Why not keep it realistic this time? Not everything will be great, not everything will be awesome, there will probably be times where you want to hide under the duvet and quit. But that’s part of learning how to overcome crisis. So don’t be ashamed but immerse into your feelings and be grateful for all times.
The goodand the bad
The good and the bad, both serve a purpose and open new perspectives. Important is that we keep the balance (which is my word for 2022). The balance between not so easy and awesome. Even out bad times with lots of good times.
Zen stones
Like these stacks of zen stones, we will have heavy ones and flat ones, light ones and small ones, but at the end they all lift us higher and are our path towards being a better person!
The past year hasn’t been easy for many, probably 2022 won’t be either, but there’s only one option: move forward and be positive because you will become what you think.
Don’t
Don’t get used to miserable and negative thoughts, this won’t change your life for the better!
Instead watch out for all the things you are grateful for, for all the luck you have in your life! Focus on the good and I’m sure there’s more good than bad in your life.
Not another New Years resolution
My aim, and that’s not another New Years resolution but more a life decision, is to invite balance into my life. We all need both to cherish what we have, the art is to keep the balance between “oh that sucks” and “how awesome is this”. Both, happiness and sadness, cannot exist without one another. It’s like yin and yang, be centered within.
I say thanks to a wonderful year, which surely wasn’t wonderful daily but which was summed up a great year. In short, I got an awesome new job, I have a wonderful family, I … wait … isn’t that even enough? This is what I mean, we don’t need to strive for thousand things to make our life happy – instead we should focus and then we realise that we already are full of happiness with what we have.
Thanks for being here on my little blog, thanks for reading and commenting, thank you!
I don’t want to promise you to write more frequently because I write when I can – life happens each day and not each day there’s something to tell the world and not each day is awesome enough to brag about it, instead I collect my thoughts, my ideas and my happiness whenever I can and try to create something worth reading once in a while.
Enjoy a new year full of new experiences to come, but don’t forget the mundane, the wonderful life you already created. Embrace the darker days knowing these will pass too.
Why Yoga is essential and more than a physical exercise
Many people still see yoga as some type of “sports” but with lots of “strange” spiritual people following the yoga path.
Is Yoga sports?
Yoga is so much more than sports and it is accessible for everybody. Truly everybody, there is no reason why not to start yoga.
For me it is a holistic way to create more balance, a healthier lifestyle and a positive mindset for myself but also for the people around me.
We only have this one body, so we should take care of it in the best way possible. You don’t need to over-do it, nobody has to bend into the most complicated yoga poses. It is not a competition, it’s a way of life. Your way to live.
I promise you, it can make you a better person, it’s a way to walk and you need to be consistent, but it works.
Why am I so sure?
Because, if you decide to include yoga in your life you will quickly realise that you change, for the better.
Mindfulness
Mindfulness is a big topic – cherishing the moment, being grateful for what you have, all the important thoughts which make you happier with less. Striving for more and more is not the way, it’s rather being happy with where you already are and working on your happiness on the inside instead of the outside.
Balance
Another topic is balance, a balanced lifestyle. Instead of rushing through everything you learn to stop and just be quiet. Let all the input we have daily settle and then sort and let go. We carry so much emotional luggage, who is able to cope with so much weight? Almost nobody.
Detox
Detox your life but also what surrounds you. Do we really need stack over stack of magazines. Will we ever read them?
Rather go through them and rip out what seems interesting, you will have one file left and read it because that’s all what’s of your interest.
Social Media detoxification is also great, I just went through my instagram and unfollowed step by step – we collect and collect and in the end we spent our time with watching other people cook their dinner?
I’m cleaning up my life and you wonder, wasn’t this article about Yoga?
Yes, and it still is! All of this is part of a Yogic lifestyle. Constantly balancing out and letting go of what you don’t need any longer.
Breathing
Breathing is a very important practice in Yoga and you can work with your breath. We breath through stress, we can calm our central nervous system during a panic attack with long deep breathing. Pranayama, the breathing techniques in yoga, have many benefits.
If you want to read in more depth I can recommend this book to you written by the wonderful teacher B.K.S. Iyengar:
Awareness
Yoga is being aware, aware of all that is and all you are. Meditation is nothing else than being an observer of your thoughts, becoming still in a world louder than ever before.
We hear so many noises each day and expect our brain to cope, so it’s on us to become still and breathe and give ourself this time of peace.
All of this and more is yoga
I left aside the physical practice for a reason. All until now is yoga and many do not recognise it as yoga.
We need to erase this picture that yoga is all about the poses and preferably perfect and posted on instagram because it is not.
Not every yogi is flexible, we all carry our own deficiencies and if you are good, then you don’t see it as a deficiency but as a chance. That’s the mindset I was talking about.
Not one of the yoga teachers on this planet is perfect, not one of the students is perfect, not one human being is perfect – and that’s why yoga is so wonderful, it can be adapted to your very own unique needs.
I hope you have now a better idea of yoga. And this is just the surface, there is so much to discover and learn that we can spend a lifetime exploring the beauty of yoga.
Minimalism is something I like so much. It gives you room, space, air – open spaces are a symbol of liberty.
How to start and apply this minimalism in a small flat which once was a single home? Now this is the home of our family, means my son, my husband and me and a change is needed.
The more we have the unhappier we are?
This sentence is partly true.
I am de-cluttering, everything, every tiny space in the house will be turned upside down. While doing this I start to realize how many things we have, how many unused items, how much of what doesn’t make us happier because most of it is hidden behind doors, in the back of an wardrobe buried under something else.
What do we use and wear frequently, what do we use and wear from time to time, what do we use and wear never?
Sorting out makes me feel good. This act of letting go is not only sorting my wardrobe but also sorting my life.
How much do you have in your life that doesn’t make you happy?
Have you ever thought about it?
We live in an overflow of possibilities.
How many white shirts does one single person need? Seriously, even if you wear them 24/7, even if you change it twice a day – the amount of clothes in my wardrobe isn’t to be justified. Not even if I try to find an excuse.
This overflow is present wherever we go. I think we are a generation with an amount of choices that is hard to handle, especially when someone has not yet developed a certain kind of confidence.
If your path in life is not yet clear and you are searching for your personal way you will find thousands of possibilities and you end up in a jungle.
The importance of going back to the roots
I think it’s important to cut down what’s not needed as much as we can. I say extra as much as we can. We don’t have to start and go so far back in time that we have the next “problem”. A certain kind of minimalism is needed, at least for me. That doesn’t mean that I don’t want to use these billions of possibilities we have.
In contrary, it means that I am thankful for what we have. We are lucky to have this wonderful choice! The minimalism has to set in when we are choosing. Instead of taking all we can, which has the risk of getting lost again, we should take what we can handle.
I want to write, what I am doing here, that means I take the opportunity and use the internet for what I like to do.
I also would like to start a yoga teacher training and I could sign up right now. This opportunity is just a few clicks away. But I would not be able to succeed right now because I have a full-time job, a family with a toddler, a quite full calendar and barely time for writing and some yoga.
Do you see what I mean? I cut down and let go. That doesn’t mean this chance has passed, that means it isn’t fitting in at this moment. Once the toddler is older I may want to think about it again. Or I may have something else by then which is more important for my life at that stage. You never know where life goes. Things that were once important are vanishing from your life without leaving even traces. Sometimes it’s even enough to listen to your gut feeling.
My way
My way is just starting. Or even better said, this journey is the destination. Not everything in your life need to hit a predefined goal!
What am I doing in general?
I don’t have a plan, that means I go by intuition which is my way. Maybe you are the same kind because I have enough pressure in my life that I cannot fully control (like work for instance), it wouldn’t feel good to put myself under another kind of pressure. For some persons that won’t work because they need a strict plan in place. This is your way to find out what’s best for you.
I made a list, my list. It is kind of a plan, that’s correct, but it’s not written in stone. This list is like a working document. I add things as they pop up and I cross out either because it’s done or because it’s not important anymore. This list has no priorities, if I have checked something on it at the end of the day, then I’m happy. If not, then it is like it is.
To be honest, for me this works best, I don’t feel depressed when this list is long because I know that nothing on that list is urgent. Everything on there will make my life less cluttered once it’s done but without any pressure behind.
Let go AND change
My way doesn’t end here because I realized that it’s not only about minimizing what we have but also about making changes.
I used my electric toothbrush for years and would have had so many benefits in my brain to convince anyone to buy an electric brush. You don’t believe what I use now. A bamboo brush.
No plastic, no electricity, no batteries, no timer, no sounds, a simple and easy bamboo brush.
Does it make me happy? Yes!!!
I changed! The way forward for me is not only about getting rid of things. It is also to think about what we have and how we could improve there. Not feeding the plastic industry is a good feeling! This is just a small start.
I’m far away from being perfect and there are many things where I can start to check for alternatives. There are also many things where I don’t find alternatives because I wouldn’t feel happy with the alternative. And sometimes even there simply are no alternatives. The balance is the key, as it is so often. As long as you know where to cut things down you will be fine.
Every step you make to improve your life and your environment is important. If only each person is starting we all would make a difference. Be the example and show your family, friends and neighbors what alternatives we have.
This is my way.
I just started and am happy if you share what you are doing.
What about you?
Are you trying to change?
Are you living with all you need but not more?
Do you have stuffed closets and no clue what’s inside?
Are you lost in the jungle of possibilities you have?
How do you want to change your life?
Are you happy with your life as it is?
Let me know – I would love to hear your stories <3
I was practicing Yoga before pregnancy, almost until the very end of my pregnancy and I started about six weeks after birth again to roll out my mat and loved it but what happened then?
My baby started to move around. I think that was the point when I began to let go.
You prepare the place and it looks so inviting and before you start he wakes up after a 5 minutes nap that should have been a 2 hour nap.
And for sure you want your baby to grow and move and explore the world but not just at that moment when you are on your mat.
But that’s life – babies don’t care at all what you want and it is their right!
I’m always saying myself that I wanted him so much and that he deserves my attention. Life without him is unimaginable so what am I complaining about? But still, there’s a tiny voice inside of me saying that I deserve also some time for myself so I just started to check where to find this time because my yoga mat was invaded now by a toddler.
In general letting go is something wonderful, letting go old nasty habits, letting go people who stress you, letting go old wounds, letting go bad memories BUT why should I let go my personal realm?
I didn’t want to let it go, it just happened and I was too weak to scream STAY.
There were these endless nights of no sleep and days without one free arm, hours and hours of carrying a baby followed by hours and hours of breastfeeding. And then you see these super-fit moms on Instagram who breastfeed their babies while being in a state of complete relaxation while standing upside down – yes, this is what I needed to be more frustrated even.
We struggle more often than you can even imagine and all of a sudden the baby is asleep and then we worry if he or she is fine instead of using the time to relax, we think we need to be perfect but hey – we DON’T NEED to be perfect – we need to survive this crazy journey of being a mom to be there as we promised our babies in the very first second after birth.
“I’ll be there for you until the end of my life and beyond, my love for you will never die!”
My son is now 14 months and have no idea where all this love is coming from but I love him more each day although I thought it cannot be bigger than when we first met. BUT I am also tired on some days and stressed on others and sometimes both.
My Yoga practice is, let me call it, slightly irregular but I found out that I need less time to relax than before I was a mom. Less time because I know that I need to grab every second as this will be better than nothing so I relax while folding clothes, I relax while having a shower, I relax while being out for a walk when he sleeps, I relax these 5 minutes on the playground when he’s happily eating the sand again (it will improve his immune system, that’s what I tell myself because I cannot stop him anyway).
Today I had really time for yoga, my husband and my son had an afternoon nap and finally I rolled out my mat (to realize that I’m stiff like a wooden stick but who cares) and yes, it felt so so so good.
But more often the truth is that I try to squeeze in 5 minutes with a messy bun on my head just to have the feeling I haven’t lost my yoga at all.
I know that this is just a phase and that things change, until then I will embrace this motherhood exactly the way it is! Mostly the best ever and sometimes just beyond my strengths.
Stay strong dear moms out there because you know what – WE ROCK (no men can even imagine what we are capable of and we should be proud of ourselves!)
Standing on the mat for a few deep breaths is sometimes all we manage but that’s fine because we feel alive and know that one day these few deep breaths are just the start of a whole new yoga practice because our children grew up and we miss them on our mats so deeply.
I am thankful that I am experiencing all of this, even if it’s not easy from time to time, I just see my son and know it all is so worth it and everything happens for a reason!
