5 things we are not going to do in the month of April

We love a fresh new month, and we think this is a perfect time to set ourselves a list of rules for the month. These don’t have to be strict rules, think of them more as a set of guidelines that we can follow to try to improve our lifestyle and mood.   Getting lost

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What is Empathy Anyway?

We hear the words ‘empathy‘ and ‘sympathy‘ a lot. They are both used all the time, and sometimes not correctly. So whats the difference? Here’s a really simple explanation… Sympathy = I get ya boo Empathy = I feel ya boo Sympathy means that you can see that the other person is struggling, and you acknowledge

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What does High Functioning Anxiety Look Like?

It’s hard to describe, like explaining the colour yellow to someone who is blind. One of our readers sent us the video below, which perfectly sums up what anxiety feels like, here’s a transcript…. “High-functioning anxiety looks like… Achievement. Busyness. Perfectionism. When it sneaks out, it transforms into nervous habits. Nail-biting. Foot tapping. Running my fingers through

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Are You Burnt Out?

Hey! Are you wrecked? Shattered? Knackered? You could be totally burnt out from the overload of doing, thinking, and feeling too much. Burn out happens when your life becomes a hamster wheel and you don’t know how to get off. It can happen when you’re studying, working, training, or partying really hard, and you don’t

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10 things to do to boost your mood

The past year and a bit has been super tough for many people, with loads of us facing a new reality and upheaval to our daily lives. Social distancing and social isolation have become our norm and it’s very difficult to remain positive and uplifted during these times. This is completely normal, but for those

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How to Flip Your Perspective…

We don’t know who wrote this piece but it shows how sometimes we should try to see a perspective other than the one that we think is right. We should allow ourselves to consider that we might be mistaken. Perhaps, being wrong allows an alternative understanding of a situation to emerge, one that may cause us far

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5 Reasons you can’t sleep

Ah, Bed. Everyone’s favourite place to be. We sometimes forget how important a decent night’s sleep is in order for us to get through the day; mentally, physically, and emotionally. Lack of sleep has a direct effect on your hormone levels, moods, weight, concentration, and ability to deal with it all. And yet, the struggle

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Things I Wish You Knew About Me, An Autistic Girl

 Disclaimer: This article is based on personal experiences. I speak only about my own experiences, the experiences of others may differ.  I have always been different. Different enough that it was noticeable, but not so different that people felt bad about treating me poorly. While most teenagers and young adults have trouble with relationships, school,

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How Not To Help A Friend Who Is Feeling Down

We don’t know about you but we think a lot of people are feeling a bit down lately. Between not being able to see friends and family, the stress of this never-ending lockdown, and the typical Irish winter that just doesn’t seem to want to give us a break! But guess what? It is totally

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SHINE Festival 2021

Hold on to your hats people!!  Are you ready for our BIGGEST EVER ANNOUNCEMENT!!!   Shona fans will know that we love nothing more than to put on a big event! For us, it doesn’t get much better than bringing as many girls and as many inspiring women into one room as we possibly can!

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I’m Not Ok And That’s Ok – By Emma

I’ll be honest, I’ve written, deleted, and rewritten this article about 5 times now and I still don’t quite know what to say. I don’t know what to tell you, a stranger on the internet who kindly clicked on this article, other than I’m struggling right now and I have been for a while. I’ll

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Overcoming Anxiety – Tara’s Story

Tara got in touch with us a little while ago and wanted to share her story of overcoming anxiety. We think she is very brave and strong and tells her story beautifully. So Tara, take it away… Oddly enough, buses are one of the things that truly remind me how far I have come. I

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You've Got This! by Tammy Darcy, founder of the Shona Project

Hey, I wrote a book… no really!! By Tammy

When I was a little girl, all I ever wanted to be was a writer. I loved books, and would devour them often in one sitting, Roald Dahl and Enid Blyton were my favourites. We used to travel from the South to the West of Ireland every summer to visit family, and we had a

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If You Watch One Video Today, Make It This One…

There are so many “guru’s” and “life coaches” and “motivational speakers” out there, and Youtube is overflowing with unoriginal platitudes about loving yourself and being happy in your own skin, yadayadayada. But every once in a while we find a video that really hits home, and when we do, we want to, of course, share

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Online School - The Shona Project

Making Online School Work – By Aoife

So… in case you’re out of the loop, we’re in Lockdown 3.0. Obviously, this isn’t ideal. Secondary and primary schools are closed until at least February, along with the few third level courses (like mine!) that hadn’t already been online since October. None of us want to be in this situation, but if it will

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Lessons We Have Learned From Social Media

We’ve been kind of feeling a bit out of touch with reality lately, anyone else? Who knew living through a global pandemic would be this confusing and chaotic? For almost a year now, our entire lives have moved online. And we thought we already spent too much time engrossed in social media. We don’t know

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Why Is Yoga Good For You? – By Fiona

We’ve said it once and we’ll say it again. We have the most amazing group of ambassadors who have such an amazing range of talent. We even happen to have our very own Yogi, @missfiyoga .  So with lockdown 3.0 in full flow, we thought we would give yoga a go. We asked Fiona, “why

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Be Kind To Yourself Today, Here’s Why…

There is a cold reality when it comes to life. People are people, imperfect and flawed, and human in all the best possible ways. When it comes to friendships, you can do all the right things, and twist yourself into a thousand different versions of yourself, and still not be liked by everyone. You can

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