.SOMETIMES RAW.

“It’s always weird to see people talking about meditation for relaxation while it’s embedded in systems of belief in the East. The same thing happens with mindfulness sometimes.” – Dat Tran, an awesome friend.

What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is the art of bringing attention to the present moment and tuning into your senses that we have such as to smell, hear, and see. Mindfulness means simply to become more aware and have a heightened awareness of things. There are so many benefits of practicing mindfulness on a regular basis. From reduced stress and anxiety, a better ability to cope with stressors, more mental clarity, better attention, and focus. I am by no means the best of practicing mindfulness all the time but when I do make an effort to be more mindful in different small daily actions it makes a huge difference. And this is what I want to talk about today. I want to share some small ways that work for me to incorporate more mindfulness into my day. Maybe it works for you, too.

Mindful Eating. This is a wonderful daily practice we can include in our lives. What this means is simply becoming more aware of the eating process and the experience with food and mealtime. It helps us to digest food better, and we are aware more of all the tastes, textures, preparing the food, the smells and it also helps to tune into hunger and satiety cues that help when we are eating.

When eating mindfully, we are better to tune into how we feel when eating. A way to practice this is to turn off all distractions when you eat. Put your phone and computer away, turn off the TV, and really be present with the food in front of you. Also, try to slow down when you are eating. Take a few breaths between bites, put the fork down, and notice the taste.

Morning Routine. Taking time to start your day in a mindful way is a great thing you can do or start to add to your daily routine. It can be just a couple of extra minutes where you can be with yourself in silence, to have a richer experience when you for example prepare your morning tea or coffee and to be fully present when you are involved in preparing those things. Boiling the water, sitting down to fully enjoy it, smelling it before you check your emails, or rush out of the door before you fully have to start our day.

Mundane Activities. A great way to make a mundane activity more interesting is to simply engage your senses and be fully present in it. Even if it is just for a moment or two. And this applies especially to the things that apply your hands, touch, and feel. Notice the feeling of slicing a vegetable, and preparing food, doing the dishes, and the feeling of scrubbing the plate or pan. How do these things feel to you? For me, it takes on a whole new life if I am fully present in the moment.

Another way to be more mindful is to check in with yourself. And you can do this at any time of the day. It is really just tuning in to see how you are feeling. Like, what do I need right now? Do I need to put my phone away? Do I need to stop scrolling through social media? Do I need to get up from my seat and move or go for a walk? Am I hungry or thirsty? Checking in with ourselves is a great way to figure out where we need to take some actions. This is also a good thing to do when you feel any emotions, especially such as anger and frustration, or when you are feeling overwhelmed or upset. Bring your awareness into that emotion and ask yourself, “What does this feel like? Where do I feel it in my body?” When we do this, we are sort of able to detach ourselves from that emotion and take more of an outsider-look at it. Like being the observer of that emotion.

Meditation. Another way to add some more mindfulness into your day is to meditate. You don’t have to do this for a very long time so if you are new to sitting in silence with yourself you can just set a timer for five minutes and there you go. It doesn’t have to be rocket science. Meditation is a great way to see what is going on inside of you and you can do this simply by sitting down somewhere, closing your eyes (or not, I can actually meditate with my eyes open while standing), finding a comfortable position, and focus on your breath and the sensation of air going in and out of your lungs. And when it comes to your thoughts, and yes, we are often thinking about so many things, we can take a moment to stop while meditating. Think about “thought-clouds” and observe your thoughts as if they would be indeed clouds passing through your mind. This way, you can better disconnect from them and no longer identify with them or even become your thoughts.

I like to practice “Inner-Body Awareness” while focusing on my hands. I learned about this exercise in Eckard Tolle’s book “A New Earth”. You simply sit and enjoy the liveliness of your hands which is a great way to redirect your focus and just be in the here and now.

Mindful Interactions. The next way to practice more mindfulness is to have mindful interactions with others. Not only is this a great way to improve your listening skills but also a great way to enrich your relationships. Fully emerge yourself in an experience you are having with someone or a conversation but just pay full attention to what it is they are saying by listening fully and giving them your full attention and not getting distracted by things you hear or see around you. Or getting caught up in what your response is going to be. We so easily get caught up in the grind or the need for approval from others that we lose sight of what we want. Reconnect with those things and be specific about what exactly they are, whether or not you’re making space for them in your life, and consider ways that you can begin to if needed. To be more mindful, notice your surroundings. Walk in nature. What do you see? What do you hear?

Doing Less. I think that rest and recovery between periods of work are not only a big part of a less stressful life, but essential for supporting your ability to function at your best. Constantly having things to “do” with no real space to breathe is what leads to burnout. Doing less is all about welcoming this slowness into your life and recognizing what is and isn’t worth your time. We can’t say no to everything, but we can still set boundaries for ourselves. 

Stillness. We have become so accustomed to noise and activity that when stimulation, distraction, or entertainment is taken away, stillness makes us uncomfortable. We often believe stillness has no value or means wasting our time as productivity and achievement are so heavily prized. But if we drop the idea that we need to fill every ounce of silence with some kind of familiar activity or distraction, we can begin to understand ourselves better and recognize what actually matters. Just chill. Just be still.

Stay sane. Stay mindful.

I love traveling. Going somewhere for the sake of seeing a new place, experience something I haven’t before or learning about the world, is reason enough to plan a trip. The itch to explore is naturally the main reason I travel. It is fun! There is another, less obvious, aspect of going away that deserves some attention though: the feeling of coming home, and this new perspective I have gained upon my return.

It might be silly to go somewhere simply for the pleasure of returning home again. It is the inverted, negative copy of traveling: the purpose of which isn’t going somewhere, but rather, returning to something. Some say that it is the most savory part of the trip. That no matter how magical the journey, there really is no place like home. And there is nothing like a trip to remind me of that fact. This is, of course, under the supposition that I have a home life worth returning to. In other cases, the trip instead works as a reminder of that very fact. In either circumstance, in the moment of returning, I am led to feel something, or see something from a perspective I didn’t have previously. I am able to observe my life at home clearly with the veil of everyday normalcy briefly lifted. The comparison to locations and lifestyles I have encountered in that new place I just returned from makes it possible to determine whether I am happy to be home, or wish I could have stayed at that other place. The direct and instantaneous reaction to this comparison is difficult to ignore. The Corona Pandemic and Lockdown may have been part of all this.

Traveling to my parent’s place: there is this familiar smell which is the same since my childhood. It always will be and means “happy place”, warmth and love. I don’t notice the smell of my own home until I leave and return again. The morning light in my bedroom is normal to me, nothing I either appreciate or dislike until I have been away from it for a few nights. Once I have seen, smelled, heard, touched, and experienced something a few times, my brain might as well autopilot things for a while until something new and exciting happens. And my everyday at-home-routines are definitely not new and exciting enough to waste brainwaves on. Until I go away for a while. All of a sudden, upon returning, my home becomes that new place worthy to discover. For a short period of time at least. Just until the brain realized is it just good old Kansas I have returned to, red slipperless and yellow brick road-free as can be. No matter whether I find coming home to be the best of the worst or maybe just a tolerable part of traveling, it is no doubt an important one.

Most importantly, the two more things I need to feel at home: My son and my partner. Ever since moving to Vienna, I have started identifying more and more with a turtle taking my home with me everywhere I go. These days, even though I still feel like this turtle sometimes, my son and partner are my shell. As long as I have them with me, there will always be a sense of belonging, of being home. And, if you find me curled up in my cozy corner, reading a good book with a glass of wine in hand, my calmly decorated room full of books and filled with the smell of food slowly cooking from the kitchen (my partner), my favorite jazz playlist playing on my laptop, with a few lit candles, you can safely assume I will be quite at ease and content. Even though my son is building a cave next to me. I am happy as long as both are around. Because as it turns out, home isn’t a certain place. Home isn’t even where I hang my hat. Home is where my heart is which is wherever and whenever I am hanging out with myself first and then with the people I love the most.

“The meeting of two personalities is like the contact of two chemical substances: If there is any reaction, both are transformed.” – Carl Jung

When I think about romance, I think of two kinds of relationships. The opposite attracts and kindred spirit relationships. The former is the classic and the one we are taught to aspire to as kids. This couple is made up of two opposites, centered around the passion and attraction that causes mystery. We are curious and drawn to other beings because of their dissimilarities to ourselves. It makes sense to be fascinated by our counterparts, and we can learn a lot by hanging out with our polar opposite. Not to mention the biological sense behind falling in love with someone physically different from us to have happy, healthy, genetically mixed babies with if this is your thing. No, there won’t be a second baby for me.

My romance of choice is the latter, though. For the last couple of months, I have been in love with my kindred spirit. I am sure this type of relationship has been around for as long as the opposite attracts version, but it seems to be going through a renaissance. In a society where feminism is becoming mainstream, and where equality is slowly starting to be valued over tradition, a new type of relationship goal is natural.

For those of us who care very little about tradition and gender, and a lot more about self-realization and freedom of societal demands, a romance is less about who opens the door for whom and who picks up the check on a date. Instead, it is more about being heard and seen and encouraged and wanted. In all departments. For who you are. Not for the typical properties of your gender. To be honest, I never want to be treated as The Woman of the relationship. I want to be treated as Daniela – an equal. And when I look at my partner, I don’t see The Man. I see my soulmate. I see a person I am passionately in love with. I couldn’t care less about his masculinity. After years and years of dating and being in relationships and marriages, I wonder what that could possibly have to do with anything at all.

When I look at my partner, I instead see my teammate and my coach. My manager and best friend, my personal trainer, and my inspiration. I see someone who got my back and makes me feel courageous. I see a capable, beautiful, fascinating human being whom I cannot get enough of, but sometimes get fed up with, too.

This type of relationship might not be for everyone, but it works for us. We might be two people, but we share our life. We get on each other’s nerves, argue, and make up together. And I think this is why I am passionately in love with him. Because of what we have already done together, and the potential of what we will do together in the future.

What works for us:

• We ask questions: all of them, even the tough ones. And then we listen attentively.
• Dress up for each other. Go out on dates.
• We go for long walks, reconnect, look at things together. Sometimes that is all it takes.
• We surprise each other. Physical things such as flowers, little gifts, or spontaneous trips.
• We support each other’s evolvement, even if it is sometimes scary.
• We laugh at each other’s jokes. Even the lame ones. I am a pretty funny Piefke.
• We start projects together.
• We read books together. Read to each other. Talk about what we read.
• We respect the classics: honesty, loyalty, trust, and adoration.
• We have a kitchen-session. We have a glass of wine and talk. And cook. And eat.
• We are generous. With time, with money, with matters of the heart.
• We want to conquer the world together.
• We don’t fear change.
• We have the same rhythm.

Life is too short for toxic relationships. It is time to leave when you exhaust yourself to no avail. Or even worse, when the person who claims to love you treats you with outright unkindness and disrespect. It is NOT normal to feel drained, sad, angry, hopeless, or live in fear when being in a relationship. We are also taught to never give up on love, but what about when love gives up on us or if it never was love, to begin with? I want to focus on things that give me energy instead of drain it, things that give me happiness instead of worry, things that give my everyday life beauty and meaning instead of tension and anxiety.

I am by no means a relationship “expert” and I am walking on thin ice here. But I could assure you that I am not suggesting something as drastic as breaking up or letting a toxic relationship fade out if your partner does not meet at least some of the points listed above. But then again, maybe I am. Actually, yes I am.