Words by Lucy Livesey - Founder of Relax With Lucy & Co and Ellie’s mum.
When we lost ellie, I remember our grief felt unbearable, Ellie died when the Manchester Arena bombing had happened and there was so much sadness around us ontop of what had just happened. Our baby Ellie passed away at under 24 weeks, following her passing it was a hard time. Some days the physical and emotional pain felt too hard to carry, but we did, because we had to figure out how to move forward. Read on to find out what helped us.
The Ellie's gift app is an app that was developed to help support families experiencing baby loss before, during and following birth 😔
Our story with the app began when we launched our prototype app in 2020 and since this time we have been working hard laying the foundations down to take our app to the next level of support. We are proud to say that we now have support from the NHS and in addition to this have been awarded more funding to take our app through phase one of our redevelopment stage.
The Ellie’s Gift Project has been set up to help support the baby loss community through the provision of wellbeing interventions. This year we are proud to move forward with the support from the NHS and have been awarded further funding to develop the apps capabilities and support
So we all have niggly habits that we want to stop but just can't seem to. Does this sound familiar? You try numerous times and then just give up because you can't do it and revert back. I've been here before trying to quit smoking and had the attitude that I was never going to be able to give up.
Mention the word “Mindfulness” and what pops into your thinking – meditation, sitting, a lone activity or with group, retreats, silence, quietness, maybe even Buddhism.
Most of us know that mindfulness is a state where we are fully present in the moment, but when we add the power of nature to mindfulness, the benefits can be amazing.
Natural mindfulness is based around the practise of Shinrin Yoku, or Forest Bathing, which was developed in Japan in the 1980s. A number of studies were carried out which showed that when people spent around 2-3 hours in the forest, there were multiple health benefits to them, which could last up to 28 days.
As meditation finds more popularity in these times there are still a lot of questions and myths behind the practice. Here we are going to explore some of these and hopefully you’ll see that meditation is for everyone, and yes that does mean you!
We’re familiar with the phrases “good vibes only” and “stay positive” but sometimes these are doing us more harm than good! In an ideal world everything would be sunshine and rainbows and we would all be happy. However, as humans we are programmed with a range of emotions and happiness is only one of them. So, we are going to take a look at toxic positivity.
You are not alone. Judging by my own experience and speaking to my colleagues and friends, it has become obvious that a lot of us are struggling to stay motivated and focused these days and have this overall blah feeling and it all feels like doom and gloom.
