How Perspective Can change Your Reality

Life is like the London Underground: fast, full of selfish people and gone within moments. My parents always told me that I was an extremely observant child growing up, I’d always pick up on the small things happening in a room and I’d come home and talk to them about it, blurting out private conversations …

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Why You Should Start With Positive Affirmations

Hello everyone, I hope you are all well and if not I hope you get better soon mentally, physically or spiritually. Today’s blog will be a brief one but still very empowering. Personally I am a huge believer in the power of manifestation and the law of attraction. I understand that not everyone is, and …

Is It Worth Rushing?

I hope everyone is blessed! I want to first give a shout out to all of us for making it this far and surviving all the lockdowns that we went through. This post is aimed at the creatives, content creators, entrepreneurs… anyone who has started up a new venture recently. I’ve had my own blog …

Plans don’t always plan out.

I’ve always had a plan. Always planned out how my life was going to turn out. It was my goal to achieve my plans. I’m an organiser. A planner. My own personal assistant. Even from young I knew what I was good at and I would research jobs that would allow me to use my …

Small Beginnings

As with all new years, there comes a period of goal setting and also reflection. So, lets reflect. Sometimes I think about how life once was, how I once was. I use this to review how every experience has shaped the person I am today. The highs, the lows and everything in between has amalgamated …

Looking Back to Look Forward: The Year 2020

As with most organisations/companies, the end of the year (or financial year) presents a time to reflect on the period that has just passed. An opportunity to celebrate wins, ponder over shortcomings, and ultimately prepare for what the future has in store. At The RealTalk Blog, we thought it would be good to do the …

Invest in Black!

Invest in your friend's, invest in your family, invest in your community! I saw some stats the other day on Twitter, not sure of the original source but either way they really fascinated me: Black spending power on the UK is £300 billionThe black community makes up 3% of the UK populationBlack businesses generate £10 …

Take Control!

Discipline What I’m about to share is how to become super human, take it in and implement it. Time to take control. To start with, I have some questions for you…are you disciplined? If so in what areas in your life? Are these areas the ones that are most important? Just take step back and …

The Imperfect Reflection

Having just handed in my dissertation on the presence of patriarchal stereotypes and female objectification in Disney films, I began to think about how my exposure to the portrayal of perfection has impacted the way I see myself. Self-criticism is something I think everyone faces. Black, white, male or female, I believe everyone looks at …

The Silver Lining

Finally, the month of results and graduation is among us. The end of an era, the end of a chapter. Going through the motions of something that feels like it’s never ending makes it hard to take a breather and look at the journey. You kinda get all focused on when it will all come …

The End of a Chapter

Well, where do I start? My university journey has flown by and I can now say that I am a graduate after 4 long years. 2020 has been a particularly weird year for many reasons – Pop Smoke, Kobe Bryant & his daughter, George Floyd, Corona, the cake craze on Twitter and Premier League football …

What’s Next?

For the first time in 4 years I have no commitments, no coursework, no exams. Literally nothing to do. University no longer has me in a chokehold, and I couldn’t feel freer. I won’t even front and act like University was easy because it wasn’t but graduating during a global pandemic, now that is extra …

It’s A Marathon, Not A Sprint

2020  What a year to graduate ay? They say graduation should be a day filled with jubilation and ecstasy. A sense of accomplishment should engulf you as your hard work and late nights grafting in the dungeon will all be remunerated when you walk across that stage, shake your dean’s hand and do a little …

Existential Crisis

What’s your calling in life? Big question I know. I personally think I know the answer to this question, but life hands you a few curveballs and then you’re doubting myself, like proper doubting yourself.  An existential crisis is when an individual starts to wonder what life means, and what their calling or purpose is. …

Where are you going?

So, where are you going? An incredibly ambiguous question right? You might already have some idea of where this blog is headed. In any case, lets progress. I’ll start with an incredibly powerful quote from a book I’ve recently started: “Now I think it’s one of the most useless questions an adult can ask a …

The Person With The Biggest Smile

Hey, my name is Hajera and I wanted to share my story on depression and anxiety from childhood. I come from an Asian-Bangladeshi background and I grew up as a Muslim. I have 2 older sisters and 1 older brother who is autistic. From my earliest memories I have of life, my life at home …

A Silence in the Black Community Around Mental Health?

Introduction – the effects of institutionalised racism, wealth inequalities and social structures In all communities within the UK and around the world there is a silence around mental health, it’s a societal and worldwide issue. From research I have done, conversations with peers about experiences, as well as learning about it last year one in …

Change Your Story – It’s Not The End

So, it’s been well over a month since I last posted on here and it was time that I really needed to be able to sort myself out because life really came at me hard and personally I thought it was rude. I’m still in the process of doing my own searching of ‘finding myself’ …

Asking for help could kick start your happiness!

*say the below out loud* “I am ready to receive all obstacles and opportunities, required to successfully execute my vision for my life. Aka I’m ready beat 2020’s ass & get what I deserve” – Aaliyah Mckay Ever heard of the saying if you don’t ask you don’t get? Well, this little statement is something …

So, you want to be a lawyer? | The Commercial Law Path

Having the Direction Choosing to become a commercial/corporate lawyer is easy – pursuing that career choice with the necessary tenacity, energy, and vision, to realise it, is tough. Furthermore, different people can become a ‘lawyer’ – indeed, most City law firms focus on having a ‘diverse range’ of hires, both in their physical characteristics, but …

Meaning over Money?

You meet someone for the first time, smiles are being frequently exchanged and theconversation is flowing like a river on a summer's day. You've talked about interests, life and even those banal, but oddly addictive sitcoms that we often spend time watching in guilt because we promised ourselves, we'd be in the gym this weekend. …

The Power of Goal Setting and Learning from Your Mistakes

What do you want for yourself? Where do you see yourself next month? Where do you see yourself next year? Can you answer these questions? If not, you lack goals. Goals are a very powerful tool for working towards the things you want in life, whether that be riches, to lose weight or to be …

New Year New Me?

New Year New Me? Biggest lie I tell myself every year. It’s a new year but why should I become a new person? It’s actually funny how many years I’ve said this same phrase, but nothing has changed. I start the year sticking to all my new years resolutions for a month or so and …

My ACL experience

“Minor setback, major comeback”. I have said this a lot in my journey, far too much for my liking, at  this point ‘Major Setback minor comeback’  is seeming a lot more accurate. 2 steps forward and another step back, hard luck I guess. My very own wilderness experience. I begin my first draft of this blog at 4:37am unable to sleep because of my own anxiety. Tonight it’s anxiety, tomorrow it’ll be overwhelming regret or deep …

Consent.

I was raped twice within four months of my first year at university. What a way to start a blog post lol. But by God’s grace, I’m writing this as someone that’s doing pretty well on my journey of healing from trauma. Consent is something I’ve been wanting to raise awareness about for a while. …

A Tribute to Nipsey: What Legacy Will You Leave Behind?

In light of the recent passing of rapper Nipsey Hussle who was commonly known for his philanthropic work in his community, his greatest success was that he stayed and nurtured others. He wasn’t just a rapper with a title, he used his position and influence to serve his community which will forever go down in …

I’m Sure I Have Talent?

Everyday I wake up in the morning and ask myself the same question. ‘I’m sure I have talent but where is my talent leading me?’ Self-doubt is a strong toxic trait of mine that I am learning to overcome day by day. But it’s hard when you constantly put pressure on yourself to be the …

Why Representation Matters

Growing up in ends there was definitely a glamorisation towards the road life. Certain behaviour traits were idolised, whilst other traits were called moist. If you wanted to be socially recognized, part of the cool lot, your path, and in turn your personality was limited. You couldn’t be seen to be getting A‘s in tests …

Ends to Reality

everybody's story is different. as a controversial character, its kinda hard explaining how I am and most days I put 100% blame on the ‘streets’ lol. half of the time I hate when I say that because it's as if im using that an excuse or a pathway for failure to creep in… but that’s …

The Narcissistic Community

PsychologyToday defines a narcissist as someone with a lack of ability to empathize with others and an inflated sense of self-importance. From this stems the Narcissistic Personality Disorder characterised by people frequently described as arrogant, self-centered, manipulative, and demanding. They may also concentrate on personal fantasies (e.g. their own success, beauty, brilliance) and may be …

BLACK

'BLACK'. A five letter word we are very familiar with. What comes to mind when you think of the word 'Black'? Not sure? Well, according to the Oxford Dictionary, a black person is anyone  "belonging to or denoting any human group having dark-coloured skin, especially of African ancestry". This doesn't paint the whole picture, so …

Dreams too large to fit in a small head

“Why is your head so big?” Lol, someone asked me this question on one of them anonymous questions websites. (Quick side-note: if the person who asked that is reading this blog post, message me - I just want to talk). Now I’m not one to fight anonymous people on the internet so I answered, ‘Dreams too large to fit in a …