With only one week till Christmas I hope you are starting to get that festive feeling! The SMASH team love Christmas and as with last year I'm spending my Christmas day "alone"... which is my choice and as I found last year ...a good choice!

Today's email is a short and sweet one filled with information for future SMASH projects in 2019! As we have spoken about recently, SMASH is growing and 2019 is set to be the biggest year yet with lots of exciting things coming your way

It's December which means the month of giving presents to those we care about has officially started! Today's email is about gifts...

I wrote this email in my head a week ago while I was at a gig by myself (The Prodigy – probably one of the best live music experiences I have ever been to!!). Being there “alone” amongst maybe 10,000 other people got me reflecting on comfort zones and how we can push ourselves, but often don’t... 

"It's time to trust my instincts, close my eyes, and leap" - Defying Gravity, Wicked - The Musical (trust me to use the lyrics from a musical to make a BIG announcement about my future 🙈) .

Here's the thing guys, last week I made a huge decision...

This is one of our favourite sayings and is something we have used many times before. We had a big focus on kindness earlier on in the year, we even had a week of kindness where we focused on a different act of kindness each day. Kindness can be shown and expressed in many different ways and, most importantly, it can be the reason that someone smiles on a bad day.

As we approach the end of the year we tend to reflect on the year so far and begin to consider what the next year may have in store for us. As the party season approaches, sometimes our healthier, more mindful habits are replaced with the thoughts that "I'll start again in the new year".

We often get caught up in the chaos of life that sometimes we forget to take a moment and be gentle with ourselves, and this was very apparent to me on Wednesday when I arrived at London's first silent cafe on Wednesday night...

Our latest SMASH Discovery was so much fun, and we launched our brand new class based around the number 7, which some of you will get to experience in one of our lunchtime slots very soon 

Wow, what a week! To honour mental health awareness day on Wednesday we asked you to share your experience with mental health and wellbeing and the response was incredible! We had so many people stop us in the gym, or reach out on social media, and say how reading the emails had been inspiring and helpful.

Here is our final story for now by SMASH regular Sophie. We have such a wide variety of faiths and beliefs through our community and so we found this interesting to see mindfulness from a slightly different perspective. Sophie is more than happy for anybody to contact her if you want to find out more (just message us and we will put you in contact)

The next three contributions were a little shorter so here is are some words from Estelle, Kay and Steven. Thank you guys x

This morning we are sharing a story from one of our SMASH community about living with somebody suffering mental health issues:

Here is Emma's story about how physical wellness can affect the mental side of things and vice versa....

Here is Lucy's experience with mental health...

Good morning and happy Thursday. Today we will be sending out some more of your Mental Health emails. We are so touched and honoured with the responses we have had - because SMASH is just as much about you guys as it is about us! You know our stories well... but now lets read one of the inspiring stories from our SMASH community:

'Not every day is happy but I love the days that are, and accept the ones that aren't' - We love this ending to Julia's email. Her story is here...

Here is Alex's story. She has said she is happy to chat with anyone who feels they are experiencing similar feelings so if you would like to reach out with her, please email back to SMASH and we will put you in touch...

Good morning all, and welcome to day 2 of mental health week. This is Sam and I wanted to share with you a little more of my mental health story since going through the worst of it!