Category: .Inspiration.

Well, simple living – this was not always my motto. Many times I have been swept up in this mindset of getting more and more. Owning more and more. My worst enemy was Amazon online. All these pretty things floating around and everything is just one click away from being send to my house. Awesomeness. So I had this itch for a long time to buy even more.

Looking back at the way I grew up I must say it was very simple. As kids we did not have a TV in each of our rooms – there was ONE in the living room; we did not even have a microwave. My mom grew and still grows most of their vegetables in the backyard or in their second garden. There was no dryer for clothing. Line-dried clothing it is! My childhood was perfect I have to say but as soon as I started earning my first money things changed. I started to want more. I remember I bought a cellphone with my first paycheck. (Nokia 3210 in 1999) 😀

Now things changed again. Life consistently changes. Nothing stays the same. As a mom I feel one of my biggest responsibilities is to raise my son to be tolerant, compassionate and kind. And of course to teach him to love himself the way he is. I had a long talk with my mom tonight and I told her that she did right. It was the best thing to grow up on special moments and activities (and yes, we were allowed to play in the mud and come home all dirty) rather than material things. I remember we did have toys obviously but not too many. We still used our imagination to play which was awesome. On a little side-note: I read recently that there was a study done in a kindergarten where they have taken out all toys for one month. Initially the kids were all weird and did not know what to do. But soon, they started to look for other things to play with. And most of them had gone outside to find rocks, stones etc. to play and just used their imagination again.

Back then I never really knew the difference or what my mom tried to teach us then but I am looking back and I am very grateful. All this being said does not mean that I am getting rid of all my things now but I think it is all about finding a balance. I am just grateful or thankful on what I already have. Activities and memories over things – considering what I already have and just add items I find useful or necessary.

Also, being grateful is basically the ability to be thankful. I mean just the simple fact that I can type this here, that I have internet is pretty awesome by itself. Being grateful can be really hard when happiness is based on the stuff I have, or needs approval of friends, society or family. Or the status I achieve. Then most of the time I thought that I am not where I should be in life – that I need more things in order to be happy. Or the worst feeling I have had was that other people doing so much better than I am. Who the hell cares what others are doing!

I mean living in a society that is basically founded on consumerism and capitalism it is no surprise that there is a structure in place that makes sure that we never ever stop shopping.  Gadgets for everything! 😀

The problem is that there is always more to buy. For anything – home decor (magazines), fashion, you name it. I am just trying to be content with what I have because I realized that this rollercoaster I was trapped in is constantly moving. To get more, better, higher, faster, better looking! I just stopped buying this lie that “things” will make me happier. Plain and simple. True happiness is never about stuff. I am thinking here about spending time with my husband and son in the garden and I am grateful for that. Just them and I, there together. Doing nothing special. Just chilling in the sun. Then I feel connected and I am happy.

“I woke to the sound of rain.” ― Sylvia Plath, The Bell Jar

Today I played outside with my son. Yes, finally the sun is back and it was so beautiful to sit outside and smell the warm grass and even more, smell my son’s hair after he had been running around for a while. This smell of his little sweat with a mix of sun is the best ever I think. The little things.

The other day I sat on the living room floor, surrounded by felt tons of laundry. All I did was ironing, folding, stacking, Ironing, folding and stacking. I thought about these little sweaters, T-shirts, pants I folded and little socks I matched. Little things. Little things for my son.

After I was done with all the laundry we went shopping. All stressed out because I had to get lunch ready – he was hungry, I was late. At the supermarket in one of these isles an older woman approached me and said, “This little guy is so handsome. How precious he is and smart. Hold onto these days my dear – they go so fast. They grow up so fast and this is the time you will miss the most. I am speaking out of experience.” So right there I started tearing up a bit. Right there in the middle of pasta and flour and sugar, just trying to hold it together while I watched this woman leave. She walked away slowly and turned around to give my son and I one last smile and wink.

While I finished shopping I thought about what this older woman told me. This little advice.  Over the past years and a half I felt like I have learned so much about life and about myself. I cannot say I have figured life out, however, sometimes when I have a lucky day it simply feels like I have flipped over a puzzle piece I did not even know was overturned, and find its place among the rest of the pieces that now make total sense. I can put this puzzle together slowly even though all the other pieces are all over the place, that this one piece, this one lone piece, it has a place. 

When I left the supermarket and my son looked at me and I noticed his dark blonde curly hair and his brown eyes that he squeezed tight whenever he looked in the sun I realized that I just have to take a moment and appreciate just every little bit of every little thing in that little tiny moment – like this puzzle piece that flipped over and slid right in.

I thought about this season. One day it is cold and one has to curl up inside next to a fireplace but then the next day is really warm. Everything changes constantly.  Thinking about tiny things, my son, and this house here that never seems truly quiet since we are here. My son is growing so fast, he is sprouting and learning – learning constantly. And one day, when Jean and I have done this job and he is all grown up, this old lady from the supermarket is right. I believe these are the days we will miss the most. His little innocence and this passion when he is trying to something new.

I folded laundry again today and thoughts came and went. Feelings, happy, sad, bittersweet. Bittersweet is usually how I describe it when I think of my son growing up. Usually I have one foot in the excitement of tomorrow but the second trailing behind just a bit longer, just lingering for a moment in the afterglow of everything we have done and been through so far. What we felt, experienced. All the laughters, all the tears. And what will happen in the future. How things will change.

I try to be present – in the moment here and now. I have to realize that I will never ever be in this moment again. It is entirely possible to find joy from the simplest of things. Whatever I do, I try to BE in this moment. I try to BE the moment.

“Like as the waves make towards the pebbl’d shore, so do our minutes, hasten to their end.” – William Shakespeare

Have you ever looked at your watch and wondered where the day went? This happens to me all the time. Time! What is time? Usually we are always in a rush. I have written to a friend of mine today and she told me how busy she is doing this and that and having no time really do all her work she needs or wants to do. Then sometimes at work  she looks at the clock and realizes that it is late afternoon or early evening and she is still in the office. Often I hear people say that they will do “this and that” to save time. Well, you cannot “save” time I think. You cannot just hit “pause”, do our tasks while everybody else stops as well until you are are ready to continue and join the world again.

I thought many times how awesome it would be to just stop time for a while. Imagine how much I could get done! Well, in any case as mentioned we cannot save time but we can use time or properly utilize it. I do not think about time as long as I am okay usually. Until something gives me a sharp reminder or kicks me in the back to remind me of my fragile human life. Today I have been at the doctors office. He could have told me anything .. he found something… I am not healthy, I need this and that treatment. Well it turned out I am okay. This is awesome! I can still play along. 😀

It is increasingly difficult to shut off in a world like this. We are connected 24/7, we have emails, smart phones, Whatsapp, Facebook you name it. So how do we find balance, how do we find actual human interaction as well as time for ourselves? What I have learned so far is that it is important to  simply be in the present moment. Meditation has helped me a lot to figure all this out. Meditation stills the mind and brings presence.

I have read a great book recently. It is by Eckhart Tolle called “The Power Of Now”. He describes that we have this constant mental chatter within us,  however, we can learn to switch it off by simply allowing us to be present or just to focus on the moment. The past and future have just not bearing on the now. Who cares what happened in the past. It is gone. We cannot turn back time. We just have to move on. Even if it is difficult sometimes.

One way I can experience presence is when I am just doing ONE thing. Like watching a sunset or playing with my son for example. Or mediation. I am focusing on  the task and activity. Nothing else. So why can’t I always be in this present stage? Every minute, every hour of everyday? Well, there are always things going on. There is no routine. Things change. We have to adapt. I am rather reading instead of watching TV. I am reading a lot to my son. I find my presence there while reading. And guess what? My son KNOWS and FEELS when I am present or not. When I have a ton on my mind or I am doing ten things at the same time he is all confused and is annoying and stressed out himself. Like me. Same thing. Kids feel the restlessness and stress. Always!

I am not really planning anything major (this is husband’s territory), however, I am planning my next weekend for example or my next day even asking myself what I would do today if it was the last day of my life. Whatever the answer is, this is what I should be doing. And I try to apply this to everything in my life. Vacations, my time with my precious family and everything else in my life. I do not think it is important to focus on the fact that I will die at some point (hopefully in the distant future), but rather to appreciate and accept my time on this planet as finite. I have to ensure that I focus on what is important rather than on what is most often unimportant or “urgent”. Maybe at some point science will find a way to manipulate time and make it slow down or explain relativistic time better – I just do not want to waste time waiting for this to happen.

“I can control my destiny, but not my fate. Destiny means there are opportunities to turn right or left, but fate is a one-way street. I believe we all have the choice as to whether we fulfil our destiny, but our fate is sealed.” – Paulo Coelho

I am working on going through life as actively as I can but I have realized sometimes that I am not doing a good job when I am reacting like crazy (hello Jean!) to every challenge, obstacle and problem as they arrive and when things are not as smooth for me. However, when the ride is smooth I am pretty settled in. I have been analyzing all this a lot recently and came to the conclusion that I do not want to sleepwalk through life. I believe everyone had this feeling of time flashing by and another year just passed. Or ten, twenty. The danger here is that it is very easy to just wake up at some point in life and realize: “What the hell happened? Time flies by and I did nothing truly exciting all these years – nothing that fills my soul and mind with happiness!”

What I try to say is that I do not want to spend my life doing things I do not want to do day in and day out. “Spending my life doing things I do not want to do” can mean for example spending a life with the wrong partner. Someone who does not make me laugh, happy and fills my soul. All this considering that I love myself 100% first. I have to give myself  value.  I lose confidence. It does not matter what anybody thinks of me.  I have to be brave to love myself. This is life. Things happen to me.  It is not easy sometimes. I have to take 100% responsibility of how I feel. Other examples would be that I do not spend my life active, discovering new things, traveling, be open-minded for new things, or working at a job that I do not love or even hate for years and years. So basically all this would make me less happy and less healthy than I should or could be.

I am fortunate to have some wise people in my life that help me out occasionally if I am stuck for words or wisdom. Today for example I heard that “I have to take control of my own life to be happy because – guess what- no one else is doing if for you.” (Bonsoir mon amour)

What helped me so far on my journey is  to get rid of as much junk as possible. I want to buy only the stuff I really need. Asking myself in the store if I really NEED this item I have in my hand right now for example! I am taking control because every single thing I own has somehow and impact on my life. I just want to simplify as much as possible.  Important is also controlling the people in my life. There is just no need for people who have a negative impact or bring me down on a daily basis. Simple as that. However, the most important thing for me is health.

Without being healthy and being at my personal best there is not much going on I think. Health is the most important thing I have. The health suffers – nothing else matters. I look at all the movie starts, rich rich people who seem to have it all. The perfect house, the perfect furniture, the perfect family or job. They have millions of dollars but how come many of them suffer from depression or worse diseases and death? The same with people in my surroundings; take the mask of and the hero fades away. 🙂 Yes, Gainsbourg! Actions speak louder than words! Many promise so much and then do nothing in the end.

I believe the way I act and think is somewhat programmed. My last post on society clarifies this a bit more. But family, friends and even the wider influence told me what to do, how to be happy, sad all these things. But I have been thinking for a while now that some of  this input might just be false. Of course I try to listen to my mom and dad still but they are living THEIR life. I life mine which is unique. I make my own decisions and I will just delete some of the programmed stuff from way back when. I believe it is important to also watch what I  believe, read or watch because whatever garbage I put in my head sometimes affects the way I live.

I am getting better at meditation. It just does not happen over night obviously but it does happen. It allows me to control my own thoughts a bit better. It all depends on how I think. The brain is very powerful and thoughts (many many thoughts) come and go constantly. But I know now that if I let some of them happen to me then I am doing the same thing over and over again. (expecting a different result = insanity ahaha). Well it does not work like this. I have to change my old patterns of think with new ones. One thing I had a huge problem with was too much thinking about people who are sad. Why they are sad, lonely and depressed, trying to find solutions for them etc. But guess what? They are living their own life as well. Of course I can talk to them but it is not my “duty” to find solutions. I can help but not lose myself on the way and make myself miserable and sad. Giving makes me happy. Gifts, my time, passion, resources you name it. But I know now when to stop. I live my own life and get the best out of it. I do only have this one shot! I smile for no reason and look within for the answers. This is how magnificent our existence is. It is more about the journey than the destination.

“He who is unable to live in society, or who has no need because he is sufficient for himself, must be either a beast or a god. ” – Aristotle

Today I want to write about influence – influence exerted on us by others. Many times I say to myself that I am not influenced or pushed around by others. That I make my own choices. But on the other hand: Is this true?

Society. There is an endless pool of people to do the dirty work for society and a pretty efficient propaganda machine that keeps everyone nicely in line.

I see it this way that society is pushing us around as if we do not even have a free will and I believe that most people don’t even know that this is happening. Everybody expects us to follow the “rules”. If we do – everything is fine. So everyone is happy but are we happy? Are we truly happy? There is just no way around the fact that we live in this world and we are affected by it. I believe that society’s expectations are irrelevant to my happiness but this pressure society puts on us can be impossible to resist. I have a great example. My son will not be baptized. I believe it is not necessary for him – he knows his name, I know his name, the name is written in his passport and that is that. (for further clarification I have written a post On believing) 🙂 So, I am doing and trying something different; something that is “out of the norm”. Yet, the response I am getting from most people is intense and scary. It makes them uncomfortable. “How can you not get him baptized?” “What will happen later on when he wants to get married in a church?” or the best one: “Everybody else has their kids baptized!” I believe these are just typical reactions from people who cannot or do not want to think outside the box. Being different is not a bad thing. 🙂

Society has always told us who to be and especially how to be. “It always has been is this way” and unfortunately nothing has changed ever since. People just do not like it if you play and think outside the norm. This list goes on and on. You have to live in the right neighborhood, have the kids in the right school, have security and enough money on your saving account, save enough money to eventually do the trip once you retired, support the right team, vote for the right politicians, have your kid in a good kindergarten and you have to do all this for as long as you can before you end up in the nursing home. You are accepted if you play along and do what everybody else is doing. Everybody understands you and you understand them. As soon as you do something out of the norm you have got a problem. But what is the “norm”? What is normal?

Are people addicted to status? Many people constantly measure themselves against everybody else and how everybody else is doing. The problem is that the system we live in tells us how we can be happy. All we have to do is buy X, Y and Z and if we only buy enough of this stuff then it will be great. And the only intent here is to sell us more stuff. The media plays a huge role here. They tell us who is important and who is not. They tell us who our role models are and what the latest fashion is. Also which face cream to use against wrinkles. We are literally bombarded with advertisements. Looking into the mailbox every day and seeing all the advertisement that tells us what to buy and to do to be happy is proof enough.

If you use an old phone and not a “smart” phone people look at you weird. If you do not use whatsapp – holy shit! How could you not!!!!??? You wear vintage clothing, or do not care about the latest fashion (Hello, Germany’s next Top Model crap) people look at you weird. People, society! Even if you eat differently; if you try new things, vegan, raw, whatever – people judge you based on what? Some criteria that they have adopted from someone who has adopted it and they all believe their opinion is right.

So I have been talking about this a lot recently with my husband and came to the conclusion that this constant pressure people create for themselves makes them stop from doing what they really want to do. Holding back because of this constant worrying what people might think. We are the perfect example. The way we live, people just cannot understand how it all works. But it is fine. We are fine. 😀 Always keep  in mind you only live once. You only have one shot on life. So why being scared of change? This being said: Nobody needs to worry about me or my family. Ha!

Many are afraid to change their life so they criticize others. And they keep buying new cars, more toys, more stuff, to just be happy. But are they? Of course there are people in this society who are happy with their life, exactly the way it is. Good for them. I am just talking about the ones who are miserable, keep on doing the same thing over and over every single day (expecting  different result)  but the things that could change their life for the better they are too afraid to do.

I believe that when people judge me and my lifestyle – they just have their own issues and problems. Everybody does.  I usually know their weaknesses because I know mine.  We are all only humans. It is not always easy when people put pressure on me this way. But I do keep in mind that they are just scared of not fitting in the system or maybe not fitting in as I am. Anything that is out of the norm makes people uncomfortable because I guess I am highlighting something that they are afraid of or do not want to think about.

I am working on this pleasing others/opinions stuff’/and living a different life for a while now. I know now that opinions do not matter when they are holding me back from what I really want to do, especially if they are pulling me down. I just do not let society tell me what to do and what is “normal”.

There is this awesome quote I remember: “Those who mind don’t matter, and those you matter don’t mind. “

“Feelings are much like waves, we cannot stop them form coming but we can choose which one to surf.” 

These days I am all all about thinking and figuring things out. On how so many tiny moments roll into overarching feelings that define stages and seasons of our lives. Every morning when I wake up and I am getting ready for the day I think it is weird sometimes how I will not remember this particular morning but I will remember this feeling of morning. And I think of my childhood for example in the same way. I had an awesome childhood I must say. I cannot remember everyday but I just have an intense feeling of happiness thinking of it. I just skyped with my brother for 3 hours and 15 minutes. (Whaaaat?!) We have been talking about so many things – also how we felt as kids when we grew up. These feelings of safety and fun, also fighting, being scared… but we realized that it was all good. This safety net is so important to me. To have my “home base”, my family, my siblings. I want my son to have the same feeling and security.

My son might not remember me sitting with him every night before he goes to bed reading books but I believe he will remember this feeling. This feeling of security and love because it all rolls together, every single day. Same with our every day stuff we do. Walks to the post office, our little picnics – just him and myself, this way my son and I kind of feel each other when we lay on the couch together. I believe it is important to have this bond with him.  To give this feeling that I am there for him no matter what. “It is not what I do every once in a while that is my life. It is what I do everyday. ” (I think there was a saying like that as well hahahaha)

This also applies for the bad days. Yes, there are bad days. Of course there are! These are the special days. When I feel nothing goes right from the first step out of bed. Bad night, I lose my temper or feel uninspired, frustrated or use “Maisy Mouse” on YOUTUBE  to fill our time. This is normal. I have bad days sometimes and so does my son. To realize this is important for me. To realize that every day is different and there is no routine.

I am building a foundation with my son here and now. I love having all this time with him. This feeling we have most days, excitement, learning and magic – all of this is there. I try to teach him on a daily basis how important positivity, acceptance and the freedom to be whoever he wants to be is. I do not think this is too early. He has this phase now where he throws things when he cannot figure our how to put them together. A crazy learning experience for this little guy but I try to guide him through. Screaming and throwing things just because he cannot put them together does not work. Not for him – not for us either.

And I cannot change the fact that all this goes on and on and on until one day I wake up and my son is no longer a baby but grown. And I believe he will take all I taught him with him, all packed up nicely in his mind and brain with little labels on these packages. I believe that if I am doing my best and if I am a lucky that the feeling I have now with flourish into the defining themes of his childhood which are acceptance, fun (a lot of it), trust and of course tons of love.

I just keep on what I am doing and I hope my son will always feel this great unconditional love my husband and I have for him and for each other.  And if there are these days my son might feel anything but love, I hope that all those feelings I try to put in him will rise up like a safety net, catching him wherever he may be and remind him of where he comes from and that no matter what, our love always has been there and will never stop.