A very warm welcome

Hello guys (slightly ambitious usage of the plural there), and a very warm welcome!

As you can see, I’ve decided to write a blog. And as you can also see, the name of this is ‘Blogs and Dogs’.

Why on earth are you writing a blog? What’s the point of that? What’s in it for me please? Where are the doggos!?

All very good questions, thank you for asking.

Firstly, it has a fairly simple premise: write some blogs, and have some accompanying pictures of dogs. This way, if you don’t like what I’ve written, then at least there’s some cute puppers to have a look at. Win win, right!? Oh, and it rhymes, which is always fun.

Now you’ve had that super thorough and logical explanation behind the naming convention, let’s jump into the point of the site.

If I were to say “A forum to discuss and encourage general wellbeing”, your reaction may possibly be along the lines of “Here we go, another person throwing inspirational quotes at me and preaching about the latest fitness fads”, accompanied with an obligatory eye roll.

So I initially wanted to avoid that description. However, after a fair amount of deliberation, despite the slightly faddy and clichéd connotations with the word ‘wellbeing’, it kind of is the most accurate description of the type of stuff that’ll be appearing on here, so we’re going with it!

With the above mentioned reaction thoroughly in mind, we’re going to aim to keep faddiness at a minimum. Instead, it’s more my musings on the topic based on experiences, discussions and stuff that I’ve read, heard or watched that have resonated with me. And it will hopefully be a bit more substantive than "5-minute abs" and “believe and you will achieve”... that’s the goal at least.

Wellbeing, or general health is obviously a big topic, and covers a whole host of areas; mental, physical, social, emotional, spiritual, intellectual. Possibly more. I’m going to try to touch on all of these areas, with a slight lean towards the mental side, as something that particularly interests me.

Now, I appreciate that more information about wellbeing isn’t necessarily something you, nor the world as a whole, is in need of. However, despite this, we all hear about (and even experience) the pretty damning statistics around the increase in mental health related issues (depression, anxiety, stress related illness, just to name a few of the buggers) so I do think that it can only be a good thing for more people to talk, and be open about.

It’s worth stating at this stage that I’m by no means a clinical psychologist, behavioural therapist, or medical professional of any sort. So, these blog posts may possibly teeter on the edge of the oversimplified side. But hey, that’s not always necessarily a bad thing.

If you can take any sort of value from reading these posts, even if it’s just seeing something from a slightly different/new angle, or the reassurance that our own wellbeing is something we’re all trying to navigate, then that would be amazing, and I’d be delighted.

And if not, then hopefully at the very least you’ll take a bit of joy out of the dog pictures that will be dotted (yep, that's a deliberate reference to the cutie below) about the site.

Hope to see you guys again soon x