All Calm Categories – General
Learn More About My Blog
Whether you are new here or a returning reader, this post is intended to help you get to know my blog a little better.
By the end of this post, you will hopefully have a fuller understanding of:
- Why I started my blog.
- What topics and ideas you can expect to read about here.
- How my blog is improving and evolving over time.
- How you can navigate the blog effectively to decide what to read so that it matches your own personal preferences and interests.
- The importance of the name of my blog, “Creating Calm With Clare”.
I will provide an overview of my “About Page“, an explanation of my Menu Structure and let you know where you can find more content relating to calmwithclare.co.uk on other platforms and social media.
How My Blog Began
I started writing this blog as a hobby and as an outlet for my creativity.
I have always enjoyed writing. Creative activities such as writing, music and art are calming and life-affirming activities for me.
When I was making the decision to start this blog, I was already spending a great deal of time researching how to bring an increased sense of calmness into my life and into the lives of my family members.
During my research about living calmly, I read a lot about the benefits of reminding yourself of those activities you enjoyed as a child. Such memories can guide you towards calming hobbies that you may wish to take up again as an adult.
When I considered my memories, I was reminded how much I really enjoyed both reading and writing when I was younger. I thought it was worth revisiting those activities in a more focused way as an adult to bring some of that same joy back into my life.
I enjoy the process of writing, so I decided to set aside some time to write this blog, in the hope of introducing more moments of calmness into my own day-to-day life.
As I have a particular interest in researching the topic of calmness, it was an obvious choice to start a blog with discussions focused on how to create a calm lifestyle.
All the hours I have spent reading about calmness and supportive lifestyles for families, have taught me a lot of useful and interesting information that I believe is worth sharing with others who may also feel inspired by it.
So, here I am today, still writing about the topic of creating a calm lifestyle on my blog.
How My Blog Is Evolving
When I first began writing the blog, I was simply sharing blog posts about separate areas of family life that I had focused on when trying to create calm moments in my day and in my life.
It was left to readers to scroll through the posts and find a topic relevant to their lives.
During the lifetime of the blog, I have gradually restructured it in three specific ways to help readers easily find the topics that will interest them:
1. The “About Page”
Visitors to my blog land on my About Page. There you will find an overview of the blog, a little bit of personal information about me, and some suggestions about how you might like to read through the contents of the blog.
The following sections found on my About Page are particularly useful to help readers get started:
Featured Posts
You can choose to read the Featured Posts from the current month or the previous month.
Each month I select a post to feature on the About Page. The chosen post might have seasonal relevance or be important for some other reason.
The topic of the Featured Post will also tell you what I will be sharing on Instagram in any given month. I structure my Instagram content around my monthly Featured Blog Posts.
Most Recent Post
Alternatively, you can choose to read my Most Recently Published Post. If you briefly scroll down my About Page you will soon find a clickable button to take you straight to my Most Recently Published Post.
Chronological Order
Another option is to read through my posts in chronological order so that you replicate the experience that I had when I began researching and writing about calm family lifestyle topics.
Reading chronologically allows you to read about applying calmness to different areas of your life in the same order that I discovered them and started to implement them.
The About Page contains a clickable button to take you straight to my first actionable post. If you click on that post and read it to the end, you will find the “Next Post” feature. If you click “Next Post” at the end of each subsequent post, that will allow you to read through all of my posts in chronological order.
Navigate the Menu
If you would prefer a reading experience that is more tailored to you personally, you can navigate the Menu (see separate heading below).
On the About Page, I provide an overview of how to use the Menu to take you straight to posts that will match your personal interests.
A Free Printable Flow Chart (see separate heading below) is also available on the About Page to help you decide which parts of the blog you would most like to read, according to your own personal needs and preferences. Following this flow chart will help to inform you when you are browsing the Menu options.
2. The Menu
I have created a Menu so that readers can find the calm-related topics that are most relevant to their own personal lives.
In addition to links to the Homepage/About Page and Contact Page, my expandable menu includes the following sections:
- Mind – Body
- Parent – Child
- House – Home
I call these sections “Calm Categories“. Each post can be found listed in the relevant Calm Categories sections of the Menu. There is overlap, so each post is generally listed in more than one menu section.
If, for example, you wish to read posts that purely relate to ideas about adding calmness to your own individual habits and routines, you can head to the “Mind-Body” menu section.
Posts listed in that menu section, specifically relate to the habits of individuals, such as how to wake up earlier, morning snack habits, or overcoming procrastination and overwhelm.
You will not find any posts specifically addressing calm parenting tips or ideas relating to children’s schooling in the “Mind-Body” menu section.
This allows you to do some targeted reading relating only to ideas about calming habits for individuals.
On the other hand, if you are a parent who is specifically seeking ideas about how to create calm routines with children, you can head to the “Parent-Child” menu section to find the posts you need. For example, you will find posts about calm before-school mornings and completing homework calmly.
If you would like to read about creating a calm house to live in or cultivating a calm home environment (e.g. by thinking about the contribution Minimalism can make to creating a calm home), you can look under the “House-Home” menu section.
Each time I write a new post, I decide which Calm Categories my post relates to and you will find the relevant calm categories listed at the top of each post under the title and the featured image.
All posts are categorised under one or more of the following headings:
- Calm House
- Calm Home
- Calm Mind
- Calm Body
- Calm Parent
- Calm Child
- All Calm Categories – General
Once you know which Calm Categories are of particular interest, you can see at a glance whether a post is likely to interest you, before you start reading.
I know everybody’s time is precious, so I hope this feature will help you find what you would like to read on the blog more efficiently.
For Example, this post has the heading “All Calm Categories – General”, which indicates it should be of general interest to all readers of the blog.
However, if you have come to the blog looking for detailed ideas about a particular area of your life, this is probably not the best post for you. In those circumstances, you could head to the Menu to find more relevant posts to read instead.
3. The Free Printable Flow Chart
I am increasingly aware that there are different kinds of calm. It is not just as simple as saying do less, rest more and you will feel calm. It is a lot more complicated than that.
You will gain a fuller understanding of the overall principles that guide my writing about this topic when reading the section below about how I chose the name for my blog.
There is not one simple way to describe what a calm life actually is and there is no “one-size-fits-all” action-step or process that will guarantee a calm life.
It is because of this complexity that I am providing a choice of “Calm Categories” to read on the blog. This allows individual readers to think about different areas of their lives that might benefit from more calmness and also allows them to explore the various kinds of calmness that they might be seeking.
I designed my Free Printable Flow Chart to help you take time to explore your thoughts about what calmness really means to you personally.
On the About Page, you can download the Free Printable, answer the questions it contains and follow the Flow Chart so that it can guide you towards the categories and posts on the blog that you might enjoy the most.
The Flow Chart will help you design your own personalised reading plan for the blog.
Once you have finished reading this post, it would be great if you could take some time to explore the blog by using the Menu at the top of this post.
Head to my About Page, download the Free Printable Flow Chart and browse the Menu.
Let me know in the comments below if these features are helpful to you. I welcome your feedback.
“Calm With Clare” on Pinterest and Instagram
In addition to reading the blog, you can now find me on Pinterest and Instagram. I share calm-related topics on both of these platforms.
The umbrella name that I go by online is “Calm With Clare“.
If you search up “Calm With Clare” on Pinterest, Instagram or online in general, you will find me listed.
You can recognise my accounts by my profile picture on each platform, which matches the photo of myself that I have shared at the head of this blog section. I have also used this photo on my About Page banner and in my introductory blog post.
My full Website address is calmwithclare.co.uk
I am @calmwithclare on Pinterest
I am @its_calmwithclare on Instagram
[* Please note: If you are reading this in WordPress Reader, you will need to visit this post on the calmwithclare.co.uk website to make full use of the clickable links to Pinterest and Instagram included in this section. Click here to read it on my website now]
I have reserved the name “Creating Calm with Clare” solely for my blog.
All the content I post on the other platforms relates back to this blog. The ideas I share and write about originate here on the blog.
You will always find the most detailed description of my thoughts and findings about how you can “create” a calm life here on Creating Calm With Clare, the blog. Relevant quotes and book references are always properly listed here on the blog too.
Having said that, it is definitely worth visiting my Pinterest and Instagram pages if you would like to immerse yourself in calm-related topics.
As I am aiming to live a calm life and am writing this blog alongside my family commitments, I do not promise to meet a strict posting schedule. You might not describe me as the most prolific of bloggers!
Pinterest and Instagram allow me to provide some continuity between posts. You can always catch up with me on those platforms while waiting for a new full blog post.
Pinterest and Instagram provide the opportunity for me to share information more visually. The platforms lend themselves to the sharing of short introductory information which is the perfect way for you to introduce yourself to a new calm topic before reading the full blog post.
On Pinterest, I have created a board purely dedicated to the blog. I have also saved a variety of inspirational and helpful resources from other sources about all things calm across my full collection of boards.
At the end of each blog post, I list references to the Pinterest boards that you may wish to investigate if you would like to continue your reading and research about that particular blog post’s topic.
I would love for you to follow along with me on Pinterest and make use of the pins I have collected to continue your learning.
As I have said above, on Instagram I share about the Featured Post of the month. I also share other calm-related topics of interest that I come across ad-hoc throughout the year.
Follow along on Instagram and explore the calm-themed stories, posts and reels that I share over there. You can also browse the highlights I have saved to my profile page.
How I decide what to share, and what not to share about myself and my family
Now I have outlined in detail what you can expect to find when you explore Calm With Clare, I think it is equally important to explain what you should not expect to find here.
I am quite a private person, I would describe myself as an introvert and value my family’s privacy, especially my son’s.
I started this blog to share ideas about a defined topic, namely how to reduce worry and anxiety by creating a calm lifestyle for all the family.
It is not intended to be a personal blog that shares details about the day-to-day lives of my own specific family in real-time. So, I will never share Family Vlogs, I will not name my family members or share specific facts about them that would allow them to be identified. I will not share personal photos that could identify my partner or son by name or age.
One of the main reasons I go by the name of Calm With Clare online rather than my full name is to allow me to write freely about the topics I wish to share but do so in a way that my whole family can feel comfortable with.
I chose to start this blog. It was my choice and mine alone. While my family is aware of its existence and of the themes I write about, they are not active participants on the blog or on my social media pages.
I have shared enough photos of me so that you know I am a real person, who is a real mum with a real family. Someone who you can, hopefully, identify with. However, I do not intend to regularly share photos of myself.
If you have read my blog posts you will know I do provide examples from my own life to explain the topics I am writing about. They are simply that, examples to improve understanding of a particular topic rather than an intention to document my own personal life.
Also, I started my blog and my social media pages to write and share about the very specific niche of creating a calm family lifestyle. Therefore, I do not intend to share posts in response to current media headlines or to mark all the days of note that are celebrated throughout the yearly calendar. I also do not intend to feel compelled to join in with or respond to all the social media trends that come along.
I will only post and share content that is relevant to the topic of my blog. My overall intention is for my blog and social media pages to be a calm place for my readers to spend time browsing and reading.
I want readers to know exactly what to expect when they choose to visit Calm With Clare and to be able to trust that I will stay on the topic of creating a calm family lifestyle.
All of the above explains one very important reason for my choice of name for the blog. Below, I discuss further reasons behind my choice of name in more detail.
How I Chose the Name “Creating Calm With Clare” for My Blog
You might think I chose the name simply because of the alliteration. I think the name does roll off the tongue, it is pretty satisfying to say and is quite memorable. That is definitely a plus.
However, there are more specific reasons why I chose the name “Creating Calm with Clare“. Each word in the name conveys an important idea and tells readers a lot about what will be discussed on my blog. It is my aim that these ideas will form the framework for everything I write :
Creating
I have already described above how this blog is a creative outlet for me that adds value to my life.
However, “Creating” seems the ideal verb to use in the title of my blog for various other reasons too.
When I first began researching how my family and I could live a calmer life I spent time considering what it would actually look like to live calmly as a family.
It very soon became clear that if I wanted my family and me to feel calm in our day-to-day lives, it was going to be something that we would need to actively seek out and proactively make plans for.
We would need to intentionally aim for it to happen. We would need to be participants in creating that calm lifestyle.
A calm lifestyle does not just happen all by itself. If we simply wait for things to line up perfectly in our lives and hope that those perfect circumstances will bring us the calmness we desire, it will probably never happen.
Calmness is not something that happens to us, it is not a state of being that we can simply sit around and wait for.
If we wish to feel calm, if we would like to have a calm home, if we hope to bring a sense of calmness to the lives of our family and friends, and if we want to live in a community or society that values a calm way of life for all, it will require some intentional decisions and actions by each of us.
We will need to work towards a calm lifestyle both individually and collectively within our communities, organisations and national institutions.
So, the word “creating” – which is defined as “causing to come into existence” or “being the cause of” – seems the ideal verb to describe the kinds of action I will be discussing and recommending on the blog when working towards a calm life for all. (See the end of this post for full details of the Dictionary used for the above definitions).
Please do not misinterpret what I have said above. I am NOT saying that if you are not feeling calm it is all your own fault. I am NOT saying it is your responsibility alone to make your own life calm. That is not what I am saying at all.
I have read a lot of self-help books when delving into this topic. However, the most important thing I have come to realise is that, if we think everything is entirely within our own individual control and we are individually responsible for making all of the changes that will lead to a calm life, that results in the absolute opposite of a calm life.
I wish to provide some hope to people by giving examples of practical steps that we possibly might be able to take that might be within our own control.
However, my ultimate aim is to encourage people to think about what might need to change to enable them to live a calm life. If they try some self-help or some of the steps I am suggesting on this blog and they find it is not the answer, I wish to encourage them to seek out the help they need from those around them or the change they need within the community and structures around them.
We do not live in a bubble, we interact with everything around us. Changes and improvements need to be wider than just one person alone.
When I first started looking into creating a calm lifestyle, I felt like I was sitting in my house all on my own looking for the answer that was going to tell me what to do individually, all by myself to make everything better. I now realise, that way of thinking was the first mistake I made.
I do not want my blog to keep you isolated working on your own. I wish to encourage you to seek out help and support within your own community. Speak to your partner, speak to your wider family, speak to your children’s school, talk to medical professionals in the NHS, write letters to politicians if you think there needs to be a change at a structural level.
I believe a world where we all feel isolated and separate is not a calm world. I would therefore encourage us all to work together and share the load. I think this is the most important step to leading a calm life.
I hope that pursuing this creative endeavour and sharing ideas about this topic to encourage readers to think about how we can all feel calmer, will help others think about what they can do to proactively create calm lives for themselves and those around them.
These ideas might go against our “culture of busyness”, our “achievement culture” and our tendency to push through things with a “stiff upper lip”. However, I believe that if our society can begin to fully appreciate the benefits of calmness, it will have a positive impact on all our lifestyles.
I hope that by taking part in the creative act of blogging, using my imagination and sharing some originality of thought, I can in some way contribute to our ability to create a calmer society that we can all enjoy.
For all the reasons I have outlined above “Creating” has proven to be a fantastic word to include in my blog’s title.
Calm
I specifically landed on the characteristic of being calm to describe how I would like my family lifestyle to feel for the following reasons.
At the beginning of the same year that I started my blog, I discovered the idea of making it a tradition to choose a “word of the year”.
If you were online around this time, I am sure you will remember that there was a lot of discussion about how choosing a word for the year can be preferable to making New Year Resolutions.
My understanding of the thinking behind this idea is that by choosing a word to act as a signpost for your efforts and plans throughout the year you can remain focused on what you want to achieve.
This focus on a word is different than a set of resolutions because you are less likely to feel that sense of failure three days into January when you have already failed to follow your resolutions.
With a word of the year, the word remains with you all year providing a kind and gentle reminder of what you wish to focus on and you are therefore less likely to give up on that focus as the year progresses.
I am not sure if “words of the year” remain as popular today, but I like the idea and find it useful and motivating.
The year I started my blog, my “word of the year” was calm. I chose that word because when I looked up the definition of the word calm it felt like a good description of how I wanted life to feel for myself and my family and focused my mind on the atmosphere I wanted to create in my home:
The definition of “calm” states that calm means “not disturbed, agitated or excited”. It is also defined as “tranquil, serene.”
(See the end of this post for full details of the Dictionary used for the above definitions).
Therefore, when I decided to start a blog about the research I had done about creating a lifestyle to reduce worry and anxiety for all the family, I had already thought in detail about the word calm for my word of the year, and it seemed the perfect word to use in the title of my blog to indicate to readers the kind of lifestyle ideas I planned to write about.
I have explained in more detail my choice of the word “calm” and why I found it inspiring for both my family and my blog in my original introductory post. If you would like to read more click here.
With
I specifically chose to call the blog “Creating Calm With Clare” rather than a phrase such as “by Clare” for a very specific reason.
I am not holding myself out as any kind of expert in the field of mindset, lifestyle choices, parenting, homemaking or any of the other topics I discuss here on the blog.
I cannot (and am not trying to) teach or tell readers categorically how to create a calm life. I do not have all the answers, far from it!
This blog is written purely for inspiration, relaxation and to spark discussions amongst its readers. If you require help for any specific difficulty or problem, I encourage you to seek help from a suitably qualified expert or professional within your own community.
I write blog posts that collate and discuss the ideas and information I have read about and collected from other sources relating to this particular topic of creating a calm lifestyle.
I hope my blog and social media pages will be a place of inspiration and discussion where both me (as the person writing this blog) and you (as the readers) can all contribute alongside each other and discuss ideas with each other.
I hope for us to be peers. I have no wish to replicate the dynamic of “teacher and student” or “coach and client” with my writing.
When I create Free Printables they are NOT designed to be teaching aids. They are designed to be checklists or short-cuts into a particular topic that will allow you to explore the topic area in your own way and in your own time.
This means that if you do not have the time to delve deeply into a topic by reading the full blog post, you can instead use the Free Printable or scroll through my social media pages to gain an introduction to the topic more briefly.
We are peers beside each other sharing and discussing ideas and information among us that can help us all come to a better understanding of what it might mean to live a calmer lifestyle with our families and friends in our communities.
It is for that reason that my blog is called Creating Calm With Clare.
It is for that same reason that I always include quotes in my writing and fully detail the sources from my research at the end of each post.
Similarly, I would like to encourage you to share your feedback, thoughts, responses and ideas about the topics I share in my blog posts in the comments.
I am hoping to collate a bank of information about “all-things-calm” from as many people as possible and as many sources as possible for us all to enjoy and be inspired by.
Clare
While I am keen to protect the privacy of my family while writing this blog, I would also like the blog to have a personal touch. I felt that including just my first name (rather than my whole name) in the blog’s title gets the balance just about right.
As I have outlined above, I am not a professional or a person with any special claim to answers or expertise in this niche. I am an ordinary person, relying on my own personal experiences and my own reading and research to write this blog. The opinions and conclusions I reach are entirely my own personal findings based on my personal experiences and research.
I hope that including my first name in the title of the blog will remind readers of the nature of the blog and that it is written by an everyday person called “Clare” who simply wishes to share her ideas.
My blog posts contain the full scope of my own individual knowledge on any given topic at the time of writing.
If you as the reader would like to dive more deeply into any of these topics, I would encourage you to refer to the resources I reference at the end of each post.
Read the books, listen to the Podcasts, watch the TV programmes, scroll through the pins from other sources that I have saved to my Pinterest boards or investigate the accounts I follow on Instagram. Seek out qualified experts and professionals elsewhere who can help you gain any further knowledge you need.
If you do a deep dive of your own, I would love it if you would return to the blog and let me know in the comments whether or not you agree with the opinions and findings I have reached.
If your reading and research lead you to new findings and ideas I would love to hear about them in the comments too.
Why it’s Important to Remember I am Clare without an “i”
While we are on the topic of my name, I would like to emphasise the correct spelling of my name, “Clare”.
Those in the field of SEO probably think that including the name “Clare” in the title of my blog is a mistake. There are well-known alternative spellings of the name “Clare” (e.g Claire, Clair or Clara). This means the name of my site and my social media accounts may be more difficult to search for.
It is certainly true that the name “Clare” can be a tricky name to spell. I have spent the whole of my life spelling out the correct version of my name to people who ask during telephone calls or carefully filling out forms to include the correct spelling of my name, only to receive a letter from the very same people in return with my name still spelled incorrectly!
Therefore, I would ask that you take care to spell my name “Clare” correctly when searching for my blog or social media accounts:
Always remember I am Clare without an ” i “
It is my understanding that my Mum and Dad very intentionally chose the spelling of my name as C-L-A-R-E, because when they chose my name, my Dad was reading the poetry of John Clare and they wished my name to be spelled in the same way as his surname. So they intentionally chose for me to be Clare without an “i”.
If it helps, when spelling my name we can turn to the world of classic literature to help spark your memory of this discussion and solidify the importance of correctly spelling my name in these circumstances.
You could say that when it comes to my name, I am less like Juliet from William Shakespeare’s play Romeo and Juliet and more like Anne from L. M. Montomery’s book, Anne of Green Gables.
Juliet (Romeo and Juliet) asks the question “What’s in a name?”:
“What’s in a name? That which we call a rose
By any other name would
smell as sweet”
Romeo and Juliet, by William Shakespeare
(Act 2, Scene 2. Capulet’s Garden – See Full Reference at the end of this blog post)
She hopes to prevent the love between her and Romeo from being tarnished by their association with the names of their feuding families, she therefore argues that a name is of no importance and that the name “Romeo Montague” is no part of the person himself. He would be the same person that she loves regardless of his name.
On the other hand, Anne (Anne of Green Gables) thinks names in general are extremely important. She can often be found renaming the natural landmarks around her with elaborate names that she thinks suit them better (e.g. “The White Way of Delight” or “The Lake of Shining Waters” – Chapter 2, pp26-27 ).
When it comes to her own name she wishes she could be called Cordelia because she feels it will improve her life (chapter 3, p34). When pressed to use her real name, she then becomes insistent that the name Anne must be spelled correctly:
“If you call me Anne, please call me Anne spelled with an e” ( Chapter 3, p34)
When asked what difference it makes how it is spelled she replies:
“Oh it makes such a difference. It looks so much nicer. When you hear a name pronounced can’t you always see it in your mind, just as if it was printed out? I can; and A-N-N looks dreadful, but A-N-N-E looks so much more distinguished.”
(pp34 -35 Anne of Green Gables – See Full Book Reference at the end of this blog post)
l have to confess that if I see my name C-L-A-R-E spelled in any other way, indeed, it does not feel like my own name. I do not associate myself with any other spelling of the name Clare. I am definitely Clare without an”i”.
So, I would kindly ask that if you are searching up my blog Creating Calm with Clare, or searching for me elsewhere online or on Social Media (where you will find me as “Calm with Clare“), please take Anne’s advice and visualise the spelling of my name “Clare” in your mind as you say it and spell it correctly C-L-A-R-E, Clare without an “i”.
What You Can Expect On The Blog In The Future
If you have made it this far, I hope you now feel that you know me and my blog a little better.
I plan to continue writing more posts about calm family lifestyle topics here on the blog for the foreseeable future.
If you have any suggestions for particular topics within this niche that you would like to read about, please let me know.
In particular, I would love to hear from readers which Calm Categories (see full list above) you would most like to read about.
Your feedback will help me to plan and prioritise my writing better and ensure I am sharing posts that are the most useful and of the most interest to those of you who are reading the blog.
Thank you for reading and thanks in advance for your comments and feedback.
I hope you will visit the blog again soon.
Clare (without an “i”)
Resources
Books
- Collins Concise Dictionary English, Third Edition, Harper Collins Publishers 1992 – for definitions of the words “creating” and “calm”.
- John Clare’s Poems. The quote “I found the poems in the fields, And only wrote them down” used in the quote graphic in this blog post is from John Clare’s poem “Sighing for Retirement”. From my research, it is unclear whether this poem is currently in print as part of any current collection. However, it would appear this was one of his later poems.
- Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare, Amazon Classics.
- Anne of Green Gables by L M Montgomery, Puffin Books, 2010 edition.
Remember, if you would like more inspiration you may wish to click the links below and take a look at my Pinterest Boards and my Instagram Profile
Visit the About Page now to design your reading plan for the blog
Creating Calm with Clare 