February was such a hard month for me and by the end of it I'd slumped into a depression for the first time in ages, I wasn't earning money, no work was coming in and I wasn't even sure if I could afford to pay our basic bills, at one point my best friend even offered to buy us groceries to get us through the week, my life was just a quagmire. Then my girls told me they'd had enough, they weren't happy and Looby went to granddads giving me two weeks to sort my life out, at the very darkest edge of my sanity I could have given up. Life as a freelance photographer/writer had become increasingly difficult. In photography at least it's such a saturated market, we're all suffering from the harsh economic environment and understandably it's the luxury items that go first and whilst I think photographs are so important, it seems food it mostly higher up on the list for most people!
Understandably after my girls were so annoyed with me I was deeply upset but they did have some valid points and I knew I had to get away and clear my head and luckily I had a ton of Airbnb credit so I went to Northumberland, just Holly and I, I didn't speak out loud for 3 days but I planned, I walked 10 miles a day and I started to earn money, I'll be honest, I had a couple of ideas, one of which I used my last £30 to advertise and it worked and from there, in the midst of the peace and quiet, I relearnt just how positive I was, usually I am a pretty happy and positive person who can make things happen just with the power of self-belief, positivity, a little asking of the universe (I'm a fierce believer in the laws of attraction) but somewhere along the way I'd just got lost and bogged down by winter, relationships, life, love, single parenting, I juggle a lot and to coin a phrase, I'd dropped my balls!!
Since I went away, I have worked so very hard, I've re-embraced my own values, I throw love at everything, I try to be the best person I can in life and business and I say thank you a lot, I am so grateful to have the talents I have and to live the life that I live, a life of freedom and happiness, somewhere along the line I stopped appreciating that, my jobs are jobs that other people just don't get to do.
You know, I made up my own jobs really, I just decided 10 years ago that they were the jobs I wanted to do, I wanted to be a writer and a photographer and so I became that and I'm still here, and I'm lucky to be successful, yes I might have made mistakes along the way, I might have stopped appreciating the world I live in but I know now, just how grateful I am for everything I have been able to create, sometimes on a wing and a prayer.
I'm going to tell you a story, when I first started my business I dreamt one day I would have an area in my house and I would have the best camera, an iMac to edit on and a lovely desk area to work from and you know what, today my business got a retina display iMac, I finally get to edit on a big screen, I have the best cameras for the job and I'm starting to catch up on our life commitments, it's not going to happen overnight but I have big plans for us and I know now how I'm going to achieve them, you see somewhere along the line I forgot that I can earn a pretty significant sum from working hard for just a few days a week, I didn't do it because I was tired and worn down with life I guess and you know what? That's okay because my career is like love, sometimes you forget just what you have and then you get to see it with a brand new vision and then you fall in love with it all over again.
My life, work, career and I guess love, well it's all a work in progress but I know that one day I'm going to have it all and you know what else, when I do I'm going to make sure that I give back just as much as I get because I always remember that what I give out will ultimately come back to me tenfold.
So the next time when your life is in a slump, take a moment and then just get up and be positive, focus only on positivity and shove all of the bad thoughts out of your mind and you too will get to experience the truly magical power of living a positive life.
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