I gränslandet mellan hopp och förtvivlan…     

Publicerad den av makikely
Renovering Myoga Wellness #magichappens Förtvivlan Wellness Warriors

Det känns som om väldigt lång tid har gått sedan jag skrev sist, men det var knappt en vecka. Det händer så mycket just nu, en dröm som förverkligas bjuder med sig omaka gäster: renoveringsröra, beställningar, schemaläggning, lite coaching-klienter, en del svåra nätter med mardrömmar, många tankar och val, för lite sol, en stark längtan till havet.

Och jag vet inte från en stund till en annan vilket ben jag ska stå på. Ibland väger det ena benet tyngre sedan plötsligt det andra fast jag kanske ska försöka stå med båda fötterna på jorden istället?

Vi håller på för fullt med förberedelserna inför ny-öppningen av wellness butikskaféet och det pågår en slitsam dragkamp mellan mitt huvud och min magkänsla, mellan vad jag är rädd för och vad jag tror på. Mellan röda riskprognossiffror och regnbågsfärgade visioner.

En ung tjej (hon lät ung i telefonen) ringde från tidningen idag och ville ha svar på varför, hur och när butiken skulle dra igång. Jag blev lite ställd när hon frågade ”Så vad är dina förväntningar?”. Jag blev tyst och tänkte (och frågade) vad hon menade för det är väl så att man startar igång ett projekt med syftet och målet att lyckas. Så den självklara förväntan är väl att det skall gå bra, attrahera massa kunder och generera en bra inkomst. Fast, måste man säga det?

Jag vet fortfarande inte riktigt vad hon menade så frågan sitter kvar i mina tankar, lite obekvämt som nya fotvänliga skor som skaver. Det ska de inte göra för det har expediten lovat men tårna och hälen säger annat. Ställde hon frågan för att hon inte trodde på affärsidén? Läste hon ett manus oanpassat till situationen? Vad ville hon höra mig svara?

Ja, vad förväntar jag mig? Att min satsning är ekonomisk försvarbar, självklart. Men också att mina kollegor och jag ska kunna göra människor lite gladare, lite friskare, lite mer medvetna om hur lätt det är att påverka så att även naturen och miljön har det lite bättre. Vi kallar oss lite allvarligt skämtsamt för Wellness Warriors för vi vill så gärna hjälpa många att bekämpa trötthet, stelhet, smärta. Vi vet att rörelse, kost och tankar håller ihop. När du kommer till oss blir det inga pekpinnar, inga ”inte”, inga hot, inga du och vi. Du får äta vad du vill, vara en asketisk atlet eller en bekväm soffpotatis. Du är lika välkommen om du tror på energier eller på statistik, om du tittar på stjärnorna eller följer tv-serier.

Vi vill erbjuda ett alternativ till medvetenhet genom mat och motion som vi har testat på oss själva, vi vill berätta om vår livsstil och dela med oss av det vi brinner för. Vi vill skapa en mötesplats, förmedla vad vi kan och vi vill lära oss av det du vet.

Var det kanske det jag skulle svarat reportern?

… efter regnet kommer solen.

Myoga Wellness öppnar den 3/8 och du är hjärtligt välkommen!

A case of lost identity.

Publicerad den av makikely
Lost identity

Identity theft is one of the most widely committed crimes in the world.

How do we define our own identity?

We are all born into different cultures, families and values. Later on we go to college, get a job, some of us get married and we put on new identities related to education, work title, social status. At least, that’s what I did. The man I married was the father of my children and the owner of the company I worked for. We ended up divorcing and a few years later, it became impossible for me to keep my job. So I sort of lost my identity twice within a three years period.

After the divorce, I had the opportunity and freedom to become who I wished to be. I decided to take the chance to remodel my identity and use my experiences to build something new. I made up my mind to move from the city I had lived in the past 20 years and challenge myself to learn new things, meet new people. I also wanted to put space between me and the (place I called) home we had built together and where his new wife had moved in. The day I packed my last box at work, he asked me if I wouldn’t consider staying. Stupid me thought that he was telling me that I was an asset to the company and that he still needed my skills. I was flattered, I felt important and I decided to stay.
I shouldn’t have.

Life went on, sweet and sour like it often is. They say there are no happy divorces and ours was no exception but somehow I thought we would stay friends (enough). Most hurtful was losing the dream of a family, my fantasies about grandchildren visiting and sleeping in their parents’ old rooms, the places we would travel with them. Another sad consequence of the breakup was losing people I thought of as friends who stopped talking to me because I was no longer “someone’s wife”. But all in all, I was happy to have a good job, a cozy apartment, enough nice persons to call friends and a wonderful, caring new companion.

But then came next “separation”. To be honest, I felt it coming. Attitudes, atmosphere, rumors, a lot of changes and then the crack, a nasty argument and I was out of my working place in one day – after 23 years. When you don’t get it the first time, life makes sure you understand it with a clear, new message: it was time for me to move on.

I knew that losing a job is never easy and can cause more distress than just a shrinking income but I had never experienced it personally. It took me a few weeks to understand it was over, like for real. And that I was not on holidays.
At first, I was relieved, I would never again have to face the hatred of the man I (will always) share parenthood of my children with. But, shortly after, I started waking up in the mornings with anxiety attacks. There I was, fifty years old, having worked all my life in the family business, doing my share to make it grow (from thirty-five employees when I started to almost six hundred when I left) and now I would have to find out what to do instead. Being out of work was a terrible feeling, in certain ways I lost my grounding, my footing, my definition. It gave me a sense of insecurity and made me question my place in this world.

‘Who was I? Where was I going? What was I good at? Who did I want to be? What would I do next? What would I do tomorrow morning at 8:00? Would I get up? Would I stay in bed?’ I had not lost a job; I had also lost a big part of who I was.

I felt angry, hurt, panicked, rejected, and scared. I had to use all my experience of coaching other people to remember what I preach, “We are what we think”. If we belittle our achievements and sense of worth with thoughts like “I am too old, I will never find a better job” or “What do I have to offer?” then we prevent ourselves from moving forward. I had to reroute my thoughts and focus on “What’s in this challenge for me?”, “How do I want to start the next chapter of my life?”.

I also tried to remember that many, if not most, successful people have experienced major failures in their careers and turned those failures around by learning from the experience, and trying again. To create the new me, I sat down (or went for long walks) and wandered through some major soul-searching to discover what I truly like doing most. Because, after all, I know we become very good at doing what we love. I wrote my résumé ten times before recognizing the person in it. Trying to define who I was in a CV made me understand how much I valued being the boss of me. More and more often I woke up thinking what a great opportunity it was to make a change, to do something different.  Not necessarily better, but different, something that can inspire me to move forward, maybe a small business, a new education, or stay-at-home-for-a-while-and-write-my-book dream.

There were many things I did to take control of the situation and maintain my spirits:

  • I kept a regular daily routine with a “start” and an “end”.
  • I took care of myself with better food and more exercise, a sweaty walk in the woods is a powerful mood and energy booster.
  • I got plenty of sleep.
  • I prioritized my yoga practice.
  • I took the opportunity to rethink my career goals and rediscover what would truly make me happy.
  • I walked with my kind neighbor (and her sweet dog) and talked to her about what I was going through. I didn’t want her to offer solutions, just be a good listener. The simple act of sharing made me feel better.
  • I wrote about my feelings, expressing everything as they felt.
  • I stopped beating myself up or criticizing or blaming myself for not leaving the first time I had the chance to.
  • I listed my positives, focused on the things I can control and looked for the silver lining. What could I learn from the experience?

Our jobs are much more than just the way we make a living. They influence how we see ourselves, as well as the way others see us. Our jobs give us structure, purpose, and meaning. That’s why job loss and unemployment is one of the most stressful things one can experience. I am so grateful to have friends and family who helped me remember I was more than my old life, more than my old job. I am also grateful for this experience, it will help me understand (and help) my clients if they ever end up in between jobs. And I am mostly grateful for the opportunity to try new things, like running my own little business.

And I will keep in mind that, if something doesn’t work out, there will be other ways.

“Life is like dancing. If we have a big floor, many people will dance.
Some will get angry when the rhythm changes. But life is changing all the time.”
~ Miguel Angel Ruiz

Never say never

Publicerad den av makikely
Regrets

“Don’t start today with the broken pieces of yesterday.”

I sat in bed last friday, trying like every morning to gather my thoughts and overlook my day. I was trying to watch and follow the clouds in an attempt to calm a pulsing and suffocating ball of anxiety that was making itself comfy between my solar plexus and my throat. A strange mixture of too full and too hollow, the feeling of missing something I have not yet been able to name and at the same time the need to uproot something that was trying to grow and invade me to fatal asphyxiation. (Yes, I have watched both Aliens and the Matrix and the cure to this evil discomfort, as a good friend suggested, might be a good spell from Harry Potter’s Hermione ).

”The ball” has a habit of showing up when I let doubt visit and stay in my dreams. Most of the time I can breathe “it” away, other times I try to reason with it, but now and then it just stays and expands and brings me so low down that I come to think that maybe stopping to breathe might be the only way to stop it. But then I remember how much I love breathing air into my lungs and how curious I am to know what “the ball” wants to tell me. A feeling this strong is not just visiting on its way to a luxury holiday in Vanuatu, there must be a coded message of transformation. Life is about being at a certain place at a certain time. If not, everything would be otherwise. Maybe better maybe worse, but definitely different. And we will never find out. Like we never know in advance what cards we are going to get and how we are going to play them. But if we enter the game, we find out.

I like to think of life as a challenging dish to prepare. We don’t always get all the ingredients that follow the recipe, but since we are hungry, we improvise and we eat to survive. Circumstances can make us jump miles away from our “normal” values and we end up doing things, making choices that we never would have under “normal” conditions (like eating bugs and worms after weeks without food). People we think we know can still surprise us with their actions and thoughts. And we can surprise ourselves too. In good or bad ways. I’ve learned to never say never because we never know.

If we take a closer look at it, avoiding pain, turning our head from truth is kind of selfish, it’s about protection. But fear is a prison and we are our own jailers. When we face our fears and are honest about the way we feel, fear slowly eases its grip and leaves room to strength. Giving in and accepting their full blow is the way to make peace with regrets and create space for something better to come in.

Instead of fairy tales à la “and they lived happily forever after” I wish we were read real stories about how important it is to let go of emotions, relationships and situations that are not allowing us to be happy. Stories about how to always try to do and be the best we can and manuals on understanding that “doing our best” is changing from a situation to another, depending on the circumstances, (although the parameter that should never change is our intention to never hurt). I think we can avoid much of the self judgement, blame and regrets gooey if we intentionally always do our best – even if we end up failing. Falling down is part of walking the path of life, getting back up and taking next step is growing. Real transformation requires real honesty and the biggest liar we can ever meet is often ourselves. It’s amazing the lies we can tell ourselves because of fear. And we know how lies pair up with blame, shame and punishment.

I am mostly a good person and if I’ve hurt with my choices and actions, it was never my intention. I was just trying to move on, survive and win the love lottery. It’s crazy the things I’ve done (or not dared to do) in the name of love. The fear of not being loved if I didn’t do as others wanted me to instead of following my true heart. I have put so many fears of failing and insecurities into other people’s control; I have chased love with the wrong persons and hurt others and myself because I thought I was not worth being loved for who I was. Honestly, how many of you can relate to this?

Some mistakes are printed in indelible ink; we just have to live with them being part of who we are because they were the choices we made. They are deeper in our skin than the inkiest tattoo and they will haunt us anytime they find a tiny hole in our defense mechanism. Once our heart is broken, we can try to hide it well and put the pieces back together, pretending we have moved on and healed. We may look intact on the surface and we can help others from our experience but we will never be quite the same again.

Sometimes I wish the past was like a mirror that I could break. I would pick a piece of it and carefully choose to look at special reflections from behind my shoulder, only the happy parts of what has been. Maybe it would be possible that way to believe that added together the partial reflections would make up a different total view of memories without regrets. A past altogether different. But then I remember that a broken mirror means seven years of unhappiness.

If you could go back and change things about your past, is there one particular moment you would want back?

“Every person from your past lives as a shadow in your mind.
Good or bad, they all helped you write the story of your life, and shaped the person you are today.”
~Doe Zantamata