Come Have A Cuppa

02/04/2020

Hey, I know this is a hard time for everyone - there's nothing like a bit of chaos and uncertainty to bring the anxiety out in everyone.
If you're a student who's struggling to make the transition to online-only learning, or if you're running behind on your courses but you can't drop any of them, you're not alone. I've been doing mostly online study for the majority of my degree, and I want to share the strategies I've learned.
It doesn't matter what you're studying. I'm not just going to give you my notes and leave because sometimes it's not helpful to just "try harder."
Sometimes you need someone to hold you accountable, or to help you strategise and plan how to meet your course obligations. I'm here to help you structure your learning from home so that you can salvage your courses - and maybe help you work on your coping strategies while we're at it.
Drop me a line. I'm here for you. ☕️🐦

04/03/2020

Bet you thought you'd heard the last of me!

2019 was a wild wild ride from start to finish, and starting Come Have A Cuppa has been one of the biggest adventures in my life! I'm so excited to share with you all what I've been doing all this time while I've been so quiet 🙊

Come Have A Cuppa has expanded from being a Freelance Personal Assistance service to include short term Project Management! Not only am I here to make sure everybody in the family gets to their dental appointments and that all your receipts have been digitised, but the scope of my services has expanded to include budgeting, planning, and content curation for projects and events!

I'm so lucky to have been involved in the GP Living Library for the past several months - getting this project off the ground has been so rewarding and I can't wait to see where it goes from here! I'm currently doing a lil content curation and recruitment as the Living Librarian, making sure we have plenty of things to talk about and people to talk with, and we're hoping to expand the project in the next few months so our baby bird can take flight 🕊 I've included the link below so all you curious beans can have a quick squiz at what I've been up to.

Coming up, I've got a short term and a long long loooong-term project that I'm working on that are a little more hush hush at the moment 🤫🤫 In the meantime, my books have opened back up for short term projects (

Find the right human book for your story. Our Human Book Catalogue will help you find an accessible health expert for your next project.

01/12/2019

“Self-care is often a very unbeautiful thing.

It is making a spreadsheet of your debt and enforcing a morning routine and cooking yourself healthy meals and no longer just running from your problems and calling the distraction a solution.

It is often doing the ugliest thing that you have to do, like sweat through another workout or tell a toxic friend you don’t want to see them anymore or get a second job so you can have a savings account or figure out a way to accept yourself so that you’re not constantly exhausted from trying to be everything, all the time and then needing to take deliberate, mandated breaks from living to do basic things like drop some oil into a bath and read Marie Claire and turn your phone off for the day.

A world in which self-care has to be such a trendy topic is a world that is sick. Self-care should not be something we resort to because we are so absolutely exhausted that we need some reprieve from our own relentless internal pressure.

True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.

And that often takes doing the thing you least want to do.

It often means looking your failures and disappointments square in the eye and re-strategizing. It is not satiating your immediate desires. It is letting go. It is choosing new. It is disappointing some people. It is making sacrifices for others. It is living a way that other people won’t, so maybe you can live in a way that other people can’t.

It is letting yourself be normal. Regular. Unexceptional. It is sometimes having a dirty kitchen and deciding your ultimate goal in life isn’t going to be having abs and keeping up with your fake friends. It is deciding how much of your anxiety comes from not actualizing your latent potential, and how much comes from the way you were being trained to think before you even knew what was happening.

If you find yourself having to regularly indulge in consumer self-care, it’s because you are disconnected from actual self-care, which has very little to do with “treating yourself” and a whole lot do with parenting yourself and making choices for your long-term wellness.

It is no longer using your hectic and unreasonable life as justification for self-sabotage in the form of liquor and procrastination. It is learning how to stop trying to “fix yourself” and start trying to take care of yourself… and maybe finding that taking care lovingly attends to a lot of the problems you were trying to fix in the first place.

It means being the hero of your life, not the victim. It means rewiring what you have until your everyday life isn’t something you need therapy to recover from. It is no longer choosing a life that looks good over a life that feels good. It is giving the hell up on some goals so you can care about others. It is being honest even if that means you aren’t universally liked. It is meeting your own needs so you aren’t anxious and dependent on other people.

It is becoming the person you know you want and are meant to be. Someone who knows that salt baths and chocolate cake are ways to enjoy life – not escape from it.”
-Brianna Wiest
https://ko-fi.com/donate_nepenthe



[Illustration: Yaoyao Ma Van As Art ]

18/11/2019

21/10/2019

Sometimes, practicing self care is tough.
You can have the meditation app, listen to a mindfulness podcast, try to squeeze in some breathing exercises in between your fifth load of laundry for the day and that submission deadline for your latest project which will undoubtedly determine your future career and success and happiness........
And then it starts to get stressful.
Looking after yourself doesn't have to be a chore, or another responsibility to heap on top of all the others, and you shouldn't have to feel guilty for turning off notifications for your headspace app when you've missed your fourth meditation this week.
Because that's not what self care is about.
Life is full of things you have to do, and things you think you have to do, and things you want to do. Juggling your wants and needs is part of your life maintenance, but focussing constantly on the immediate future can make it difficult to keep your past in sight.
Look how far you've come. You've had hard times, bad times, and maybe even now you're still having a hard time, but over the span of your life you have grown as a person. There are always good moments in between bad ones - the trick is to look for them, stick a pin in them, remember them and remember that there will be another one coming.
Sometimes there are nice things to look forward to.
Sometimes, you can even be part of making nice things happen.
Sometimes, there is banana bread.

17/10/2019

Sometimes figuring out what you need to do next in life feels a little like a trick shot - you don't know when it'll happen, if it'll happen, and you're not sure if you can be the one to make it happen.
But together, we can make it happen. Come have a cuppa and I'll work that trick shot into your life plan 🐦☕🏀

01/10/2019

There's nothing quite as satisfying as watching everything fall into place...
Come have a cuppa with me and whatever your goals, I'll set up the pins and help you bowl your first ball of the day 🐦☕🎳

08/09/2019

07/09/2019

If you're starting to feel a little unbalanced, come have a cuppa and I'll help you unload your stressors 🐦☕💪

See also: paying bills, dating, remembering to call your mom to tell her you’re “doing great,” remembering to take the garbage out, and more all while not crying in public !!!!!! 🎪🎪🎪🎪🎪

07/09/2019

So what is it that I do anyway?

If you have a full to-do list and a busy life, I'm here to relieve that stress. But I'm not just here to dictate ways to take control of your life, but to hold your hand while we do it together.

I know first-hand that the pressure of having tasks looming over you can be completely paralysing, and no matter how simple any single one of those tasks may be, together they pile up into a huge unconquerable mound of stress. While I may not be able to solve all of your problems, I can at least take care of some of the background issues in your daily life that build up over time that make it hard for you to live your life.

I'll clear your inbox. I'll book your appointments. I'll fill in forms, write thank-you notes, plan budgets and meals and meetings. Even if you don't have anything that can be done by someone else, but you just need someone to keep you company while you tackle it yourself, I'll do that too. No task is too small, or insignificant - if it makes your life easier, I'll do it all. And if your problem is so specific that I can't help you, I'll find someone who can.

You have enough stress on your plate without mediating the way you communicate - that’s why I operate either online or face-to-face, whatever suits you best. I take 30 minute consults for short simple tasks, or 50 minute consults for the more complex issues. If you're not sure how much time you'll need, just ask! My inbox is always open ☕️🐦😊

Take a breather and make a visit, any time you need.

07/09/2019

Thanks to Kelly Barstow for this fantastic piece she did up for us! You can find her on her insta for the most beautiful ink and watercolour pieces ☕🐦🤩

07/09/2019

Jean Hailes for Women's Health finds that "the two biggest barriers for women not maintaining a healthy lifestyle is ‘lack of time’ and ‘health not being a priority’."

As Women's Health Week draws to a close, I hope you had time, woman or otherwise, to reflect on the ways you can engage with your own health journey. If you need help juggling your priorities, redesigning your meal plans, or finding health services that suit your needs, you know where to find me. My inbox is always open 🐦☕💪

https://www.womenshealthweek.com.au/about

The Jean Hailes Women's Health Week is a week dedicated to all women across Australia to make good health a priority.

05/09/2019

When your responsibilities start chasing you, maybe it's time you called someone in for help.

Come have a cuppa. We'll herd your sheep together ☕🐦🐑

01/09/2019

Who said you can't buy time management??
Come have a cuppa and I'll do it for you 🐦☕⏰

I wish I could buy some more time management!! ⏰
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/p/BmJFX25FQ0B/?taken-by=chibirdart

31/08/2019

TIL of Jan-Dirk Van Der Burg's photobook "Olifantenpaadjes" - or Elephant Steps. This photoseries explores "desire lines" or "desire paths" - the paths made by people who refuse to walk their prescribed paths, who stubbornly destroy sculpted lawns in order to live their lives the way that suits them.

Sometimes the journey to achieving what you want with your life can be a long, winding, exhausting journey. Following the path that has been laid out for you can seem like an endless circuitous plodding. It can feel like you're not getting anywhere for as long as you follow the path you were always told to take.

Take your elephant steps. Ruin those beautiful green lawns. Sometimes it's hard to build your own shortcut, but every single step you take in the right direction is another brick in the path of your own desire line.

And if you need someone to help you lay that path?
I'm here ☕️🐦🏃‍♀️

http://www.jandirk.com/olifantenpaadjes.html