blue bird with pink and white stripes requested by Sannikova Kira on patreon

[Drawing of a blue, pink, and white bird saying “I don’t need someone else to give me closure. I can give myself closure. I can move forward from this and live a great life.” in a pink speech bubble.]

I have a patreon where you can suggest animals or foods or objects (like these fruit-themed mugs!) you’d like to see become positive doodles. You can become a patron for as little as 1$ and each donation helps me keep making cute positive art on a daily basis.

Chai latte requested by KathTea on patreon

[Drawing of a chai latte in a green mug against a purple background. “Chai got this!” is written on the mug.]

Teabag requested by Hanna & Anna on my patreon

[Drawing of a teabag saying “I’m always here if you need support, positivitea, and/or actual tea.” in a white speech bubble against a blue background.]

Sophie runs the advice and help blog heartinme.

On your blog, you say that you want to help as many people as possible. How do you do that with your advice? Do you offer general advice that applies to as many people as possible or do you tailor each piece of advice to a specific individual? How do you account for the fact that what’s helpful to one person might be hurtful to another?

I do try to tailor advice to the person who asked since they’re the one telling me about their situation and looking for advice, but I also feel like the advice I give can be taken generally and applied to others in similar situations. That’s why I encourage people to ask me for advice even if I have 5+ more asks with a similar question because everyone’s situation is different and one person may give more information or tell me something in a different way than someone else. As for the advice I give, if something offended or hurt anyone, I would want them to come to me about it so I could apologize and see what I did wrong. I try to be careful with my words and think a while about my answers and how things come across when typed since it can be different than hearing it in person, so I account for that, and I hope that people find my blog helpful and a good thing rather than hurtful or bad.

What does it take to give good advice?

It definitely takes an open-mindedness approach. When someone comes to you in need of help, you need to listen carefully and make sure that you understand the situation the best you can because you’re only given so much information and you can’t know everything, so trying to understand the situation is important. You need to be willing to do some research. For example, one of my very first asks was about Trichotillomania, and I didn’t know much about it so I researched it and read a lot about it to ensure I gave the best advice.

What advice would you give your past self?

Stop thinking and start doing. I pushed my dreams away for so long because I was scared of what people would think and I was scared of failing and feeling like I couldn’t do anything right, so I didn’t seriously attempt to pursue anything I was passionate about until recently. The sooner you start something, the better. I also need to stop being so shy! I hardly ever talked to people at school. I hated doing presentations. I hated group work. I just hated (and still hate) the idea of being out there where people could judge me. Get out there more. Join what you want. Raise your hand in class if you know the answer. Even if you get it wrong, it’s not the end of the world. People probably won’t even remember in 10 minutes, so stop worrying so much. Lastly, stop letting shitty people treat you shitty just because you’re worried about coming across as mean or selfish. Put yourself first sometimes.

What’s your favorite thing about helping people?

A lot of people have so many issues all the time. It never stops. I myself have a lot of things I need to work on, so helping people makes me feel good and like I’m actually doing something good. I love making people smile and making their day easier. You never know what’s happening in their life, so why do something that could make them sad or make their life harder? Something as small as trying to help could make such a difference to their day. I love the feeling it gives me and I have always loved helping people and giving advice, and it’s even better when I get asks a few days/weeks later from people who have taken my advice and said that it really helped them. It makes it so worthwhile.

Reading about other people’s pain can be emotionally taxing. What do you do to take care of your emotional well-being?

It can be and I’m quite an emotional person myself with a lot of my own problems and thoughts to deal with which is why I like the part of helping someone else. It makes me forget about my troubles for a while. Often to take care of myself, I write. I am an (British) Au Pair living and working in America, so I like to document and scrapbook about my journey here. I love to read. I also love to listen to music that makes me feel good. Meditating is also a great way for me to try to turn off my thoughts for a while, even though that doesn’t always work. I love working on my career goals and ‘my dream life’ which I also have a journal/scrapook for. Sleeping is also always great!

What’s next for you and your blog?

I want to keep building my blog and helping people, which is sometimes hard to do being a blog with such a small amount of followers because it’s difficult to feel like my blog is growing, but I hope to spread awareness of my blog to people and hopefully get more people coming to me and showing support for my account.

How can people support you and your work?

The biggest thing they can do is share my blog with people they know. They can ask me questions and spread the word to anyone that may need help.

Facebook / Twitter / Ko-fi / Buy the book

[doodle of four cats: a red cat saying “I’m just getting started.”, a blue cat saying “I have so much potential.”, an orange cat saying “I’m going to achieve so much.”, and a green cat saying “I got this.”]

drawing of a box of mint requested by KathTea on patreon

[Caption: You won’t fail. You’re so talented and driven. You’re mint for success.]

[Drawing of a green and purple jellyfish next to a caption that says “It’s okay to wish your work got more attention.” in green and purple text.]

Facebook / Twitter / Ko-fi / Buy the book

[Drawing of a pink and blue jellyfish next to a caption that says “Keep trying.” in pink and blue text against a black background.]

Facebook / Twitter / Ko-fi / Buy the book

[Hand-written typography saying “You got this.” with 3 snails drawn on it.]