you guys and this post is about helping you so hopefully I made the right call.

Ok now, we are at the point where my choices get a little odd....

5. Dan Balan - Numa Numa 2 (feat. Marley Waters)

Firstly, it's important from time to time to  be reminded that world isn't so drab and grey.

From here..well sometimes going a little quackers can actually be good for you....in small doses ofcourse!

6.Lemon Jelly - Nice Weather For Ducks 

If going quackers doesn't cut it for you maybe going bananas will....

The point of this track is to give your brain and heart a moment to catch your breath. Being a little silly can actually really help some people (me included) to get the pressure caused by heart pain out of the body using a silly little dance. A favorite show parody can be excellent for this.

Let's get back to earth now shall we?

So let's stop and take note of where we are right now.

 We have cried out the pain, got mad at both ourselves and those involved, reclaimed our power, been reminded of how the world isn't so bad, danced out the remaining stress with silly/beloved songs 

and now we are about ready to really nourish our souls.

So for this we need to first dramatically change the tune...

7.Always Love Nada Surf

Forgiveness may not be popular but it is good for your soul if you can find it in your heart to forgive those that hurt you. I know it's damn hard, and I am not telling you what to do, but if you can find a way to forgive and quit carrying bitterness, your soul is gonna feel a whole lot better for it.

8.Forgiveness" by TobyMac. Featuring Lecrae

Not for everyone, I do get that, but some of you will dig this.

Now to finish off, we need to calm down, because at the end of the day peace is the thing that we need most when we are dealing with soul pain. I hope you enjoy these two beautiful choices. I am not going to type now until the conclusion because I am super conscious of how long this post is getting.

9.Josh Groban – River

10.Avril Lavigne - Head Above Water

If all else fails, maybe it's time to call out to a higher power?

If so then reach out.

I strongly believe that personal connection is super important when writing about things that may aid one's soul, so if you want to reach out to me, please do so via social media.

Here's my personal Facebook I'd be happy to take some time to help direct you on to sources that could be helpful if I can't help myself. (Check our Pinterest for great recommendations first if you wish to.)

I think that's it today guys!

Have a good one!

P.s if you like this post, please share it/let us know! We don't normally ask for this but
#FeedbackMakesFabulous so would be awesome to know how we are doing/ can best serve you in future. Thanks in advance! Have a great day now we are really are going, the Jaffa Cake gage is low!

I'm The Queen Of My Business, But Is There A King??

I gotta tell you guys, if it were up to me I would probably have waited to post this a little while down the line, but it's not, so here we are.

That right there tells you straight off the bat, I answer to someone.

In the blogasphere, there are many unspoken rules floating around, these rules are often disguised more like suggestions, but having been at this thing for a while, I can see some things that appear to be pretty much nonnegotiable if you want to succeed with blogging, especially if your blog is a business.

These are things like "acceptable blogging etiquette" which I  reject for the most part, because I have a very big problem with systems that feel like big bullies. I was a little hard line when I wrote this however, and these days I think there are things blogger land does just because it works and manners matter, but if you want to see what I am on about then here's the post I wrote way back when. How I Nearly Become A "Me Too Blogger" And Why I Am Not

So many people leave main stream jobs in order to chase a life of fulfillment doing something they love, and blogging is great for that, but this can also be a lot of work, and the last thing we need as bloggers is a unspoken system for success making us feel rubbish because we don't meet the mark.

True, we gotta abide by the laws of our land, but other than that, blogging is suppose to be about creativity and there is no one way to make it work for you.My Unconventional Blog/Business Success Tips

One thing that is extremely common in the belief system of most bloggers however, is the idea that content is king.

Well, quality content is important, but it is certainly not my king, nor the king of this blog/business.




Outside of blogging, the world right now is going through a woman's empowerment movement. More women are starting their businesses now then most, if not all ages before us. This is awesome, but I take issues with much of what feminism stands for, and so to be really clear, you can be empowered as a woman without the feminist movement.

Any and all movements, move on eventually, things change with times and seasons. If you check out Google trends, you will see that feminism has had its ups and downs over the past 5, and even 10 years, and yet woman are taking up leadership positions all over the world, even if only  as the queen of their blog/business.

I think the Internet is largely responsible for this. There are so many ways for woman to have the best of both the homemaking and career girl worlds at the same time because of the opportunities that Internet presents us with, but even without the Internet I still believe woman would be empowered because its not a movement that empowers us.

It's a greater power.

Now to be clear, although I committed to not talk about my own faith on this blog, I am still a Christian and I do still believe that as such, there is a certain protocol that leads to the most peaceful and contented life for all members of a family, irregardless of where in life you actually are. I believe that we are all created with a purpose, and it is our job to go into the world and use our gifts to exhibit the joy life so that others can lead a more fulfilled life as well.

That said, although my partner is a king of sorts of this blog, he is not THE KING of this blog/business, and He wouldn't have it any other way.

I do submit to my Mr by allowing him to look over my work before I publish anything here because since we are both building brands I don't want to publish anything that could potentially come back on him. The Lambi art is his work, and so it's a respect thing, and I also believe it's a part of the protocol that the creator of the universe came up with so that everyone gets maximum joy. If you don't get it, that's cool, I am not gonna go on about it, but it's not hurting you directly the way I choose to run my business, so if you do disagree with me on this one that's fine we can agree to disagree. I won't be bringing this up again. (to my knowledge)

So then content is not king of my business and neither is my partner?

So then does this queen answer to a king?

Yes she does.

His name is Jesus Christ.💜💝

Now before you go clicking off thinking that I am about to stuff religion down your throat, hold your horses. Let me just make a quick statement and then we can get on with all the fun and productive stuff that will be coming out of this blog in future.

I said two posts ago that I am done talking about my faith on this blog, and I am but that does not for a second mean that I have given up on what I believe in or stand for. I just believe that actions speak louder than words and words should only be used when absolutely necessary when it comes to stating your beliefs.

I believe in Jesus Christ, He is my shepherd, my best friend and the king of my blog/business.

If this business/blog is going to succeed, I need to put Him in His rightful place on the throne of not only my life, but my business too.

(ESV)Galationsl 2 V 17But if, in our endeavor to be justified in Christ, we too were found to be sinners, is Christ then a servant of sin? Certainly not! 18For if I rebuild what I tore down, I prove myself to be a transgressor.19For through the law I died to the law, so that I might live to God. 20I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. 21I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness^c were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

This means every area of my life is about making Him famous, and that includes this business and blog. I write about what I believe I am instructed to, irregardless of how I may feel about it. I am here to serve Him by serving you.


All Christian bloggers are called to lay down their lives through their blogs, to make Jesus famous and encourage others in an authentic way.

It is no longer I who blog, but Christ who blogs through me if you will.

I just want to take a moment to recommend some resources for others like me, aiming to build a brand which is consistent with their beliefs in God, but not actually preaching from their brand.

Quick note, these are not affiliate links, I just really believe in these two ladies.

Nikki Phillippi  - She has some great connections to other awesome faith filled brilliant brand builders, and her vibe is all about hope, love and having fun with fashion, beauty and being healthy.

Then there's this lady - She pretty much changed my entire outlook of business.

Sandi Krakowski - A business genius in her own right, she knows how to empower people the right way and her blog and business tips are second to none. The be more tag you see all over our posts, is a nod to her.


So then there you have it, Jesus Christ is the king of this blog/business and He's entrusted me with this Queendom.

From here on in, the faith stuff is gonna take a back seat so if this post wasn't your style that's okay. (If you want it, we have a board over on Pinterest that is full of great recommendations of posts and people that are really good at doing that kind of content)

I wanted to get this out before December really gets rolling, because we have a really fun new series coming to celebrate the holidays the joy way!

The first post will have music recommendations and some of these will be artists that may be considered Christian but given the time of the year, carols are sung by people from all walks of life so I don't think this really matters much. At the end of the day, the series we got coming is full of fun and I really can't wait to show you what I've been working on since October!

Anyways, that's about it for today.