First of all I would like to say that I am truly honoured to be nominated by the lovely Ellen (http://ellensocdblog.wordpress.com/) for the Liebster Blog Award. I was incredibly shocked to see this in my notifications the other night and I still can’t believe it, so thank you so very much Ellen. So far, this is what I’ve come to know about the rules of the Liebster Award:
“The Liebster Award can be given to any blog that has less than 200 followers.
It’s to help less widely known blogs get a boost in the community!
You can opt in or out. Either is completely fine.
Answer, ask and nominate!“
And if accepting your nomination, which I excitedly am, you must write a post about the award:
“Thank the person who nominated you, and post a link to their blog on your blog.
Display the award on your blog — by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a “widget” or a “gadget”.
Answer 11 questions about yourself, which will be provided to you by the person who nominated you.
Provide 11 random facts about yourself.
Nominate 5 – 11 blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have a less than 200 followers.
Create a new list of questions for your nominees.
List these rules in your post. Once you have written and published it, you then have to:
Tag your nominees and let them know with a link to your post.“
So, now that all the rules have been explained, let’s continue the post!
Questions from Ellen!
1. What’s your favourite Ben & Jerry’s flavour?
Although some of you may find this extremely hard to believe, while others not at all, I have never had Ben & Jerry’s before so I don’t know what my favourite flavour would be. I also haven’t had dairy in probably ten years, but I’m pretty simple in what I like so I’d probably choose vanilla. Raw banana nice cream all the way though!
2. What would you say to your past self?
Your mind is going to try and trick you. Breathe. Let the feeling pass. It’s not worth the result of constantly giving in.
Accept. Accept the feelings you have without hate, regret or guilt, and use that acceptance to help your current situation. For, no matter what people may tell you, it is one of the most important steps to happiness.
Separate your thoughts from yourself. Listen to yourself and be very careful if deciding to listen to the thoughts.
I love you.
3. What do you hope to achieve/gain from blogging?
If I can reach and help one person in their journey through life, it will be worth it to have made this blog.
4. Favourite quote?
My favourite quote changes minute to minute, but, as of right now…
“One small crack does not mean you are broken, it means that you were put to the test and you didn’t fall apart.”
5. What would be your dream sport to pursue?
Dance is the first thing to pop into my mind, but there are many other things too that I would like to do as well. Dance is something though that I feel I could carry with me forever and never get tired of.
6. Reason behind your URL/username?
FightAgainstOCD is simply what came to mind when I decided to start this blog. There are many deeper meanings behind why I created the blog and ideas that lead up to the name, but I guess I simply decided on FightAgainstOCD because it rang well and would be easy for others to get an understanding of what the blog is about.
7. Marmite. Do you love it or hate it?
I’ve never had it. I actually think it may be banned here, but I’m not sure. As to whether or not I would eat it, most likely not.
8. What/where would be your dream holiday?
Somewhere serene in nature that gives you that feeling of pure bliss, like you can accomplish anything in the world. A place that makes you feel safe and loved.
9. Where would you like to see yourself a year from now?
A place of joy, where I am in tune with myself and am able to spread even more love to others.
10. Where do you get your ideas for your posts?
Most of the time the ideas for my posts come randomly, other times I will get inspiration off of quotes, shows, movies or other peoples works.
11. What do you love?!
I love giving love. I love feeling loved. Most of all though, it’s those moments that come where you feel you can do anything. The lightbulb moments and the moments when you have found a way to help someone out. I love the feeling of a smile on my face and seeing a smile on someone else’s and I love the peace that comes from thinking of and seeing natures beauty in action.
11 Facts About Me
1. I am bilingual. English is my first language, French is my second!
2. I have a somewhat incomprehensible amount of phobias and fears, but if you were to ask me if I wanted to go skydiving my answer would probably be yes. However, if my answer happened to be no, it would probably be because I feared everything I would have to touch in order to skydive, not the actual skydiving part itself.
3. I was unknowingly named after Shania Twain. My mom saw something on TV with her before she became famous and loved the name. She realized later that the woman was Shania Twain.
4. I find short high heels harder to walk in than high high heels.
5. If it’s good music, I like it. Doesn’t matter the genre.
6. I don’t know why, but it has always seemed very funny to me that the french version of the turtle books Franklin is Benjamin. It always makes me think of Benjamin Franklin.
7. I am terrible at trying to do different accents other than my own.
8. I can play piano and flute but haven’t actually played either for over a year.
9. I want to travel a lot over the next few years.
10. One of my passions in life is health/nutrition.
11. Making this list of random facts was extremely hard. I’m pretty sure it took me about an hour to even come of with this list HAHA!
I Nominate the Following:
I’m finding this nomination process to be quite difficult as I do not read many blogs. When I first saw that I was to nominate people, I was excited because I knew I could nominate some of the beautiful people who are also taking on the world every single second of their life and raising awareness about mental health and OCD. However, looking just now, I realized that I really don’t read many blogs simply for the not-so-good excuse that, at this point in my life, I’m more of a writer than a reader. That being said, knowing some of these people from Twitter and from searching now for my nominees, I decided I would simply name a few who I find inspiring and who are warriors in our journey together. Note that the nominees are in no particular order and that I tried my best not to put people who I know are already nominated because I didn’t know what the rules were for that!
- My OCD Voice: For her wonderful words of raising awareness and working to eradicate the stigma.
- NotYourNormal: A blog I just came across today and am very much enjoying so far. Standing up to the stigma!
- DiaryOfAnOCD: Again, I just came across this blog, but from what I can tell it combines humour with compassion and awareness.
- OCD isn’t Me: Informing others while relating to and lending support to those living with OCD.
- Helen Barbour, The Reluctant Perfectionist: A wonderfully written and beautifully understood blog that will help you feel less alone in all the feelings filling your mind and body.
Questions for my Nominees
1. If you could do anything right now, without the fear and the “what-if’s”, what would it be?
2. What is your go-to song that helps calm you or inspire you?
3. If you were to give one piece of advice on how to help someone with OCD, what would it be? The advice would be to a parent, family member or close friend.
4. What is it at this moment in life that you are most grateful for?
5. What makes you smile? (Do that more.)
6. What is the most important thing so far that you’ve learned about life?
7. What message do you hope people get from reading your blog?
8. What’s your mantra in life? Explain why this mantra inspires you/ why it resonates with you.
9. What’s your top 3 favourite fruits?
10. What’s your favourite TEDtalk? If you don’t have one, what’s one of your favourite blog posts that you’ve read?
11. If you were to give a word of encouragement, inspiration or love to a fellow OCD warrior, what would it be?
Fight Against OCD 
Thank you for my nomination x
My pleasure! x
Hi Shania
Thanks for this, and for your very kind words about my blog!
I’m not sure I’ll be able to participate, however, as I’d rather not go too far ‘off track’ with my posts. I see you have some questions about OCD, but others are a bit more general and wouldn’t really match my general theme of mental health, which I like to try to keep to, even if only in the broadest terms.
Thanks again for thinking of me – much appreciated!
Helen
I apologize for being so late in responding to your comment. It was my pleasure to nominate you! 🙂 I understand you not wanting to go off track with your posts, so don’t worry about it! Hope everything is going well! Big hugs xx