M.A.G.G.I.E. - Make adjustments, go get it energized!

from confidentialityspice

The past weeks of fasting have been a constant emotional roller coaster. It seems like the period was under the headline M.A.G.G.I.E.: Make Adjustments Go Get It Energized! This quote from one of my favorite TV shows “How I met your mother”, describes my journey best.

Adjustments:

I still make the mistake of thinking that the decisions I take are a linear thing, with only one possible outcome. Well, life does not work in linear ways; the turns, hills and stones on the way are what make life interesting and fun.

So I thought: I will work 3 days a week starting April. I will have time to pursue some personal interests and have time to invest in my personal development.

The past two weeks, life has put some stones in the way of that. I had to realize that my workplace needs me more that just 3 days a week, and that I need more than 3 days a week to do a good job there. I am finally part of quite interesting projects, my colleagues know my strengths and start requesting my skills in English and organization, for example. So, in order for me to do a good job, I simply need more time. Thus, I also set a good ground for one my most pressuring goals: beginning my Masters and thus building my academic dream career, starting October. As a student, I will have much less income. So it is important to me to clear my depts, before I become a student again, which is now possible with the extra money.

Energy:

Being extremely busy the past weeks, it was hard to keep my fasting rules. My mom, my sister, and I are all fasting and when we did not eat cake at a big family party, my aunt killed us with her eyes, which looked like she would wish to take each of us and throw our faces into the cake buffet. I tried to calm her down with the words “…but it looks really delicious!” – I don’t really think it worked. The lack of sugar really got on my mood at times, especially when I was confronted with quite some pressure and stress. I would like to say that I eat more fruits and vegetables, but it is all a bit “complicated”.

The good things about the fasting are the new rituals and triggers I was able to discover. After my fasting period is over, I will consume much more soya products. Also, I found some activities that keep me grounded. It made me value the food, I generally consume: I never looked more forward to eat some ice cream or just a boiled egg. Just two weeks and I’ll be getting food-orgasms over these things. One thing that boosts my mood other than sugar is sports. It’s been a week now, where I traveled Berlin by bike and it is exciting how much positive results this generates. It is definitely a good sugar substitute and a much needed adventure at times.

So, “Make adjustments, go get it energized” was a depressing, fun, exciting and in the end fulfilling journey. I hope you are on track with your adjustments and energy.

Next week I will try to convey some “Yay, the fasting countdown has started!”-excitement!

Watch the clip about M.A.G.G.I.E. here.




Picture Source: http://i835.photobucket.com/albums/zz273/kerryveritas724/himympicspam/510006.jpg

The art of slow motion

http://www.nataliedee.com/archives/2008/Mar/

Today I am going to connect my post to one of my fasting goals: walking slower.

I noticed that the posts I write out of true inspiration, and not just “the plight to update people”, are the ones that touch you the most. Inspiration is a slippery thing, tough. If you do not grab it when it’s there, you might lose it and any attempt to reach that moment won’t be as good as the initial idea. That is why I am sitting on my bed, writing the post in my diary. I now post is “past inspiration” – but from the moment of inspiration, if you know what I mean.

As you might know, I was sick last week and extremely lonely. This week feels like I have to catch up what I missed. It’s like a special offer “buy one – get two”.

I had two big projects at work and in order to catch up, I stayed longer in the office every night. Yesterday was also my last day of internship, so cooked some lunch for my colleagues. AND yesterday was an important presentation that had to be prepared.

I only went home for sleeping and taking a shower. I was constantly “on” and in a hurry.

Cooking for 15 people needs quite some inspiration. In my lunch break on Wednesday I rushed to the super market, after working hours I used the company kitchen to prepare the food. In-between, I worked on the concept I had to present the next day. I used a lot of concepts from my experience as a trainer in AIESEC and any AIESEC’er would love what I had designed for my colleagues.

Yesterday, I got up an hour early to have enough time to prepare the lunch. Then it happened: my colleagues started helping and I had the chance to bond with them. Finally eating the lunch was a great social event for all colleagues.

After that I had the final sprint for the presentation. My concept was part of an implementation strategy. To my big surprise the project team accepted my concept and we had a long, but fruitful meeting. It really felt like the work we all had done beforehand was finally connected. At 8 p.m. I left the office with a feeling of grateful exhaustion. My friend and role model Dey Dos calls it “feeling empty” – because you have given everything to your environment. It is a positive feeling, because you know you leave something behind.

In the past week I achieved many things I had aimed for when I came to Berlin. I made some new friends and I actually could use my AIESEC experience in a corporate context.

On my way home, I could calm down. The way home from the tram, I walked very slowly and enjoyed every step. I could seize the moment and rushing was not really necessary. It helped me to re-connect with my inner self, because the last few days I just had to function. It is funny how small things like that bring you back to who you really are.

So the next time I’m in a rush, I won’t get annoyed with slow people, because it might be that they re-connect with their true self.

I have a confession to make:

I sleep too much. Thus I am awake at 23:38 and my mind won’t rest. Be assured that the minute it touches my pillow it will float away to the land of dreams. But still, I have been planning on writing an update since Sunday when a sudden fever and the worst visit of influenza has haunted my body and squeezed my brain so much that I was not really able to think or walk without the feeling of my head being magnetically drawn to the ground. After a bizarre visit to a doctor, I was told to stay in bed the rest of the week and gurgle salt water.

It has been one of the loneliest weeks during my time back in Germany and I really miss my friends who are scattered around the world. I have been true to my strict fasting rules: no sugar, vegan food, I even practiced the guitar and I was forced to walk slow with my influenzarized head and everything. But I missed my friends. When I start things, I always make these really strict rules and crazy goals. I will never be happy with what I achieve because I will always have some impossible goal on my list. Instead of saying “I won’t use Facebook (yea, this is where I am getting to) at work”, I said, “I won’t use Facebook at all during the next 40 days”. Bravo, Anna! So, on Sunday, I logged on and checked what people were up to, without commenting or writing updates, whatsoever. And since then I spent 5 minutes each day just watching what people were up to. And I am really sorry, Anna, but I have to let you down on this goal. So I am rephrasing: no Facebook during work or as a thing to fight boredom. I need to know what the people that I love and never see are up to. I need to write them a text when I think of them and I just want to see how they are once in a while. And no, Anna and critic, emails are not the same.

So after 15 days of fasting, I have already let go of one goal. The food and mind thing works out pretty well, though. My skin looks great, I think about what to eat and find great recipes to cook. I am finding my path back to a healthy life. I just should not forget one very important goal: keep in touch with my friends and spend time with them. So, some of you will get a mail soon. Let’s get on skype and update each other on the latest gossip.

I am in heaven: Men are cooking for me and I can walk like a model! OR Fasting experience 1

http://need-to-know.de/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/vegan1.jpg

It has now been one week of fasting. I have changed my food habits to vegan without sugar, avoided Facebook and tried to walk slower.

First thing: it is hard to start a big project while traveling. I was in Denmark delivering a conference, when my fasting time started. My friends were really interested and supportive. The night before I started I had some Ben and Jerry’s with Lexi; Peter and JohnJohn cooked vegan for us in Odense; and the conference crew packed special sandwiches with my name on. Still, I was hungry, as I could not just find some vegan sweets, because most of the time I eat sugar when I am hungry. I am just not used to proper, regular meals.

Second thing: It feels good to be a bit more aware of what I am consuming. In the supermarket, I look at the ingredients and take some time before I buy stuff. I also try to plan what I am going to eat, so I have a list when I do shopping. This way, I am not just buying things because I am hungry, but because I have a purpose with the goods.

Third thing: It is really hard to keep off Facebook. I needed some pictures for the conference and they were all on there. I had to log in to find those; I saw the red speech bubbles telling me how many notifications, messages, and friend requests I had received. I did not check any of those, I went directly to the pictures I needed and logged off again. I just gave myself a little pat on the back for that one :-)

I am really proud that I actually did everything on my list, except playing guitar, which I will do this week.

Do you know the phenomenon of when you disvover something new, you see it everywhere? This is how I have it with vegan life style right now, and here is one of my discoveries: vegan fashion! It is an online shop called Muso Koroni.

http://www.vego-design.de/AdvancedSlider/slider/muso_koroni.jpg

I noticed that I have some time during my nights without any plans (i.e. where I don’t meet friends or go to the cinema, etc). So I would really appreciate if you would leave a comment telling me some exciting books to read (content not connected to food) or if you have a recipe for me to try out. Thank you so much for your support!

40 days and 40 nights without Facebook

Sioux Indian Fasting

Starting tomorrow I will be fasting. I have never done it before, some of my friends and family did it and inspired me to join them this year.

I am not part of any religion, so I do not know traditions connected to fasting. We celebrate Easter and Christmas, the general Christian holidays, but more as a part of our traditions, not connected to the religious background. To us it is time for family and friends enjoying life together and celebrating what we have.

I have friends with very diverse cultural backgrounds, which is why I had the chance to join Muslim Ramadan meals, watch Indian friends fasting, and saw other people repeating rituals connected to their believe. I was always a little bit envious of the rich history those people carry with them. They did something they believe brings them closer to God.

In history, people have conducted cleansing rituals in all kind of ways. Back in the days spring was a classical time to do fasting, as it was a time where natural food reserves got scarce in Europe and nature forced people to eat less. Today, we can get whatever we want and seasonal food is foreign to us. The supermarkets offer strawberries right now, shipped in from Israel and Spain, while the actual German season for it starts only in mid-may. On top of that we spend our time watching TV and checking Facebook instead of reading a book or doing something productive.

The 40 days before Easter is the general Christian time to fast. Originally the time before Christmas was meant for fasting as well, but let’s focus on Easter. It goes back to Jesus who went 40 days into the desert and fasted. During time it developed from everybody fasting, to just the monasteries fasting, who also altered the fasting rules quite a bit, by brewing beer and later eating fish and heavy flour meals.

In a spiritual way you are requested to reflect on your current habits and life style. It is a time of physical and psychological cleansing and that is also what makes it so attractive to me.

After returning from India, I had bad stomach problems and somehow nature forced me to fast, as I could eat healthy things without problems, but as soon as I would eat junk, I would feel pain. Slowly my stomach got used to German food again and by now I can eat whatever I want without any problems. But now the side effects of my life style are showing: my skin breaks out, my belly is growing and I do not get enough motion. After returning from a long day at work, I watch my favorite series until I fall asleep and I have Facebook running in the background at all times.

I am not going to do some of these hardcore 7 days fasting cures, where you only drink soup. As it is the first time I am fasting and for 40 days, I have planned to make a more long-term plan.

So here is what I will do:

START
- Eating vegan, i.e. relinquish from meat, fish, milk products, eggs, etc.
- Practicing the guitar
- Walking slower

STOP
- Using Facebook
- Eating sugar and junk food
- Drinking alcohol
- Avoiding conflicts

I would like the 40 days to start living more consciously. This means that I want to be aware of my eating habits and take back more time for doing things I see as an investment to myself. There are many things I want to do better as a person. I have changed quite a bit the last couple of years and not only for the better. Since I have been in Berlin, I noticed that I avoided conflicts with certain people. It was more convenient, just to keep it for myself, as a confrontation would risk a fight and maybe the loss of a friend. I think it is fun to try something new, like eating vegan. It is nothing I can imagine doing forever, but I like the thought of trying it out. I bought a cookbook and a book on fasting, so I have things to return to when it gets too hard. I am mostly concerned about the Facebook part, as I spend a lot of time on it. I heard on the radio that it is a common thing to do for fasting, so I know I wont be the only one. And as for the walking: I hurry everywhere. I cannot walk outside without getting stressed about reaching a bus or being on time. When I walk together with others, I am always somewhere ahead, because I just cannot slow down. I am going to try and slow down a bit the next 40 days.

It is said that people feel lighter when they fast. This feeling of unloading is what drives me to go through the process.

I would be glad if you leave a comment below. Tell me what you think about my plan.

Sharing is caring: Goal Setting

Dear Ana,

Since I started to study, I have learned a lot about goal setting and how it influences the way I live. Especially the experiences from AIESEC showed me how goal setting helps you achieve the things you dream of and to not lose track of your goals.

An example: When I finished high school, I decided to study international business communication in English and French. My studies were not really what I expected them to be, both content and people wise. I had built up this huge idealistic image of university life that I was vastly disappointed when I was confronted with reality. I knew very soon that I was going to switch to another profession and ended up in the English department, which I loved very much. The entire process of switching and deciding was very difficult and somehow painful because I did not really know what I was good at and what I wanted. A year after I switched, I suddenly realized why I had signed up for international business communication: I really loved the German-French TV station ARTE and I had the goal to work for them, I just had pushed it away from me, being too concerned about not being content. Today, I think that I might have tried harder to pursue my first study line, if I hadn’t lost that goal out of my view.

In AIESEC, I learnt fast how to do goal setting and I use some personal methods for myself, when I have to make decisions or want to check my path. And it makes me more conscious about my choices and changing mind.

Currently I have to decide what to do after my internship. I know that I want to take a MA degree starting October and I also know what I want to study, I am just not sure how to use the time until then. This is a good reason to look at my life from a bird perspective and to refresh my goals in order to know what is important for me and which values I have gained in the recent past.

In this video I go through my goals and reflect a bit on them. Funny fact: I did it in pajama pants, as I actually was sick today. Below you find an introduction to why I chose the spaces and how I filled them.



Here is my Banana Goal Setting from today:

PERSONAL:
It is important to know what I want to achieve on a personal level, because my professional decisions depend on it and I get a clear picture what is important to me as a person right now.

PROFESSIONAL:
I want to recapture why I did the things that I did and where I want to go. I also put down what is important for me during this journey.

FLUFFY GOALS:
The above goals can somehow be measured, my fluffy goals are more the mindset of my lifestyle. It is things I want to remember doing or act upon on my way to the other goals.

THE NEXT 6 MONTH:
Here, I put down what opportunities and challenges I see for my goals right now. I list down every opportunity I have, no matter how I think about it and then list the challenges I face. These can be real life challenges like lack of money, or just personal obstacles.

These charts cannot be filled in one night, I just got started tonight. I already saw that I forgot to put down my guitar playing as a personal goal. I do these things very intuitive and don’t use any SMART method or whatsoever. I am more concerned about getting my thoughts on paper and to order them. I can structure them and make them measurable along the way.

So tell me, did you find this post useful? What would you do differently?

A feel-good engine fueled by awesomeness

our tree

Do you know the feeling you get after a day where you really feel, you have achieved something? To me it is like fuel into my good mood engine and it makes me shine inside, it makes me feel alive. And if you have not noticed yet, I am additionally proud when I did something that generally is not expected from women. This just adds some awesomeness to the good feeling.

My mom heats her house with an oven, so once in a while we go to visit her in order to help out preparing the wood: cut it, pile it up, carry it into the house, etc. Early spring we do the biggest wood day of the year, where we actually go into the forest and get wood we have bought from the ranger. As I lived in Denmark until recently, I was hardly part of any big wood events, but this year it was ON! We even had to cut down a tree on our own. It was a ca. 50-year-old beech tree and as one of our closest friends is a (female) ranger, she cut it down for us.

the landing

After overcoming some start difficulties, Jana performed wonders with her chain saw. She knew exactly how and where to cut in order to let the tree fall where she intended it to: in the middle of the path. I was buzzing with anticipation and then the signal came: “Tree falling!” and like in slow motion the tree touched the earth, blowing dust and leaves in the air that would stand still and then join the slow motion on their way back to the ground. The sky was bright, sun was shining through the trees and we had a tree to take away from the path.

We were three women who had to make the tree disappear until dusk. We took off the branches you could not use for fire wood, we divided the tree in pieces, carried the pieces into our van and drove them to a place where we later can cut them into fitting pieces for the oven.

Better get to work!

It was hard physical labor, but it actually made me feel good. Out in the fresh air, working under time pressure, I had a real feeling of hunger. I generally eat irregularly and unhealthy, but here my stomach told me to eat. We had some bread and some typical German sausage, but no knife, so we broke the bread and ate the sausage separately and it was the most delicious meal I had in a very long time. The work grounded me and cleared my head. Suddenly I was one step closer to an important decision I have to make. I have a tendency to over-think stuff and working with my mom and Jana showed me that happiness really only depends on very few factors. To me doing things on my own, putting some sweat into them is a very fulfilling activity.

So, how much did your Saturday contribute to your own happiness?


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