I DON'T HAVE TIME FOR THIS BEEP

So.

This week was hectic to say the least. Maybe it was for you too?

It's easy to when we have much going on to kind of let go of the good routines or our practise... and sometimes that might honestly be what we need. To feel good is not always obsessing about the healthy and forcing our rituals on ourselves when we already have a lot of strain. Sometimes a cup of hot chocolate can bring just as much feeling of goodness as the healthiest thing you can think of.

What I'm trying to say here is don't be too hard on yourself if you can't stick to it sometimes, especially when you feel you've already got the world on your shoulders. That's when you need that extra support. To feel the world got your back.

Don't color your day with a bad mood.

But then there's that inner struggle of I HAVE TO THIS AND I HAVE TO THAT AND AAAAAAH! So there's things to be done, 

but 

what you need the most is your breath. You can return to it at any time. Wherever you are. It takes no time and very little effort. Yet it gives much back. That's the beauty of it.

If you're stressed. Breathe. 

If you are in pain. Breathe. 

If you're upset. Breathe. 

If you're overwhelmed. Breathe. 

If you've had enough of reading this just give yourself a break and breathe instead. 

Surely you will get into that kind of situation again. Not all days can be a manifestation of flow. Of course you can prepare for the challenges, but when all is said and done... in the heat of the moment there might feel like there is only one way (there is never just one way!) and we might forget all about our brilliant techniques of stress management when we need them the most. 

When it happens just remind yourself.

Take a moment.

You can choose how to feel. 

You can choose a better way.

You got this.

You have time for this breath.

Wrists: Strength instead of strain!

I had my first full class teaching experience last week and tomorrow I am getting ready for the second session of Hatha yoga (which I've written more about in an earlier post.) Happy to say I am more excited than nervous. This is my thing. Feeling it! This has also been a good opportunity for me to dive back into the basics, to better explain to the students.

In work and our everyday life we put a lot of strain on our wrists. Using computers, pencils, phones and more we're letting the fingers and our whole hands get into a closed almost grabby state. This means when we open up the hands as we do i.e. downward facing dog we may feel strain in the wrists due to the hands not being flexible enough. Since all is connected within the body, if you're not flexible in one place it will be taken out in another area. It may sound like a good thing, but it can get you into a lot of strain or even injury. So let's stay clear of that. 

A point I like to add is that in my family we have a history of wrist pain. Yoga has made it much better for me, but we're all different. If your wrist pain is due to a medical condition always consult your physician first. It's important to listen to your body as well as to challenge and build yourself up. 

Of course I have to recommend a video to help you on your way: Yoga with Adriene got the stuff!  The "Yoga for wrist pain" video is a both fun and great way to work on the wrists so you can enjoy your practise even more. I love her energy and playful take on yoga, but if that's not your style, you crave something else or just want more there are loads online on wrists and yoga.

Stay balanced!

Saint on wheels

Life.

Life is an incredible thing. Yet with all these horrors of the world fed to us daily by media and the worried feeds reflecting and affecting our minds it's easy to forget the many wonders of the world. For everything bad I believe there is an equivalent opposite wave of fortunate events, of good will, of magic moments... and the vast opportunities provided to us by life to have your breath taken away by that which is truly genuine.
Today was an awakening day in that sense. I was shown something horrifying and then something marvellous came to me. That reminded me that our power to create exceeds the limits we could ever manage to make up. We cannot fully fathom despite our advanced tools, our science or our philosophy. The beauty of it all is too complex. Today was the day I realised a few more of the many dimensions of happiness, this colourful spectre. The rain did it's best to wash this smile off my face in vain. All this energy... I must make something of it! Tonight I will make my grand first test of the 3D software Maya.

As pieces fall together new spaces seem to appear in this beautiful puzzle of life. It will keep challenging, keep growing and forever tend to link humanity together in the strangest ways.

Ego - Join the FIGHT CLUB?

There are things that can trigger insecurities within us, be they external or internal. I found myself stumbling, not tripping on my shoe laces this time, but struck to inner grounds by faults. Sometimes we look for excuses as to why we should sink so low beneath us. We ought to stand up for our choices instead even when we have wronged. Accept the trespass. Ok. That's all right, we might be wrong. Our faults are not a part of our identity.

For the most part when we feel sorry or guilty it means that we got a conscience (or it is echoes of a past etched into our behaviour). A healthy conscience a beautiful mechanism to make us aware of the path we want to go and warn us when we start to stray from it. The reminders can be painful, but when you fall you have the chance to get up and do things a little differently. You don't stay down for days, weeks or even longer when you trip in the real world to wallow in pity and curse yourself. That's only what we might do in our heads and hearts from time to time. How strange that would be if our physical self would do exactly the same as our mental self. Just imagine... what kind of fight club scenes would become a regular part of our everyday life?

 No fear. No distractions. The ability 

to let all that which does not matter slide. 

So what am I beating myself up about? To not get into a specific situation, I got a nasty greed in my heart... It eats the good things and it always craves more. The thing about greed is you can never satisfy it. Atleast not for long. My greed likes to win, get attention, own and get the sensation of new materialistic belongings. Greed likes to think it needs to be heard all the time. Greed thinks the universe revolves around it. Greed is childish, irrational and a goddamned baby that will tear down everything to get it's attention and toys. We must recognize that this destructive habit is a monster which we can choose to adopt but we can also choose to feed it or not. It's not a cute pet, actually it's more of a parasite of the mind. Manipulative and dangerous as it can disguise itself in our voice repeating the disempowering mantras I, I, I, I, I, and me, me, me, me, me.

"Most people do not listen with the intent to understand;

they listen with the intent to reply." - Stephen R Covey (author)

What to do? 
- Notice when the ego and greed is at work. Study it. Take note of what makes it grow.
- When you know what makes it grow try to strangle the source. Either cut down gradually or it off completely. I find Maun Vrat (see earlier post) to be an efficient way of silencing the ego and land in the moment. Of course it can in our society be hard to engage in complete silence but you can choose to try and only say the absolute necessities for a while.
- Meditate on gratitude and the moment.
- Reconnect with your true self. Now you don't have rush off on a quest to know who you are. If you feel you don't know, just know that you are complete in this moment exactly as you are. The basic things are all you really need. Everything else is excess.
- Step out of the self by listening to your surroundings or by keeping your physical or mental training steadily moving forward.
- Discipline is a great tool for mastering the ego. Moderation, self-control and keeping promises and plans. Be honest when you can't follow through. Keep your goals realistic.
- Try to be as humble as you can by admitting your mistakes, practise acceptance, forgivness but above all love.

A time to contemplate.

Photography by Malin Sandhu.

Stop fighting yourself.
Master your mind and you won't have to smack yourself in the face every time to wake up to the actual situation. It is with a gratitude I receive this lesson, although somewhat resisting it at first. I hope that by sharing this I might help fellow souls on their journey.

I might be a bit quiet for a while now. All the best.

Don't believe in magic...

... but I have undeniably turned into a book worm.

Borrowed this fantastic book The 8 human talents from a new friend (hello and thank you!) and picked up Yoga anatomy from the post office today which I will start reading straight after. I've also taken up on the physical yogic practice again after a long episode of feeling under the weather.

Speaking of reading... life is for the most part about school at the moment. If you're curious as to a little of what I'm studying here's my blog for the Learning and digital media involvement course. It doesn't sound sexy, but it's actually interesting and important topics regarding our world today.
We've started with some light digital photography as well, so I dusted off lilla Annas Sony DSLR A200 and I now try to bring it with me wherever I go.

Other than that I've been making up for lost time with my mermaid sister, gotten my DIY on with carving wood frames (I'll show you when significant progress is made) and redecorated the speakers I got from her husband... with a pair of old stockings! It sounds weird maybe but the result was quite fantastic. Check out the left picture above! Yesterday me and Rebecka went to see José Gonzalez playing live in Göteborg. It was beautiful. He was like a rare acoustic sea creature swimming in blue light and brilliant sound waves. Worth mentioning is that Rebecka is also the sweet soul who gave me my first sunflower which she planted. See right pic above. She's devoted to the wellness of our planet and will soon start up a little etsy shop with eco stuff. I predict awesomeness!

If you haven't heard of it tonight is the night of the blood moon. Definitely going to see it and make sure the camera is charged.

Back to the books!

Bad at nothing?

So there's not been a word from me in a while. It's not because I'm doing nothing. Frankly I'm quite bad at doing nothing. They don't call me a project horder for nothing. Even on days off there's often a to do list. Despite this the yoga pracise is now on hold apart from a bit of stretching and occasional restorative asanas. Not because I wanted to stop, but because I had to. I've had an awful cold for almost three weeks now and it's been going up and down like a rollercoaster and I fear the fact that I wasn't accepting the changed physical limits and pushed myself like I was invincible is what kept me under the weather. Now is the last stage of this cold, I can feel it. The final hill. Finally.

Now is also the last of the summer. You know when you're so close to reaching your goal and something gets in the way, something which is not an obstacle you can overcome... the disappointment can be great. I wasn't too far from that head stand I said I would do before the end of summer... when I caught this cold. I know I will be able to do sirsasana, but before summer is over? No certainty. I want to curse this stubborn cold, but what's the use...

Looking at sickess from a positive angle it is actually helpful to us. It can help us slow down and realize the importance of rest and recovery. Help us realize that we should be happy for each day that we and the ones around us are in good health, never taking it for granted. Also for you multi-taskers, doers and project horders like me... learn how to do nothing! This skill is easy to forget in the world we live in today. I'm not advising apathetically staring at walls here, what I'm talking about is actively chosing to not engage in any activity. To put things at hold to put yourself first. To recharge. To simply be and find your positive way of mind. Stop yourself if you hear yourself saying or even thinking I AM SICK. The sickness is NOT a part of you. Your immune system is not a rare mythical creature hiding far away (although the pharmacies would like you to believe otherwise). You got the ability to heal yourself always. Believe in it.

Another good thing about these passed weeks is that I've had a lot of time to plan for my new life as a student. So this term I'm happy to announce I will start my education in Digital Media in a little town near Göteborg!

That's about all I can give today. I don't know when I'll see you again, might be tomorrow, might be two more weeks... in any case I wish you luck on your journey.
Peace be with you.

Throw the children into the water!

This said the person who almost drowned:

I WON'T SET A FOOT IN THE  WATER EVER AGAIN UNTIL I HAVE LEARNED 
HOW TO SWIM!   

Sadly this kind of mentality is not a stranger to us and in society today. We expect ourselves to know certain things and when we're told we can't we just won't do it until we can.
How does that even..?
Yes, it makes no sense.

We don't throw little children who don't know how swim into deep waters yet we tend to do that to ourselves expecting great things at areas in which we have poor skills or no practise. When we wish to learn something new we must remember the children and the patience we show them. The small steps we allow them take. The gradual progress. The reward and praise we show them for every little movement forward.

Jake the dog of Adventure Time

Maybe you can remember a moment when patience was shown to you when you was little and new to the world. If you think about it you're still taking steps, but with greater expectations of yourself but also with the freedom of choosing your own path. So if you find you are in the mindset of "I won't until I can" in an area or skill you wish to master just patiently remind yourself that we don't have teleporters yet. You need to take those steps to get there. Make sure to see your own greatness and reward yourself for it.

How do you treat your friends when you know they are trying? Strangers who are newbies? Are you as harsh to them as you are to yourself? Why don't you cheer for yourself? How do you REWARD YOURSELF? If you don't have an answer for the last question it's time you start thinking about the things you want. The things you like. The things that make you feel good. So you can celebrate your own goodness.
The goodness is strong with This One.

The whispering game

It is my belief that we make our own destiny, blessings, coincidence, luck or whatever you choose to call it. We are open to recieve the very moment we start searching for it. You can sometimes precieve it as a chapter, perfectly written just for you. This has been the case as of lately for me. The title of this chapter? Gossip. 

It came to me at work. Someone said something shocking to me about someone else that I never would have guessed and I was at first interested, but refrained from asking anything, just saying "nevermind, let it go". Some started talking badly of someone when they were upset to the point they were painting up a bad picture of this person, which wasn't of course true. This image they were giving was something fuled by their own incapability of actually dealing with the issue. This made me wonder. Are the people here talking about me too? What are they saying?

As these gears were turning I found a poem about gossip in one of my yoga books, then came song after song after song and finally the three monkeys' meditation which was introduced to me at the daoistic yoga class one morning. I think you've seen the monkeys before: One with covered eyes, one with covered ears and one with covered mouth representing see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

Me and two other monkeys!

Anywhere you go you can find gossip. Some find it's fun to talk (because they're bored or boring?) to made verbal charicatures and have a laugh on someone else or spread details that sound like yummy little secrets. Sometimes it's done to intentionally harm others reputation, to bring down, to make someone smaller. Other times it's just "for fun". Even media is all about that trash talk, shaming and connecting the dots completely wrong. 

It's easy to get caught up in the gossip machine and it's fine to talk about others, but chose your words wisely. Everyone remembers the whispering game, right? It teaches us an important lesson already in kindergarden: one says one thing, passes it on and as it moves from mouth to mouth there is always a risk of misinterpretation, exaggeration and sometimes just wild guessing. That's probably how someone in someone could end up a lesbian drug using fart sniffing Jehovas witness and a necrophiliac worshipper of the devil... all at once. WHAT? That's just some things I heard about me once. If people know anything about anything it's that being a Jehovas witness (which my father is, not me) would rule out drug use, homosexuality, any form of worship other than that of the guy in the sky and most definately there would be no necrophiliac business going down. As for fart sniffing... haha you people are gross for just thinking that. What, because my name rhymes with the swedish word for fart? Lovisafisa. Well that's clever and original of you.

We can't stop everyone from talking, that's just what some do. What we can do however is to not help turn the rumor mill by showing ZERO TOLERANCE. Don't shut up or show any signs of agreement, but instead wake them up to the fact that gossip is bad news and something that you're not supporting. Help them realize what they're doing. Real friends appreciate your honesty and you can be yourself around them. Your common interests should be based on other things than downgrading others. If you're afraid they'll start talking about you then that's just a sign they're not true friends, eh? 

Here's things you can say when you end up in a "rumour room":

- What's the purpose of this talk? 

- I'd rather form my own opinion in the matter, thank you very much.

- Why don't you bring it up with the person in question if it's bothering you so much? 

- I would never say anything about someone that I couldn't say to their face.

- Is this true? How do you know it is? Why is this important to you? 

Going back to the three monkeys, seeing, hearing and speaking no evil is not about IGNORING or pretending that there is nothing going on. On the contrary. It's about being aware that there are preconcieved notions, misunderstandings and bad intentions rooted from the seeds of pain, ignorance or fear. It's about being true to yourself, trusting your own ability to decide what's going on, not based on the everyday small talk.

Some songs on the theme for a possible future youtube playlist. 

Son house - Grinnin' in your face
Rudimental - Rumour Mill feat. Anne-Marie & Will Heard

Janelle Monae - Tightrope

Taylor Swift - Shake it off 

What brings you up and out of the mindless talk? Let me know if there are any songs that you would like to see on the list. Cheers!

It's comic, but not haha funny.

Vanity is certainly not a new thing, but with social media, selfies and the chronic show off syndrome (even in the yogic field) I sometimes feel great concern for future generations and how they look upon themselves. 

It's kind of creepy. 

The picture? How we behave? 

I leave it up to you to decide. 

This well articulated illustration from Johanna Rubin Dranger's comic Miss Remarkable and her career (original title: Fröken Märkvärdig och Karriären, 2010) demonstrates a real issue we're facing here, in double sense. It's comic, but not haha funny. We've become brilliant multitaskers, kind of watching ourselves in all we do, not truly experiencing, not really there. We're only getting a close up of ourselves as we think about what other's think or what we think they're thinking. They're probably not even thinking about you. They're most likely thinking that you're thinking something about them. I do this sometimes too and can assure you that this behavior gives a very one sided, incomplete picture of ourselves and reality. 

Can't we find and eliminate the root of the problems instead getting caught in an endless treating of symptoms? Most of the things that we're trying to not even remove but smooth out are emotional issues, physical pain, appearance related issues... all of which commonly can be traced back to the stress that we're under, which often is of a vain character. Even on holiday. Look your best. Beach 2015. Show off the coolest things you've done, the nicest things you've bought. The expensive food and drinks. Wow! WOW! Look at you! 

Remind yourself that what you see around you is manmade. It's great magic tricks to make you doubt yourself and believe in their spells. You don't need anything of it. You need only remind yourself of what's really important. Remind yourself why you're doing things. If you're not liking your reasons... change them or what you do! It's up to you to actually live the life you want, not just looking like you live the life you think others want.