Good morning everyone and Happy Monday to you wherever you are.
I’d like to take this opportunity to welcome all our new daily subscribers here on HappyMagazine.ie. We’ve had a lot of new readers visiting the website since the launch of our first print edition and we are so glad you are here.
When I was starting out on my own cancer journey two years ago, I felt terribly alone and scared.
I had no idea what to expect and I found each visit to my hospital for treatment more and more difficult as the reality of my diagnosis and treatment plan started to sink in.
A good friend came to visit me at home during this time and brought me a popular women’s magazine. I was delighted – having always loved magazines, I couldn’t wait to sit down with a cuppa and get stuck into it. However, it seemed even my cancer diagnosis was going to ruin that for me too – I started flicking through the pages and I couldn’t help but think, the magazine wasn’t for me anymore, now that I had cancer.
What nonsense!
But the me then thought cancer had well and truly ruined my life and I was not in a good place.
I was thinking today of all the little things like this that happened that helped steer me to this course of first writing content on a daily basis on HappyMagazine.ie, and now finally to creating the first print edition of the magazine.
Around the same time, I started to get really paranoid about the skincare and make-up/cosmetic products I had always used, endlessly reading articles like this one on parabens and whether or not they could contribute to cancer in people. I ended up throwing out 95% of all my beauty products when I started to read their ingredient labels and I was shocked at how many products containing parabens I had in my drawers. I worried and worried that they had caused my cancer and I felt completely miserable that I had never considered what I put on my skin for so many years.
I started researching online for new skincare products that were paraben-free and one of the first brands I discovered was Irish skincare brand Elave. I resolved to buy an Elave shower gel and moisturiser the next time I was at a pharmacy and making this small decision actually made me feel so much better. I know it sounds very small and not very important, but it was a really dark time for me and doing something like this made me feel I was a little bit more in control of my situation.
My Elave discovery actually became the very first post here on HappyMagazine.ie back in July 2017.
That’s what Happy Magazine is all about.
Those small, seemingly insignificant things, that can make a difference to us, small or large, to our daily state of happiness. It could be anything from a product suggestion to a yoga workout, to a recipe, another reader’s story or details of a relevant event.
I hope this site, with it’s daily dose of positivity, will help you feel just a little bit better too, wherever you are in your own cancer journey. I also help it makes you feel less alone, because you are not alone – there are many, many of us out there doing a cancer battle, going through the same, feeling the same.
So, again. Welcome to all our new subscribers. Thank you for being here. Please let us know what’s on your mind. What can we help you with? What content would you like to read here?
We post something every day here on HappyMagazine.ie, 7 days a week, 365 days a year, so please feel free to check in whenever you need a little lift or, if you haven’t already, sign up to our daily or weekly email at the top of our homepage.
I hope you all have a great week.
By Happy Magazine Editor, Holly Kennedy
