May you relax until death do us part!

I promised in my post yesterday that I would tell you about a relaxing exercise, which involves warmth and a cocoon.

It is called liver compress and helps your liver to supply with blood and thus will be able to better detoxify. It is part of the “Buchinger-method”, which entails a fasting ritual and god knows what. My mom heard of it in one of her therapist seminars and was told that it is especially good for people with depressions. In Germany we have a saying: “He had a bug crawling his liver” – which means, the person is in a bad mood. And that does not come out of the blue, the liver somehow is connected to our mood, so if our liver is healthy, we are more happy.  After what I read online, you have to do it at noon, but I always do it in the evenings. Just remember to do it after you have eaten.

I just like the liver compress, because it really helps me to relax and calm down, especially after a long day at work.

So here is what you need:

-       a hot-water bag

-       a linen towel

-       a bigger towel

-       a couch and a blanket (preferably cozy)

Step 1:

Fill the hot-water bag with boiling water and make sure there is no air in the bag, so it can lie flat on your stomach. Let it rest for ten minutes.

Step 2:

Prepare the couch/ bed: Put a blanket flat on the bed and a pillow, so you can lie comfortably on it. Turn on some calm, relaxing music.

Step 3:

After the ten minutes are over, take the linen towel and wet it with warm water. You can also make an extra herb infusion, just google what you need for that. Lie down and put the towel on your stomach (where the liver is, right under the right chest).

That's were the liver is located - and the belly button :-)

Step 4:

Put the hot-water bag on the towel on your stomach. Take the bigger towel and wrap it around your stomach, so the other stuff is pressed against your skin.

Step 5:

Wrap yourself in the blanket like in a cocoon. It is important that you have everything very tight to your body: the hot stuff, your arms and the blanket.

Step 6:

RELAX! Let your day pass in your imagination, think of something good and enjoy 20 minutes of perfect warmth and happiness. Probably you’ll dose off and many times I fell deeply asleep, so you might get into your pajamas for this exercise.

Try it out yourself. It is a nice exercise to connect body and soul. Wow, that was my first health post – are you as excited as I am?

The cruel Murder of Cody!

Review of Cody and Murder at Café Zapata, Berlin, 02.02.2011

Cody

Murder

It is weird for me to write reviews, because I really like to do it, but I am extremely subjective and often write on matters I am not really an expert on. I just discover things for myself and want to share it.

When it comes to music, I have phases, when I go out and find cool stuff all by myself. Most of the time, though, my friends have to stick my nose into new stuff and I will eventually love it. The same goes for this one: my roommate Nicolai told me to come to this cool act, called Murder, an Neo Folk band from Denmark. There also would be a Danish band, “Cody”, as intro act.

Nicolai is a very considerate person, so the night before yesterday, he gave me the latest album of Murder to get into the mood. I went into my cocoon with a hot water bottle, called a liver compress (which has to be explained in another post) and listened to the album. It was just great: me on a wave of wonderful music doing a journey through the past day. It really was what made my day that day and Murder was a big part of it. So then I really looked forward to the concert.

It was at Zapata, in the ancient Tacheles complex, a Berlin icon from the 90’s and today crowded with international students and tourists. It is a quite diverse bunch of people there, because they have really cool and different concerts.

Because I am so lazy, no: so smart, no: so effective (!), I went there right after work, got a new book and a Falafel and sat at the bar for a beer to read a bit, before the whole thing started and my roommate would arrive. The early bird gets lucky sometimes, because I was in before they started selling tickets, so I had saved the 13 € entry fee.

I liked meeting the Danish boys I would enjoy the show with and off it goes with the bands:

Cody:
They are a group of six, with very diverse instruments (2 guitars, drums, cello, violin, and contrabass). Each one of them is a very good musician and together they do magic. I was fascinated by their performance and how good their live sound was. It really filled up my barrel. I have this personal metaphor: there are things that take energy away, like negative stress and there are things that give you energy. It is like a barrel that gets filled and emptied. Due to work and a lack of after work activities, my barrel was quite empty, but it got filled up, when I saw them. So, I used the money I had saved on the entry fee to by their latest LP. 



Murder:
They are quite known in Indie circles. The appearance of the lead singer Jacob Bellens on stage was quite interesting, as he looked like a history teacher who could not find his classroom – in a good way. Anders Mathiasen does guitar and vocals and he reminded me slightly of a young version of my dad, which is weird, but in some way also a compliment. They also have a base player and a drummer. They had this Danish humor, which was entertaining and the quality of their performance was top. A lot of it is carried by Bellens’ great voice. I have to admit, that my heart was sold to Cody, so to me they could not really do better.



All in all, it was a splendid evening and I really enjoyed the entire experience. It gave me a lot of new ideas and hope, which was good, as I was quite negatively loaded that day. I have a feeling that I will finally get what I wanted from a city. I am able to see great cultural events, be it music, exhibitions or whatever. I always missed that in the past few years. The thing is, that it was there in the other cities as well, but I did not make anything out of it. Now, I am taking in as much as I can and it really is uplifting.

Where the Wild Things are

I am too excited to tell you my thoughts that I wont post any information about the content of the movie, but here is the trailer.



I have a new favorite movie. It is called “Where the wild things are” and it is about a boy without any fear who decides to become the king of a group of monsters. It is the first time in my life that I can imagine what is really going on in a boys mind. Plus, the older I get, the more I miss childhood and the wild possibilities that existed just for us.

The movie made me accept silence. I only accept silence, when my mind is so busy reflecting and figuring out that it does not need any entertainment. At times I have to play the radio constantly to distract my mind, but not so last night. “Where the wild things are” opened a new box of imagination to me and I am eternally grateful for it.

The minute the movie started, I felt like I was allowed to peak into the head of my dear friend Letzu. I admire her secretly for her way of seeing the world and somehow I feel like I had the chance to see through her eyes for the lasting one and half hours. Some people are interesting to me because they stand out of the categories I prison my encounters in. Letzu is one of the rare people who opened a new category and until now she has been alone in that box, because I have not met anyone whose world was as wild, colorful and devastating, but beautiful as hers. I feel like “Where the wild things are” took me there and it touched me to my very core.

Also I am currently reading “Power and Love – A Theory and Practice of Social Change” by Adam Kahane. Most of his life the author relied on love to accomplish his goals and saw power as something negative to be avoided. Seeing that brave character of Max telling wild stories to these strangely lovely monsters demonstrates to me how everyone relies on power to make things happen and to effect change. Without power, love has no impact. Power does not necessarily mean to dictate others, but it can be a way to make things happen and create new ways to solve issues. Power without love is cruel and in the end we will all be where we started in childhood: Someone will cry and leave the playground.

To me, this movie is a masterpiece. I will definitely read the book by Maurice Sendak and dream of the beautiful pictures it left in my mind.

And by the way: Until today I secretly wished to only give birth to girls. From today on I would be just as thrilled to have a boy (at some point in a future very far away from now).

Nighmares - a Conclusion

First of all: thank you friends. I got such nice advice after my last post that I want to share my conclusion.

Generally, I got this advice: You have to forgive yourself in order to move on.

My reasoning is connected to my post about the number two’s in this world. I see myself as a strong number two and I will explain one characteristic of a number two here:

There are people who see, or read something and then take a conclusion and act upon it. And then there are people who read the same things, also get the conclusion but cannot really act upon them.

When I was younger and saw some girls with über-possessive and –jealous boyfriends I would think to myself “Why would any girl ever fall for such a douche bag?” and I would be extremely sure that this would never happen to me. The day came, where I was falling for this kind of guy and I spend 8 months discovering that this was not the kind of person I wanted to be with (or actually that I did not want to be that kind of person that situation made me).

I am the kind of person who has to be in a situation to learn from it. It is not enough for me to read it in a book and act upon it. Sometimes the universe will show you why things happen as they do.

I always wanted to be a strong and independent woman who is sure of what is good and bad for her, but life would not be life, if you would not have to go through trials. There are circumstances that weaken a person and there are ways to escape these states of personality, ways to grow out of them. One way to grow as a person is to make mistakes. I am very grateful for many mistakes that I made and you are right, I was just not capable to forgive myself for this one. I would not forgive myself for being quite the opposite of the woman I wanted to be.

All I can say is that I am on a way to become the woman I want to be and this “mistake” makes me understand why some women chose the men that they do. 

One advice I got out from this two year (!) recovery period is that you have to be self-sufficient before you throw yourself into the next relationship. I am getting there.

And, to end this topic, I will show you my favorite break-up recovery cartoon. 

The Villain in my Dreams

Last night, I had a nightmare. I did not have any drapes on my window and lived first floor. I was running around naked in the apartment, not realizing that everyone on the street could see me. Just underlining again: It was a dream! So, the doorbell rings, and my evil ex-boyfriend is in the door jelling at me that everyone on the street can see me naked. He makes me feel really bad about it and then continues to tell me he still loves me and not his new girl friend and that he cannot understand why I would not be with him.

Every time I talk about him, I call him the evil boyfriend and close friends will understand whom I am talking about.

Actually he is not a bad person as such. I would even say that we have a lot in common and even have that soul mate connection. Just that his past and some of his habits where not good for us as a couple, because it affected him a lot as a person. So to me, all his goodness was in his core, but there was a bad wrapping around it. I thought, I could change that and remove the wrapping. But we are not talking about toilet seat debates here; we are talking tough stuff like accusations and lack of faith in me. We are talking constant jealousy and possessiveness.

All this made me smaller and smaller. I started doubting myself and lost a lot of self-esteem I had built up in the past years. The effect was the opposite of what I had intended: I started acting like he did and not the other way around. I did not know how to escape the situation, so I cheated on him which made it all even worse. In the end, I quit. I did not want to stay under his spell and returned to myself.

He tried to cut me out of his life, deleted me on various social networks and would not contact me at all. To him, I am the bad person. Now he has moved on, has moved in with his new girl friend, while I still have nightmares with him acting as the villain.

He is the one person in my past, which I cannot forgive and have good feelings about, because he gave me the hardest time of my life. And for me he is evil, because I am still not over it. I mean, it still haunts me in my dreams and he has moved on. So I am asking, what is wrong with me?

Who is that hot chick over there? My sister!

Lekha and Henni in front of the Berlin TV tower last year

I don’t know if you know, but I have a little sister. Today is her birthday and it hit me that she actually is a grown up woman. Somehow she emerged from that girlish cuteness – where everybody (and when I say everybody I mean eeeeeeeeverybody!) went like “ohhh…!” when they first saw her – to that talented, independent woman.

I have to confess that it took me quite a while to accept my sister’s development. I always wanted to care for her and protect her from the evils in the world, which resulted in her revolting more against me than against my mom when she was in her teenage years.

It seems like she does not know how much I secretly look up to her and how much she impresses me everyday. Some examples:

-       As a kid, she could play with one simple thing like a rubber band for hours. I would throw it at her once and be bored already and run off to another exciting thing and when I would return to her, she would still be playing with this thing. This amazes me still today.

-       She can love people despite their faults and even if you are mean to her, she will still love you, because she manages to see the good in people.

-       She is a fighter. She went for a career that everyone advised her not to go for, because it is too competitive, but in the process she had the chance to make mistakes and go her very own way for the first time. I admire her for that courage.

-       She cut her hair off. She has always been admired for her beauty and bubbly spirit. People wanted to adopt her, because she was so cute. She still looked awesome when she cut her hair three centimeters short, but I have to say it gave her some character.

I could go on forever with this list, but I think you get the point. One of the best things in the beginning of every year is always to take my Christmas money and spent it on birthday presents for her. It does not matter if she is grown up or not, I will always enjoy spoiling her.

I really hope that you have a person in your life you love as much as I love my sister. So, happy birthday Hendrikje, ich hab dich lieb!

Only cats have nine lifes?

After entering school at the age of seven, I had two cycles of development and growth which where quite different from each other, both lasted nine years.

Until I was 16, I spent my life in Germany with my family and with regular school and hobbies. I faced challenges you have to face as a child of a single mom and as the stranger to a new city or school.

After I turned 16, I moved to Denmark, to finish my education and grow up. I truly became an independend individual and have learned to tackle different challenges as they come.

Now I am 25, have moved back to Germany and am both terrified and looking forward to the next nine years. This is the time where I will establish myself not only in terms of education, but mostly in terms of experience.

I have started to conquer monstrous Berlin, which tried to let me down several times but which I forced to work out for me, because Berlin was my only option for Germany. I am beginning to see some paths that I am happy to take and there is finally a goal to invest time in. My current achievements and achievements to come look like this:

Done:

-       Find a traineeship

-       Find an apartment

-       Find a roommate

-       Find new and exciting things you ONLY to do in Berlin

To do:

-       Figure out my next steps after the traineeship

-       Order Internet access for my apartment (finally I can use Skype again!!)

-       Finish beautifying the apartment

-       Find a choir to join

-       Find a gym or yoga class

I am quite happy that my to do list is longer than my done list. I am tired from the past months of discovery and fighting, but I know it’s worth it. What about you? Have you encountered a shift in your life in the recent past and how did you tackle it? 

Picture: http://www.onedigitallife.com/images/cat-jump.jpg