Posted on

Please BE Yourself

Please BE Yourself

44932517_526636204475124_2938795436296634368_n

I start to go mad more and more – as a mom and as a woman and as a human – why the heck do people tend to be pretenders?

I mean, seriously, there are tons of face filters in social media nowadays and yes, it’s sometimes fun, but as soon as someone is not seeing it like a fun gimmick anymore but seriously thinks that we need them it’s weird.

Where are the real sunsets, where are the real wrinkles after long nights, where are the real bad hair days, where are the real people?

I’m afraid to meet people I know only from their social accounts as I would expect flowers in their hair or ears from dogs on their head (how weird is that in between?). If the face has no softener applied, would I even recognize them in real life?

Also, the #eathealthy hash taggers, would I recognize you sitting in the fast food restaurant with a huge burger in your hand?

44940968_1917792191675454_28379004998254592_n

And I can confess that under the apples there is a drawer full of chocolate – this is what life is about! The balance! I don’t have make-up applied, just a filter – why? Besides , I’m not even perfect at using these filter things as my hair still stands up on both sides and I cannot help it 🙂

Are there yogis with picture where they just are normal standing without striking a pose?

I’m happy there are! But I’m not happy that these are still a minority.

There’s a trend now to go back to more reality because life isn’t perfect – there are lots of perfect moments but the majority of them went by too fast to even take a picture and that’s good – only then we start to realize the importance of those moments.

But even for the hashtags #reallife or #morerealityon… I see thousand of pictures where I ask myself where the reality is visible.

I said I’m mad and I can tell you why – we are adults, we are leaders, we are teachers, we set expectations and if we keep it like it is we will have generations of insecure people who never feel good enough in everything they are doing. They feel ugly because their face isn’t lit up by a virtual rainbow in the morning, they feel incapable because their so delicious meal doesn’t look delicious at all regardless from which ankle they try to make that picture, they feel boring because they don’t have each day five really exciting pictures to post.

Do we want the next generations to be like that? Do we want to teach our children that life happens in these devices?

NO – I don’t want this!

I absolutely love my online, virtual communities, but I want to see a shift there, I want to see what’s really going on.

Nobody needs to pour their heart out in public, unless you want to, but can we stick to what is instead of what I want it to be?

I’m tired, my hair isn’t perfect, I look pale due to a lack of sleep, but my eyes shine when I see my son learning something new. These moments are visible if you focus on what counts – no judging but loving.

I slowly get back to my yoga – one step at a time, sometimes two steps back, yes, that’s real! I would love to send each day a great yoga pose out on Instagram to impress, but that’s simply not me. I struggle to hold the crow that I could so perfectly two years ago. I will never go into a headstand (or at least I feel as if I will never manage that right now!). This NOW is my reality but that doesn’t mean that my NOW is not enough, not worthy, not something I like.

We all have phases where we accomplish more and phases where we are adjusting and phases where we are still and where we are loud, phases where we are beyond happy and phases where we are depressed – ALL of this is us and that’s PERFECT!!!

Be real – do it for your own sanity, do it to show others that this life is not a fairy-tale and that it’s OK to be … (however you feel right now)!

Rant over – enjoy this beautiful life and embrace every moment!

If you like – follow me on Instagram and let’s create a #BeREAL community which is uplifting and empowering! See you there 🙂

 

 

Posted on

Crazy days of motherhood

Crazy days of motherhood

Crazy days of motherhood

Life ain’t always easy…

After a working day, without the still breastfed toddler at home, I thought I pick him up in the kindergarten and quickly jump into the supermarket to buy a few things.

Bad bad bad idea, that was the worst idea I ever had.

I think there is a breastfeeding brain which is similar to the pregnancy dementia.

What happened?
I’m sitting just now in the back of our car, toddler is drinking half asleep from a breast the size of a giant melon.
I was barely able to focus on what I wanted to buy, forgot the soup but didn’t care because the main goal was to get somehow back to the car without fainting or crying or both because of the milk overproduction.

When I went into the supermarket I thought all is fine until all of a sudden this insanely pain was hitting me and the mean part is, without warning, in waves, just as if it wants to pinch me once in a while to tell me there are more important things than food for mom – food for the toddler is ready.

Whoever said breastfeeding is all snuggling and lovely and precious and nice (which it of course is very often) forgot that it can be painful and raw like this as well.
As soon as he latched I felt the first small relief, after 5 minutes I felt already better and not scared anymore.
If you are alone with your child in a big store and feel so crappy it is scary, isn’t it?
For me thoughts run weird and uncontrolled through my mind. It’s similar to a panick attack which is hitting you out of the blue without upfront warning.
What if I would faint?

Would I fall in a direction, onto my child or just collapse – why did I put him in the carrier – he’s in danger if I faint – is my husband at work answering the phone if someone would call him now – what was that stabbing sensation in my left breast – who’s taking care of my son – or was it from the heart – how should he get up to here when I have the car – calm down, you won’t faint, it’s just too much milk – he will be completely scared if mommy isn’t there – get out here as fast as you can – now it seems to be better – no, the pain comes in waves – do I leave or grab some more milk, better go, right?

This is a thought-circle which I cannot stop at that moment although I know very well that instead of calming down it’s pushing me more into the panicking corner.
Am I the only one who has these thoughts?

We start to relax now, the fear subsides and life comes back, how glad I am today for this car. Sitting here is like a shelter, it’s our little place to securely and safe with locked doors get back to a normal state. I wrote in another post about our messy car but in exactly this moment I’m so thankful that we have everything inside that car – a blanket to cover my little boy who’s really sleepy now, a bottle of water for me to drink something while feeding him, I could even charge my phone if I want to but right now we are fine.

Who needs soup?

I put the sleeping precious milk vampire into his car seat, cover him with his elephant blanket, check my shirt if all is covered again before I leave the backseat and start the engine to drive us home.

Thanks for these days because sometimes I need exactly that to realize how blessed we are and how happy I can be that we have all these possibilities.

What’s one of your crazy motherhood experiences?

Posted on

Do I have to explain my life?

image

Do I have to explain my life?
I recently asked me this question as I found myself in the situation of always explains that it’s not like that, that it’s different, that it’s not as they think…
What was it about. It was because I met my fiancé who’s not German. Even worse, he’s also not fitting into the European picture as he’s from the unknown continent Africa. Mystical stories about people there are in the heads of the common German or even in the heads of the common European. And for my story it’s even worse. Not only that he’s not European, he’s also a Muslim. All cliches existent, you can be sure I heard them already.
Where is he from? From Libya. Oh god, you will soon be sitting completely covered on a camel in the desert. Yes, that was exactly what I planned for my life was my answer. You can only reply in a sarcastic way to stupid comments like this.
But what I realized in myself was that each time I was asked about him I was already answering in a defensive way. Yes, he’s from Libya but he doesn’t want to marry me for a residence permit. Yes, he’s Muslim, but he’s open minded and it’s ok for him that I’m not religious at all. Yes, he has a big family in Libya but they will not influence him not to marry a non-muslim.
I saw myself acting like this and questioned myself. Why am I answering like this? Am I thinking the same way, are these my hidden fears? Definitely no. We talked hours over hours and are both completely aware that we led different lives up to now. I’m living on my own since years and was raised so freely. He was always close to his family and surrounded by them. As long as you are unmarried it’s normal to stay with your family whereas for me it was normal to leave when earning the first own money and to start a life on your own. Religion plays a big role in his life, which is even bigger as we are at the moment within the holy month of Ramadan. Whereas for me religion was present in an easy way from childhood into the teenage years and as adult I decided that Christianity is not my path and I signed out officially. So I am without any religion at all.
But, and this is what we realized very quickly, even if it seems so different from an outside position, we are not too different. My family is so close to me. We are not living together, not even in the same city, but if we don’t hear from each other like we are used to we feel incomplete. There are never more than two days without contact and news or changes or questions are discussed with my family before anyone else will know. And for the religious part, even if I don’t have one it doesn’t mean I’m unbelieving. I have values in my life, which I’m believing in, most of them already taught by my parents, who still are Christians, but I see them as values of life itself. Being honest, truthful, good to others, not cheating, not stealing, not lying, never harm anyone, don’t kill, don’t do something to others which you never want for yourself, and, and, and…
These are common values in life which also exist in each religion.
He met me like this, I found so many good things in different religions but I also found parts in them, where I cannot say that I agree on them. What I try is to live in the most valuable way I’m able too and to find inner peace with myself. Wherever this way leads to, I will see. And he is completely with me as he knows that I’m not worse than one with an official religion. You will find good and bad people everywhere, this is no proof.
He is him and me is me and we are happy that we found each other – so more more explanations why, how, when and where!
Maybe I write some day sitting on a camel, who knows…