Loneliness is one of the big factors that single parents find themselves experiencing. I am an admin for a Facebook support group for single parents, and loneliness quite often comes up as a topic of discussion. Whether it's once the kids are in bed at night, or they have gone to spend time with their other parent, or you have an important celebration to attend, or you are just climbing into a cold bed at night wishing you had someone to cuddle up to, loneliness rears its ugly head.

I see loneliness as a process that you go through as you adjust to being on your own, and learning to find yourself. I won't deny it, I still get fleeting bouts of loneliness, but that is all they are these days, just fleeting moments of wanting someone to cuddle up to, to talk about my day, and to make plans with. I can't say that you will get to the stage of where loneliness will never occur, as you would have to be a pretty insensitive hermit to not experience it, but there are ways to limit it and lessen it's effects on you, after all, loneliness could just lead you into a disastrous relationship if you do not deal with it properly.

Finding Solitude
In the first year or two, it is a commonality to experience severe bouts of loneliness, especially as you adjust to being on your own. It is important that you focus on yourself and your children during this time, work on healing your heart and get your emotions in check. A break up is a huge hit to our self confidence, self esteem and and self worth. Not only are we trying to deal with our emotions the best we can, we also have our children who are hurting and adjusting to the new situation. A new relationship is not going to fix everything, it will only be a temporary band aid over the scar.

To find solitude it is important to focus on yourself, and create a happy balance. Here are my suggestions to help in searching for solitude;

• Join a local single parents support group, and attend their meetings. It's not just a great way of meeting new people, but also a great way of meeting like minded people who have been through similar experiences. It's also a great way for your children to meet other kids from single parent homes, and to make connections.
• Join an online support group. We have our message boards on this site that you can join to chat with other parents. It's a great way of sharing your problems, and giving and receiving advice in a setting where you can remain anonymous. Another great is to join one of the many Facebook groups that have been set up for providing support to single parents. There are many that provide a safe and supportive environment, and are a great way of connecting to others who are going through or who have experienced a similar situation to yourself. The only downfall to these groups is that anything you post is not anonymous, unless your profile details are different to your real identity.
• Learn to love yourself. Do not listen and take onboard what your ex thinks about you. That is their opinion and their problem, and the most likely untrue perception of you. You are not the fat, ugly person that nobody wants to love, even if you are over weight - love yourself, being over weight has nothing to do with the person who you really are, societies perceptions on beauty are misinformed from superficial, unhealthy and disillusioned ideals. Take the 'who cares what society thinks' attitude, and love yourself for the beautiful person you are. You are lovable, you are beautiful, and you are a good person, once you believe this, then you will find the right person to begin a rewarding relationship with. 
• Undertake a course on selfworth, I know many women's centers (sorry Dad's, this is a service I am still to find for Dad's) hold these courses, and they are absolutely fantastic in starting the journey of finding who you are, and building your self esteem and confidence.
• Find some hobbies and/or interests. Do not dedicate your whole life to your children, make some time for yourself, even if it is only joining an interest group on Facebook, you still need contact with others and have time for yourself.
• If your children are in Day Care or school, find an organisation to volunteer at. Volunteering provides you with a sense of gratitude and reward. It will boost your self esteem and self confidence.
• Spend some time out in Nature. Take a walk on the beach, through the bush, or just lay outside for a few minutes and listen to the sounds of nature.
• Have a night out with friends, even if you do not have family to babysit and have to spend a month saving for a baby sitter, make a priority to get out at least a few times a year. Online single parent groups normally have social get-togethers which are a lot of fun, step outside of your comfort zone.
• Read affirmations of self love daily. To believe that you are a beautiful and wonderful person that is worthy of being loved, repeating affirmations on a daily basis will help you with building this self belief.
• Undertake some counselling sessions if you need someone to talk through events with, it helps to have someone to get you thinking from different perspectives and to start thinking in a healthier light. There are a lot of organisations out there that will provide counselling services for little to no fee, ask around, some providers may have funding available.

All these processes will help you on your path to finding yourself, and to loving your self. Self love is the key to dealing with loneliness, and finding comfort within solitude!

I have been smoke free for two weeks today, and I am not missing it one little bit. I stopped smoking in my quest to lead a healthier and fitter lifestyle, and so I can live for many years to come as long as the good Lord doesn't have other plans for me. 

Most people struggle with giving up smoking, I am fortunate enough that when I actually want to give up, I can do it with ease. I bet your asking how, I will get to that very soon.

As stated in a previous post, I stopped smoking 6 years ago for three and a half years, I thought it was easy then, but didn't know how I'd fair this time around. That time I did it by joining the gym, and chewing Xtra gum everytime I got a craving. I started again when I relocated back to Auckland and everyone around me was smoking, so I thought I would start again, why is beyond me, it took me a while to get use to it again after not smoking for so long. It was harsh, and tasted disgusting, but I stuck with it and it became enjoyable again. A lesson that I am not willing to repeat.

 I did have a quick stint at the beginning of 2012 where I stopped smoking, but would smoke when I was having a few drinks. When the pressure of my first ever major assignment hit, I joined the smoking corner outside the library with my class mates fulltime. Not having had fully given up, it was easy to start again. About 3/4 of the way through 2012 I thought I would try again, my brother had just gotten some patches and some gum, so I asked him if I could try the gum. Yuck it was hideous, I couldn't handle the disgusting chemical taste to it (yet I could handle the chemicals in cigarettes really well), so I asked him for a patch, placed it on the side of my abdomen and headed of to work. By time I got to work I was scratching at it, within an hour of having it on, it was so itchy, I lifted up my shirt and I had a huge red itchy rash right across my abdomen, so off the patch came. I was back outside smoking on my break.

Now as you can see, I have had some successful attempts at giving up smoking and some not so successful attempts. Do you want to know what the difference between success and failure is for me? It was the fact that if I really wanted to give up smoking, then I could do it, if I didn't really want to give up, well then I didn't. If you really want to give up smoking, you won't just talk about it, you will actually do it, it's like anything in life - if you actually want it bad enough then you will do it, you won't make excuses such as "I'll give up next week", or "One more pack won't hurt", or "But I need a ciggie with a drink, they go together". Wanting to give up is the key.

Even if you really want to give up smoking, you will still experience cravings, and the cravings will do one of two things, either make you carry on smoking, or make you eat A LOT MORE than you normal would and you'll end up piling on the kilo's. What if I told you that I know how to give up, eat as much .you want, not put any kilo's on, and lessen the effects of your cravings, and shorten the duration that you have them for. It's true, I have used this method twice now in giving up smoking, but you also have to want to give up smoking.

You need to give yourself some positive self talk for the first day, this will happen for the first few days, and as each day passes, and every morning you wake up you need to celebrate and congratulate yourself on going another day without a cigarette. Along with the positive self talk, the main factor that is going to lessen your cravings, and have them 95% disappear within two weeks of stopping smoking, mostly within the first week, is healthy eating. Eat mainly fruit and veggies, and drink tonnes of water. By doing this, you are detoxing  all the toxins out of your body super fast. Have plenty of fruit and veggies on hand, as you are going to want to eat, and eat as much as you want, especially vegetables. You will also need protein with lunch and dinner to fill you up, I ate eggs and chicken/beef, I would either have an omelette filled with veges or scrambled eggs with veges at lunch, and chicken or beef with either a salad or lots of fresh steamed veges for dinner. On the days that I did not have eggs for lunch, but opted for a salad instead, I would be really hungry about an hour afterwards, so I would eat about half a cup of natural unroasted and unsalted nuts - I recommend the Tasti Natural Nuts multi pack which can be found in your muesli bar or nut section of your super market. My rule was to stick to consuming foods that had been created by nature, and not by man in some factory somewhere. 

I also joined the gym and started daily exercise. I wasn't only stopping smoking, I was changing my lifestyle completely for the better. The exercise contributed to an even faster detox rate, rather than just healthy eating alone. It also gave me the energy to keep busy about the house during my spare time, as when you give up smoking, your hands need to be kept busy, which meant I needed to be moving and not sitting all the time. Distraction, distraction, distraction, keep your mind busy from thinking about cigarettes.

8 days into stopping smoking I had my first drink with my boys paternal great uncle when he came around for a visit. Because my body had been detoxing, I did not enjoy the beer, and it took me a long time to drink it. It also started up my cravings, they weren't that strong, but the old habit of wanting a ciggie with a drink, especially as my boys uncle was sitting there having a cigarette, was dying a slow death. I pushed through it, and went and got myself a drink of water and felt better.

My next test came at day 11, it was a family celebration for my Nana's birthday. It was only a small celebration over dinner, and my Grandad pulled out a couple of bottles of kiwifruit wine that he had home brewed.  I took up his offer of a glass with dinner, and was absolutely fine. Not one craving, I ended up having three glasses that night, perhaps it was the fact that we were eating and talking which kept my cravings at bay, but I did not feel like a cigarette at all.

Here I am with day 14 almost over. I cannot remember when my last craving was to be exact, but it hasn't been in the last 2 days, I actually don't even really think about smoking. I feel like I did before I started smoking once again, it feels like I haven't been a smoker for a while. If you are a smoker and want to give up, I suggest filling your body with nutrients from nature to help fight those cravings, and remember that you can do it, and you will feel so much better for it. After a week your sense of smell and taste would have heightened tenfold to what they were when you were a smoker. You can and you will do it, if you want to do it!!

I am on day two of no smoking, and it hasn't been too bad. I have to constantly keep myself busy, which is kind of coming naturally. Since I'm not smoking, one of the methods that stop me from noticing the cravings to badly is by keeping my hands busy. I keep on cleaning, pottering around the house cleaning this, cleaning that, folding washing which is one of my pet hates, and I have been spending a lot of time cutting up and preparing vegetables and fruit for my natural diet. I am doing quite well even if I do say so myself.

I have been to the gym ever day so far, I have been feeling really tired by time late afternoon arrives, but I know it will only be temporary. I have also gone back to sleeping at least 8 hours a night and it being unbroken, uninterrupted sleep, where in the  last few weeks of Uni, I had been averaging about 5 hours sleep a night. I am someone who does not function on less than 7 hours sleep, so those last few weeks with trying to get 5 assignments completed were a huge struggle to say the least. But here I am, the changes starting to be evident and keeping me on track.

To defy cravings, which I must admit have not been too bad, I have been eating a lot of carrot sticks. Carrot sticks with lemon, herb and garlic yogurt sauce, and carrot sticks with guacamole. I have substituted mayonnaise with yoghurt, and it just isn't the same. Where I once loved my lemon, herb and garlic mayo, it is now just bitter and not so rewarding - one of the dietary changes that I will just have to get used to. However I love guacamole, and have been eating carrot sticks and guacamole daily. I have even started eating celery sticks with it, and I hate celery, my taste buds are changing. I have not had any sugar past my lips in the past four days, and I can notice the difference. I am definitely getting those extra servings of fruit and vege this week.  

Lemon, herb and garlic yogurt sauce recipe

1 Cup of Natural plain unsweetened yogurt
The juice from one lemon (or 1.5 Table spoons of vinegar)
2 Tablespoons of dried herbs of your choice (mixed herbs, or I used oregano and parsley)
1 clove of garlic finely diced
1 Teaspoon of melted honey

Method
Mix all ingredients together, and let sit for 15 minutes before stirring again and serving. 
Serve with vegetable sticks, crackers or bread.

(if you are not on a natural diet like myself, then swap the yogurt for mayonnaise, omit the honey, and this recipe is delish)

Guacamole Recipe

1 Ripe avocado
1 Clove of garlic finely diced
1/4 of a red onion finely diced
Juice of one lemon (or 1 tablespoon of vinegar)
1 small chilli fine diced (optional)
Salt and Pepper to season

Add to a bowl the avocado, and mash. Add the rest of the ingredients and mix well. Poor into a serving dish.
Serve with vegie sticks, corn chips, or crackers.

Being my first week off from Uni means the stress levels have come down, and it is about time I tackled a couple of my vices and made some changes. I got abhorrently drunk at my end of Uni drinks on Friday night, I knew I would as I needed a blow out after all the stress build up from having five assignments due all within the space of a week (sometimes you wonder if the lecturers really do want you to pass?). I very rarely go out as I have my boys fulltime, and quite frankly I am quite over the pubs, bars and clubs scene, I am enjoying my nanarism and at this age getting off your tit has nasty consequences the next day. 

So I polished of my bottle of wine, had a few more bottles of beer and chain smoked through a pack of cigarettes, and it brought me to one mother of a hangover on Saturday. A sore head, dashes to the bathroom to bring up the last bit of water I had drunk to try and keep myself hydrated, luckily I had no children home and could spend the day recovering. As I lay dying in bed, I swore to myself and I swore to God, that I was never drinking alcohol ever again, the same old story that we all do when we are trying to recover from a hangover. I made a pact with myself that now that Uni was over, it was time that I started putting sometime into me and improving my lifestyle. It was time to give up smoking and eating crap food, time to start exercising and eating right, and clearing the fog out of my brain that had inhibited it over the past month of assignments, crap food, and lack of sleep. It was time for change.

Approximately 6 weeks ago, a new gym opened up locally that I had been waiting to open since March last year. As I had been on the waiting list for it to open, I was contacted when they had their opening date to organise a pre-signup deal. Off I went and signed up, but their opening date fell in the first weekend of the school holidays which meant I could not start until my boys were back at school, or that was the excuse I told myself. The school holidays came and went, and then the pressure of the final few weeks of Uni mounted. I had huge amounts of study, assignment writing and group meetings to attend. I never made it to the gym.

Yesterday being Monday and the start of a new week, I decided it was time to start at the gym. The usual nagging of excuse finding littered my brain, but it was time. If I was serious about making change, then I had to start now. On Sunday night I texted my friend Rob whom attends the same gym to find out if he was going for a work out, he was, so we made a time to meet at mine at 9.30am Monday morning. 

Monday morning I was nervous, I hadn't been to the gym for about a year and a half, and I had piled on the weight. And unfortunately for us larger people, the majority of people who attend the gym are fit good looking people. I weighed myself once I had risen for the morning, as weighing yourself in the morning before anything passes your lips gives for a more consistent weight reading. I looked at the scales; a whopping 86kgs, I was officially the biggest I have ever been, even heavier than when I was 9 months pregnant with each of my sons. I remembered one of my colleagues from when I was on my Fieldwork Placement earlier in the year, who had also undergone the same degree as I, stating that on average her and her class mates had put on 12kgs throughout the 3 years of the degree. I had said in return that there was no way I could afford to put on that amount of weight, and here I was not far from it.

Monday was the start to a healthier lifestyle, I also had decided to start my diet of natural foods. I was to only eat food that was made by nature, and not in some factory somewhere. This diet consists of eating fruit, vege, nuts, legumes, seeds, healthy oils such as extra virgin olive oil and coconut oil, meat from grassfed animals, chicken and seafood, the gifts from mother nature that provide all the nourishment that our bodies need. There was to be no processed man made foods, I knew if I was to get healthier and lose weight then I had to stick to this diet, and I knew that it wasn't going to be easy.

After weighing myself, I went downstairs and woke my boys up to get ready for school. I normally skip breakfast, eat a banana or grab something once I get to Uni which is normally the gorgeous sushi from the local sushi shop. I made us all porridge for breakfast, which my eldest loves, and the youngest likes it when it suits him. I gave the boys a light sprinkling of brown sugar over their porridge and milk, whilst I kept to plain porridge and milk which I have eaten plain for a longtime before the decided lifestyle change. Half an hour later we piled into the car for the school drop off, when my eldest reminded me that they had cross country that morning at school. Ok, it looked like I wasn't going to the gym at 9.30am, so I thought I would ask Rob if he minded going to watch the kids cross country, he worked at the schools afterschool care program so I didn't think he would be too fussed. When I arrived home, he had arrived and was waiting for me. I put the cross country past him and he agreed to go and watch before heading to the gym. I'm glad that we did watch, as my eldest came in third for the year 6 boys, and my youngest came in fourth for the year 1 boys, another proud mama moment - I was rapt. I also have a little sister whom is four months older than my eldest (we have different fathers, and is another story for a different day), and who also attends the same school, she came in sixth for the year 6  girls, so I was also very proud of her.

Cross country over, and we were heading for the gym. The nerves started to kick in, I don't know why, but they did. I told Rob that he had to take it easy on me, I hadn't exercised in a long long time, he laughed and agreed. We started on the treadmill, I made the pace a few notches slower than what I used to have it at when I had worked out previously. 20 minutes down, and we moved on to the weight machines. I know to burn fat faster, you have to build muscle, so I went with doing two reps of 10 on each machine. Afterwards, we headed back to the treadmill for another 15 minutes, then over to the mat area to do some abdominal exercises. I said to Rob that I hated planking, and was hopeless at it, he agreed with the dislike and we decided to have a competition to see who could plank the longest. I knew that I was about to get my butt kicked as Rob is quite fit and frequents the gym on a regular basis, but if it was going to add a little bit of fun to planking then I was all for it. Rob started his timer on his phone, I was expecting to last 20 seconds, I was shaking like crazy and felt a little wobbly, my poor body started aching, Rob called out 45 seconds and dropped. Oh my gosh, I had just beaten him, I couldn't believe it! Neither could he, so he called for a rematch. "Ok, lets go again then" I said, I felt a bit more confident this time. "One minute, stop" Robbed called out when we had reached a minute, and then he dropped, I had beaten him again! And boy did I give him some cheeky stick, he came back with the excuse that it had hit a minute and he said stop so I had not beaten him, I guess it was a blow to the male ego to have the fat girl beat him, but it was the boost I needed to get me into the fitness mode. We did our stretches and headed home.

Today is a new day and the start to kicking my disgusting smoking habit. I was out of ciggies, and did not want to buy anymore. I had started my healthy eating yesterday, and was feeling good from that and the gym. My friend Claire, and her 2 year old daughter were coming over for a visit after lunch. Claire smokes also, so I knew I would most probably end up having a ciggie.

I headed to the gym in the morning with Rob again, and bumped into one of my class mates there. Yay, I knew someone else who was attending the same gym, someone else I could talk to while working out to make it less boring. As it is with me, if my brain is distracted while I am exercising, then I don't really notice the challenge of exercise, but when it's not distracted I notice it, and I start making excusing to myself to shorten whatever exercise I am doing, I'm very good at self sabotaging at times.

During Claire's visit I had two ciggies, I thought that it was ok and that I would start a fresh tomorrow. When she offered me a third one, I thought no I don't need it, I will be ok. I didn't tell her I was giving up, as I don't like telling people in advance in the case that I don't follow through.

So here I am on Tuesday night, about to head off to bed. I haven't had a cigarette since 2.30pm, and I have come to the conclusion that I won't be having another one. I gave up smoking 6 years ago for 3 and a half years, and started again when I relocated back to Auckland 2 and a half years ago as everyone else around me was smoking so I thought what the hell why not join them - it was one of the stupidest things I have ever done. I learn from my mistakes, and that is not one I am likely to make again. When I gave up 6 years ago, I did it because I actually didn't want to smoke, and as I really didn't want to smoke, it was not hard to do. Over the past two years I have quite often played with the idea of giving up smoking, but I never wanted to give up, so I didn't. This time round, I actually don't want to smoke, so I know that the last cigarette I had today, will be the last one that I ever have addicted to nicotine. Thank goodness for carrot sticks, bananas and nuts that have gotten me pass the urges tonight. 

Change is in the air, and change is happening! My life is about to change for the better, join me as I blog my journey.