.SOMETIMES RAW.

Hello and Happy Saturday! 

“We have a tendency to want the other person to be a finished product while we give ourselves the grace to evolve.”

I wrote about mentally growing many times on my blog in one way or the other. This is just one big theme here  because I think it is so important. There is so much out there that is interesting and worth discovering and learning. I also know that all I really need, I already have. The basics, you know. I think this is a great way to look at life. Just take a little assessment of your life right now. I would guess you have enough food, shelter, clothes (and usually way more than you need) and other basic necessities. I also guess you have someone who loves you or someone who cares about you. Family, friends and whatnot. Aren’t you quite comfortable, or mostly comfortable with what you have? 

Many don’t see life this way. They are miserable and constantly look for more. More materialistic things, more possessions, more entertainment and more gadgets to take their mind and thoughts off trying to find out who they really are. I did this for the longest time too; however, I am on a little different path now. These days I appreciate every single moment. Every single moment of being alive and I don’t take it for granted. I had been reminded of all this again because I have spoken to a  friend who’s father is very very sick and the Reiki Seminar I am attending this weekend. What actions can we take to help us remember that all we have is all we need? 

Stop complaining about things. Appreciating what I have in my life (food, possessions…) and enjoying the simple moments (those without entertainment) works best for me. 

Respect. Respecting others and giving everybody this respect we would like to receive. And live and let live. 

Meditation. I meditate daily for a while now and I just learned some great new techniques to calm down, relax and find inner peace. Amazing stuff. 

For me it is still hard sometimes to be in the present and being grateful all the time. Just think about all the distractions every single day and all that is going on – especially family/internal stories. I am getting better and better at it though because it is a process I am willing to focus on. I am willing to learn and evolve. Also feeling good about myself and who I am is important to become a greater version of myself. Thinking more clearly about the choices I make and why I make them is on the agenda. Life constantly moves on, it ebbs and flows every single day. I discover insecurities and successful or failed friendships; however we are all connected like in a spiderweb. One link falls, the spiderweb is destroyed. What I have discovered about myself so far: I see myself more clearly. I like what I see and it feels good to be in the here and now. I also learned that I let others be exactly how they want to be. Whatever makes them happy is fine with me. I don’t want to change anybody. If someone asks for advice on how I do things or on why things work for me in certain ways I am glad to help. 

I will forgive an move on. See the good in people and uplift other. I want to be a light for people who need one and accept anybody for who they are, meet ideas and things with some type of curiosity rather than being judgmental. Your Vibe Attracts Your Tribe – it is important who you surround yourself with. You have this urge to gossip? Talk about clothing for hours? Talk about nothing meaningful or rather spend time with people who uplift you and make you grow – mentally and spiritually? Whatever you chose, as long as it is okay with you and you are not feeling unsure about your own self. If we only point at both – mistakes and flaws in others, it is simply only distracting from our own stuff we struggle with and so it won’t feel so heavy and obvious. 

Changing and growing one single inch and just a little closer to my best self – whatever I envisioned and giving others the permission to be free too, that is a pretty thing. 

Hello and Happy Wednesday! 

I travel quite a lot with my family. For one because le husband is stationed in Congo; and soon Somalia. If he wants to see us we fly halfway, he flies all the way or we fly all the way to see him.  It is always something new but then again exciting. It is not easy to travel alone with a toddler. It was not easy to travel with Petit Joel when he was just five weeks old; then again my mom and I managed. We flew so many times by now that he and I have the main drills down if we fly alone. Whenever we are fortunate and le husband flies with us it is of course a lot easier. I wrote a post on flying with a baby a while ago if you would like to read it. 

What usually freaks me/us out when flying  are time changes. We tried many different options already. Flying really early but then we needed to get up at 3 am. Or flying late in the evening and at night and wake up in the new country. It has all its pros and cons. We just figured out what works best for us and I would like to share some tips and tricks today. Enjoy! 

Wear your child(ren) physically out if you fly in the evening. I don’t even remember how many times we went back and forth on this escalator. He loved it so much. We ran around with him at the airport. Even though it is stressful and you would love to just sit down and read a book (those times are pretty much over when flying with a toddler), but let him discover. You want your child completely exhausted so they can comfortably crash on the plane. 

NO SUGAR! I thought it won’t hurt to give Petit Joel a bit of milk chocolate or a chocolate croissant. Well, it did hurt. A lot. In my head. He had even more energy after eating this garbage than without. Obviously. With this being said, it is important to keep some sort of rhythm. We try to eat meals according to clock time. This way our bodies adjust quicker and a lot better to the new sleep schedule. Usually, whenever we arrive late somewhere, I give him a little snack and something to drink, if he wants to, before bedtime and he is fine and sleeps right trough. I have to mention here that my son is one of the best baby/toddler-sleepers I have ever met. [Sleeps through from 8. 30 pm until 10.30 am! almost every single night]

For him to sleep that well, he needs complete quiet- and darkness. The room literally has to be pitch black. When we rent houses they usually have blinds that work pretty well. But if not, we just attached a blanket to the window somehow. Le husband is pretty creative in that department. [Barcelona!] A well-rested toddler is a happy toddler so we try everything possible to make him (and us) as comfortable as possible. An extra hour of sleep, I mean c’moooon, right! We all usually adjust to the time change within a day. 

We always take my his iPad mini. I downloaded a bunch of great apps for toddlers and this keeps him entertained for a long time. Petit Joel will be three years-old in October and he is more familiar with the iPad than my parents. Some think this is bad but I do not. He has educational apps on it, he knows how to count to ten in English and German and learnt so much more with this amazing tool. We live with it, we learn from it; this is the future. At the same time he also plays in the dirt and runs around naked, duh! It is all balanced. 

The obvious you need to take is something to eat and drink. Always make sure you have enough (sugar-free) options available. I usually take pretzels, crackers, Knäckebrot and of course water to nibble on until airplane food arrives. He is a picky eater still, but anything pasta works!  My son LOVES apple juice so I keep a bottle of it close by and mix it with water. 

Airlines usually offer pillows and blankets and I don’t take anything like it with me. I just have my son’s favorite blanket that serves as a pillow and if he needs something to cover I take my jacket. I travel light and minimalistic, even with a toddler. And it works. 

Happy travels to you! Do you have other tips and tricks that work well? 

“We are disclosing animals, wired for unburdening. It’s what we do as a species. When I am being told, I listen, mindful of the honor, remembering all the while that the shore would be mistaken to believe that the waves lap up against him because he is so beautiful.” 

Hello and Happy Sunday! 

I re-read David Rakoff’s Half Empty a while ago and I am a huge fan. My glass is usually half full but it is interesting to read about people who prefer their glass half empty and like to be on the negative side of the pond most of the time. I am a huge David Sedaris fan and David Rakoff is right up his alley. Rakoff’s theory is that “…all research is Me-search” and I like to reflect on how annoying and at the same time right-on he can be. 

Great entertainment in ten essays make you find out about the power of negative thinking with a pretty sweet pace of challenging sentences or as Rakoff puts it “my ideas move like cold honey”. Throughout the book, Rakoff refers to being Jewish, Canadian, gay and “freakishly small” and I was pleasantly surprised by the content. With this series of autobiographical essays that are mostly based on disappointment, failure and pessimism, Rakoff’s holds up a mirror to society, all with this amazingly dry humor that I love. Sometimes his writing style is pretty dense and some people might be put off. There are just many tangents he goes off on and I also had to re-read certain passages but I love challenges. 

“There will be peaks of great joy from which to crow and vales of tears out of which to climb. When and why they will happen, no one can say, but they will happen. To all of us. We will all go back and forth from one to the other countless times during a lifetime. This is not some call to bipartisanship between inimical sides. The Happy and the Sad are the same population.”

While Rakoff wrote Half Empty, he was diagnosed with a malignant tumor and began chemotherapy. Unfortunately he passed away in August, 2012. In his essay “Another Shoe” is a little twist of his usual humorous take on negativity. He describes how he felt when his cancer came back and that he is struggling through it with hope and this strong belief that it does not really matter what goes on with your life, you must hang on and keep moving forward. The book is just an amazing mix of laugh-out-loud moments and funny images that he described in such a way that some would stay with me for days. 

“My room is cheerfully located between the sixth-floor elevators. The springs of my bed wheeze. The elevator dings. The ice machine right outside my door rumbles forth its icy bounty, a steady tattoo that beats “Stay up! Stay up!” I am in a canvas that Edward Hopper never felt bummed out enough to paint.”

Sarcastic, funny, thought-provoking, sometimes sad, sometimes very funny, delightful and brilliant. For David Rackoff or David Sedaris fans a must-read! Enjoy! 

Order the book here. Also, watch this interesting video below if you would like. Have a great week.