Conditioned Laziness

There I was, awake again at 6.30am, mentally alert yet physically knackered after two twelve hour shifts and a feast of duck pancakes the sauce of which clearly contained too much sugar for my body to cope with.

I have been waking up at that time most days as far as I can remember back, regardless of how many hours of sleep I had. It’s dangerous to try and fall asleep again, and if it happens I can rarely count those days to the productive kind.

My granny’s words still ring in my ears from the days when I was much younger and stayed at hers some weekends. “Child, it’s only 7am! Turn around and sleep a little longer.”

But I had ants in my pants and had to get up, whereas my granny would grudgingly roll over and continue snoring. I still remember the excitement in view of the early morning kid’s cartoons on telly. I didn’t have those at home and my mum was convinced that TV wasn’t something children should watch excessively. Nor do I think this today.

At granny’s was different. She fed me white bread with lots of butter and honey for breakfast, made a gorgeous green salad with her special home-made yoghurt dressing for lunch and pasta with butter and peas for dinner. I was able to play in the garden to my heart’s desire and I was given sweets which my mum strongly attested to. And the first couple of early hours in the morning of watching cartoons were only a sweet beginning to a day with the best things yet to come.

Only on very rare occasions have I been able to recreate that feeling of contentment that I experienced as a young child at granny’s house. And it usually involved a kid’s programme on telly together with bread or rolls for breakfast. Shows you how easily we can condition ourselves to happiness!

So if there wasn’t any kid’s cartoons on telly, would I not be able to achieve happiness again ever? Not that today’s cartoons anything compared to the good old ones anyway! 🙂

Today I went as far as looking up some of the twenty odd year old cartoons on the internet and watch some while I was having my breakfast. Whereas I felt kinda happy in a truly lazy way, I also realised that the cartoon wasn’t all that easy to watch at all with an adult mind. It was almost horrific watching two sisters, one probably around 11, the other around 16, having to move into an orphanage after their parents went missing abroad.

Watching this lovely cartoon that I had fond memories of as a child, with an adult mind, now at the age of the parents in the cartoon, it was a whole different story! Well isn’t that interesting?

So while humanity may spent a lot of time as adults wishing to be young again, without all the hassles, responsibilities  and worries we face as adults now, we might miss out on the potentials we have as grown ups, to take our happiness into our own hands and to begin recognizing our conditioned past, as we were taught as children, or even taught ourselves, and break free from it to create our own happiness right here and now.

Having been without telly most of my life I am capable to live without it for the reminder of my life. The problem is if it is there and someone else is watching, then I quite easily find myself curling up on the sofa giving in to the dormant state of laziness.

And from time to time there is absolutely nothing wrong with it 😉

Love
Anna

Ode to an Unknown

During my stay at Plum Village I learned about the writing of “love letters”, listing all the good things about someone that you have fallen out with or stopped communicating on bad terms. This came in connection with a talk about our parents, but can be applied to anyone. Our awareness was particularly drawn onto picturing our parents as 5 year olds, in order to maybe gain some insight into their behaviour.

Having had done some thinking in recent years about my feelings in relation to my non-existing father, I wondered what difference it would make to write to him again, since he simply ignores all my letters. But the nun at Plum Village strongly encouraged us to do this, citing numerous occasions where people had found together again by this simple act of kindness.

At first I didn’t know where to start, I didn’t even know my father properly, how could I possibly know anything good about him? For a brief moment the feelings of resentment came up again, the anger at him for not seeing me and how he simply sticks to his decision to not wanting to be involved in my life.

Then suddenly I realised that this was indeed a sign of extraordinary willpower and strength, which in fact I found quite admirable and which I can see in myself. I wondered how much more I could find out about him by considering my own character traits.

A monk at Plum Village suggested that if we can’t understand our parents, we might be able to find out what is going on inside of them by watching our own thoughts and habits, because it is the same genes at work. So I began to write yet another letter to my father. This time a different one.

I admire your willpower, that you make a decision and stick with it. It shows strength and endurance, what evidently helps us  to get along in life.

I see this this willpower in myself. It is very helpful when I try to get somewhere, but it can also lead to stubbornness. There are many things I didn’t get or experience because I was too stubborn to see that my thoughts or decisions weren’t right. I am often too proud to admit that I have made a mistake. But at the same time I am also very courageous and often embark on new adventures.

For a long time did I have a certain sense of sadness within me, a feeling of abandonment, which made it impossible for me to fully acknowledge myself. Then I realised that my thoughts and feelings are way too dependent on other people, instead of simply being happy with myself just the way I am.

If someone smiles at us we take it as a sign that we are being acknowledged and liked. If someone shouts at us, we think we did something wrong. If someone is being totally ignored, does that mean that one is invisible? How does one feel when one is invisible?

With this also came the realisation that my urge to run away, hide, to not commit to long-term commitments, must have been the same that you felt when you ran away from me. You still hide, just like me. I even moved to another country.

When I was in first grade, every Monday morning, we were allowed to talk a little about our weekend at the beginning of class. On just such a Monday morning I had seen some bunnies crossing my path to school, which excited me as a six year old very much. This excitement I was eager to share with my fellow class mates and particularly with my teacher.

But regardless of how often I raised my small arm, she didn’t seem to notice me and didn’t give me the chance to communicate. Out of this deep disappointment did I make the decision, that if I raise my hand and am not picked, then I simply won’t raise my hand again ever.

And over the following weeks I used my strong willpower and consequently suppressed the need to raise my hand in class, even if I actually would have wanted to. I conditioned myself to a behavioural pattern, which affected the rest of my future education and social group activities and negatively influenced my oral participation in class as well as my abilities to communicate in larger groups.

All I wanted was to be seen. I am working on correcting this decision of mine, which isn’t at all easy, just as it probably isn’t easy for you to see and acknowledge me.

Life consists of an array of decisions which ultimately form the cobbles on our path. Our decisions shouldn’t create problems, just like our path shouldn’t have any tripping hazards. Trip, however, we can anytime, even over our own two feet. Sometimes there is someone to help us up, other times we are left to our own devices.

Sometimes, our path leads us in circles, sometimes it takes a sharp turn. Sometimes it goes arduously uphill, sometimes way too quickly downhill. With every step, with every decision, we are changing, learning more about ourselves and those around us. Sometimes we share our path with others.

One day we will wake up and realise that our whole life hasn’t been lived to the full, for we were by far too much concerned with not stumbling along our path, instead of simply taking it just the way it is.

Despite the negative effects, I am grateful that I carry your willpower in me, for it gives me the drive to create a better world.

But above all am I grateful that I have the possibility to make all these fantastic experiences and live an interesting and complex life, which wouldn’t be possible without you.

To this day I have not had a reply, but I am not expecting one. I have learned that the mere act of writing, of focusing one’s thoughts, can act as a way of coming to terms with issues and make peace with it.

Just like I was strongly encouraged to write a “love letter”, so I would like to encourage you to do the same. If you don’t feel like sending it off, then don’t do it. But I dare you, that the question whether it could possibly change anything will not let you rest until you send it off 🙂

And the person you are writing to doesn’t even have to be among the living anymore. And you might as well write a love letter to yourself as well. We all deserve to be loved!

Love
Anna

A Matter of Perception

“And what colour is it?” did I overhear a mother ask her young daughter who was merrily trying to keep up with her mum’s long strides while attentively looking at her new toy. “It’s green”, announced the little girl proudly, to which the mother explained candidly that it was actually red, not green.

It makes me wonder how much of a red her red was to her daughter’s red. Who determines that what I see as blue is in fact the same blue as yours? Is it pure childhood conditioning? What about those who are diagnosed as being colour blind?

There is no way to know if we see the same colours or in fact feel the same about something! Watch this interesting YouTube clip!

So it must have to do with conditioning, our parent’s and peers telling us what they see and us adapting to their names and descriptions for what we see, just as much as they have done when they were younger. And it is so easy to take on what other people say, especially if they are older or simply more dominant.

I do remember the day a class mate said that Santa Claus didn’t exist, which completely threw me. Of course I didn’t want to admit that I didn’t knew this already, but inside of me something special broke. Just like my favourite birthday party game of “pot hitting”, where you crawl around the floor blindfolded, equipped only with a wooden spoon looking for a pot underneath which some goodies have been hidden. If you find the pot by hitting it with your spoon, the goodies are yours. One year someone decided that we were too old to play that game, and another part of me broke. Not only was I deeply saddened because I felt that I could never ever again play this game, but also did I feel like a fool for believing in something that others clearly didn’t approve of. And finally to the time when I was jumping around in my underpants in our town’s fountain one hot summer day, only to be reminded by my slightly embarrassed friend that I really shouldn’t do this anymore.

All these happened around age 8 or 10 and marked significant changes to the end of childhood and the beginning of adolescence. And if it isn’t you that realises that you possibly ought to start growing up, then it will be your peers or parents who put an abrupt halt on a joyful time. What a sad end to the infinite childhood experience! Though I wouldn’t recommend you should still be jumping around in the public wearing only your underwear at 30 plus 🙂

I believe that the same goes with out sixth sense. We all have it, right from birth and beyond. However, unless someone tells you that you have it or helps you develop it, chances are that it will just be forgotten, like Santa Clause, a myth that was never real. Even more saddening is the fact that you are quite likely seen as a weirdo should you dare expressing your extrasensory perceptions. Or at least will have to work hard against an army of mainstream lay people who don’t know it any better. Though it might actually be worse if someone knows it better, because then the same conditioning as above applies, which can actually suppress your individual talents if they are not recognized by the know-it-all whose talents might be completely different from yours.

Unfortunately there is a fine line between paranoia and premonitions. Someone once suggested that the majority of psychiatric patients would probably be pretty good mediums. While one can’t generalise this, I know from my own experiences that a heightened awareness and perception of subtler worlds beyond the material can be a scary place as much as it can be truly magnificent. Sometimes you can’t be sure if you are going nuts, having an out-of-body experience or are indeed surrounded by outer worldly beings. The astral plane can be very deceptive and what you pick up from it is subject to a lot of things, which might never make it into reality. Then there is the increasing understanding that you can have and be whatever you want. You create your future, it is jus not always how you had planned it to be. I briefly touched on the topic in my last blog.

There I express that sometimes I can’t get my head around whether it really was my thoughts that created the outcome, or whether these thoughts were premonitions of an event that was inevitably going to happen. How much can I influence and accordingly change the outcome of such events? This can truly drive you insane if you don’t keep it under control.

Especially when working in this field one can get pretty strange requests. A recent phone consultation revealed a healer desperate for help with energies that had become too much, giving her a funny pressure on her head that she already felt upon entering her house. There was a blockage somewhere and she felt she couldn’t progress to what she had attuned everything around her. Unfortunate for her, she believed that I wasn’t competent enough to help her unblock her dilemma. She wanted something specific that I believe she was unlikely to get unless she opened up and allowed to receive whatever it was she would need. I was trained to allow healing to take place and not to force it to where you want it. This example showed me that if you get in too deep, you might not be able to get out again.

Personally I am ever so conscious to stay in contact with the earth, to remain grounded and to not just disappear somewhere in space like an astronaut that has drifted away from his space station. It dawned on me that it isn’t just about becoming a master of the subtle realms and to sell spirituality as if it was the latest kitchen equipment, especially not like all the psychic stuff on telly, but to rather simply just live it, incorporate it into my daily activities. Stick to your day job, that is if you are happy with it, and carry it out with all your heart. Become aware of a bigger picture. Let your heightened awareness and understanding of your origin, from source or a mere atom floating in space, be part of your life – not the total sum of your life. I don’t believe in defining myself as a spiritual or psychic or any of the like. I simply like to help others to incorporate this awareness into their life, to become more settled in whatever they choose to do with their life. There surely is a reason why we are who we are right here and now, human beings with a purpose. Well, I suppose, having said that, maybe I should give psychics that have taken to the media more credit.

There are just too many words to describe experiences that actually can’t be described with words. How often do I find myself writing, rewriting and deleting words, phrases and whole paragraphs in search of relaying what I actually mean. And what is it that I mean? Is the reason why I feel that I am contradicting myself in my writing and verbal expressions that I am not sure what to believe in? Or am I trying too hard to accommodate other’s ideas and believes because I don’t want to upset or criticise them, or, even wore, don’t want to be criticised myself? I’ve written before about “The ideal truth of a dreamer“. How can I best describe that I feel a deep connection to something that I like to call source to avoid giving it neither shape nor gender, and at the same time just as deeply consider my own DNA and atoms that have reproduced and evolved over million of years?

Our ideas and perceptions could be regarded as a “catch 22”. Nobody will know for sure why we are here and what happens before or after our life, just like nobody can prove that your or my experiences are real or imagined. In the end it boils down to how you deal with this. Whether you let your ideals direct your life or let other people lead you. Regardless of other’s belief in you or whether you believe in others. If you can see or were born blind, if you can see all colours of the spectrum or if you can see more than others but don’t know it yet. Does it matter? You decide what you let get in your way of living your life happily and to the full!

“You have achieved enlightenment when you realise that there is no enlightenment and at the same time that you have been enlightened all along.”

Love
Anna

Was it Left or Right?

After I had turned left again instead of the announced right, or possibly the other way around, my boyfriend asked me: “Why is it then that you can’t tell left from right?”

I said I will look into it later and he can then read my blog 😉

Now I have been trying to find an explanation, or condition on the web that would neatly summarise my difficulty of distinguishing between left and right but could not find a proper niche to fit in. But there are several options to pick from, should I choose to give in to my occasional hypochondria.

I couldn’t coin a point in time that I was suddenly aware that I got my directions wrong. It just seemed to happen the more I grew up and began articulating. When I checked with my mother whether she noticed anything when I was young, she said that the first time she became aware that I had problems with left and right was when I painted my right thumbnail for my first driving lesson. There are suggestions that left-right disorders are hereditary.

Philippe De Sainte Maresville has the same problem and describes that it appears to be the words that get it wrong, not so much the hand movement. According to him we damn well know where left and right is, just that the words seem to appear on a random basis, unfortunately not necessarily the right one. Those who often experience mix ups might need a lot of concentration to get it right and most hiccups happen under stress or when tired. He also links it to psychological typing, that we have certain behavioural traits which work with certain parts of the brain.

Wikipedia offered me Acalculia at first, an acquired impairment with difficulty performing simple maths, but the fact that it appears to be acquired later in life as part of a neurological injury, or a stroke, I don’t think it might be what I am looking for.

The next on offer is Dyscalculia, a specific developmental disorder which becomes evident when beginning to learn maths early in life. The list of symptoms is extensive. Interesting is that I can tick most boxes, inlcuding frequent difficulties with arithmetic,  tables and mental arithmetic, often unable to grasp and remember mathematical concepts, rules, formulae, and sequences. I remember well the countless times of counting with my fingers under the table under the stern silence of my likewise stern teacher. If it was down to her, I would have been in a school for children with special needs.

Continuing with difficulty conceptualizing time and judging the passing of time, may be chronically late or early (it’s the early for me), problems with differentiating between left and right (yes), difficulty navigating or mentally “turning” the map to face the current direction rather than the common North=Top usage (oh yes, though I usually find my way around quite well), having particular difficulty mentally estimating the measurement of an object or distance, inability to concentrate on mentally intensive tasks and mistaken recollection of names, poor name/face retrieval, may substitute names beginning with same letter.

“Sorry, what was your name again?”

The list further includes the inability to visualize mentally, which I’m actually really good at. Could it be because of the associated well-developed sense of imagination, possibly as cognitive compensation to mathematical-numeric deficits? I definitely have difficulty reading musical notation and it took three years of weekly violin lessons until someone figured this out! My hearing took over and enabled me to play after having heard it played once, after which I simply copied by sound. And the point stating that we might do exceptionally well in a writing-related field makes me believe that maybe my blog will be famous one day after all. 😉

The following last point actually has a much bigger impact on me than the left-right confusion: low latent inhibition, i.e., over-sensitivity to noise, smell, light and the inability to tune out, filtering unwanted information or impressions. I always had an exceptionally good hearing, to the point where I went to have my ears tested because I actually couldn’t hear well, but found out that it was because I heard too much and probably had difficulties filtering the important from the background noise. I also feel overwhelmed quickly in crowded places… Another explanation for my behaviour on the first day of kindergarten?

Thinking about it, how much would the fact that I hit my head with a spade on a summer fair at the kindergarten go in line with the theory of Acalculia and the acquired neurological impairment? Actually, both, Dyscalculia and Acalculia affect the same part of the brain, namely the parietal lobe and the angular gyrus, which is about the location where the spade hit on the left side, which is also the side of the parietal lobe associated with mathematical problems. And that it was the left is in this case certain 🙂

A note on the side: apparently there have been experiments that showed the possibility that stimulation of the angular gyrus is the cause of out-of-body experiences. Synesthesia would also generally fit well in this topic. But I will tell you more about those another time.

I was secretly hoping that today’s research would also uncover, or at least find a correlation to my decision-making problems and also differentiating between two, which is at times impossible for me. I tend to need a third option in order to make a decision. I always assumed those must somehow be connected to my left-right disorder, but apart from a small experiment that interestingly also links decision-making to the parietal lobe, I could find no correlation other than the possibility of the influence of stress, anxiety or depression.

So I will carry on pretending to pick up imaginary pens to see where my right is and to try to be calm and think twice before I give someone directions. And it would probably be best to actually use a real pen to write down if someone gives me directions, because I surely won’t be able to remember when to go left and where to turn right 😉

Love
Anna

Peacocks and the year 11

Led by a sales sign, I was drawn into Monsoon, the shop with the most beautiful, and unfortunately most expensive, clothes on our high street. Technically, I hate shopping. Particularly when there is a sale on. I just don’t like people ramming into me, standing in my way and generally overloading me with their stressed-out energy.

Anyhow, Monsoon convinces me of the better and I spend a good two hours rafting through the sales racks and disappearing in the changing room at least three times with my arms loaded with colourful cloths. Their colours and patterns are simply mesmerizing. I ended up with a tunic that had a peacock feather print on it and my inner child rejoiced at the look of it. My inner critic announced steadfast that it was way too tacky, but I followed my first instinct and took it home at a third of the original price. Bargain!

That something so mundane and yet beautiful can make you so happy … particularly after previously having talked about detachment from worldly possessions… But this is a different sensation. It is once again anchored in childhood, chasing peacocks around a park, crawling around in bushes in hunt for just one valuable iridescent feather and a well-known German children’s song comes to mind. It’s about a marriage between two birds. I remember acting out the song with my whole class, all in bird’s costumes, I believe it was in second or third grade. Accordingly, it is the part in the song with the peacock that I am humming. Was I the peacock at the school play? My memory forsakes.

I decided I would wear the dress on my thirties birthday party next month which feels like a very special time in my life. Besides the big 3-0 being an important point of adulthood for me, numerologically, I am coming out from a year one (new beginnings) and instead of carrying on with the obvious year two (cooperation and balance), I am entering a special master number 11 year which is all about great prospects, opportunities and big rewards.

The last time I encountered a year 11, unbeknown to the number, I took my first flight ever and jetted to New Zealand on my own to see the bottom of the world. Four months later, I moved out from my mum’s house for the first time and changed my previous career in graphic design to study foreign languages. The one before that brought with it a chance encounter that sparked my interest in esotericism which would lay the foundations for my future in healing. So I can only faintly envisage what this year will have in store for me. Until the foreseeable future, or until I’m 66 at least, there will be a master year 11 every 9 years. I only ever had a normal year 2 when I was 3. I am currently covered by sheets of papers with loads of numbers written neatly underneath each other in an attempt to find out why there are so many years 11 but no year 22, in proper “The Number 23” style 🙂

Maybe I will have figured it out by the time I turn 66. Could you do me a favour and see how many 11 years you have in your lifetime? Just add together your birthday plus the running year (day+month+year e.g. 14+12+2011) and reduce the numbers until you have a number from 1 to 9. If any random number on the way happens to reduce to 11 or 22, note the year and let me know! I would be soo interested!

And what is the symbolism behind the peacock? It not only brings me back to India, where it is originally from, but also shows vanity as much as pride, beauty, awakening, protection, immortality and renewal. The peacock is sacred in India and is also considered to be a symbol of good-luck.

Love
Anna

Of Toy Horses and Existence

After eight years I have finally moved out of my mother’s house for good. Don’t get me wrong. I had actually left my home country of Germany seven years ago, just with a suit case and bare necessities. Most of my stuff I had left behind, knowing that they would be save where they were.

Initially I had taken most of my belongings 300 km south where I would be studying for the next year and a half, only to move them up again once I had decided to live in another country. From there, twice yearly visits turned into once yearly, but still, every time I took something that seemed important enough with me into my new home across the English Channel. It is incredible really if you think about the stuff we accumulate and hold dear. It’s our most innate habit: existence, holding on to things that define who we are.

In an interview with Ophra, the Dalai Lama remarked: “Even when a person has all of life’s comforts—good food, good  shelter, a companion—he or she can still become unhappy when encountering a  tragic situation. Physical comforts cannot subdue mental suffering, and if we  look closely we can see that those who have many possessions are not necessarily  happy. In fact, being wealthy often brings even more anxiety. On the other hand,  those who don’t have a life filled with luxury may have a home filled with  compassion, based on their choice to be content and to practice self-discipline.”
(Read more: http://www.oprah.com/omagazine/Oprah-Interviews-The-Dalai-Lama/2#ixzz2H2GUEuwD)

When my mother mentioned she might move into a much smaller accommodation, I decided it was time to rid myself of the extra belongings that had not been in use since I had left them. By no means did I think it would turn into an ordeal with the extend of a near breakdown.

It was mainly the memories that arose with each single piece from dust-covered boxes. Most were school related, arts and crafts, paintings, including end of year reports which reflected the negative impact my teacher of eight years had on my upbringing. There were notebooks with terrible handwriting and yet pretty interesting content. All my Barbie dolls plus an impressive array of horses, one of which could even walk, resembling some peculiar Michael Jackson move, providing you put batteries in. None of these I really needed, yet they were part of my childhood, part of who I once was, the part that made me who I am now. How can you just chuck that part away? You wouldn’t cut out a piece of your thigh and continue walking as if nothing had happened, would you? Yet, some people never even had the opportunity to accumulate any worldly possessions…

After the first sorting run, the second already proved less emotional. With the third, I had thrown away another half of what I initially was unable to part with. Now I had gone through the process of remembering, the joys and pains, and had come to realise that there was no need to keep it and was finally able to let go. Though I did worry that in a decade or two I would be looking for some memorabilia, that would not be there no more. It was more about “just looking at it and remembering”. The other thing, however, was to try and fit it all into an already crammed tiny flat.

It might be a coincidence that this process of letting go also applies to a change in my diet, mainly excluding refined cane sugar, which I am currently writing about in a separate blog. Being back at my mother’s house at Christmas, the place I spent all my childhood, I find myself reverting back to the little child I once was, with the reflection of the wax candles in my eyes only merely covering up the gleam of near insanity, or child-like joy, at the sight of granny´s big Christmas plate filled with lebkuchen, stollen, biscuits, marzipan and chocolates filled with the most delicious mousse and cream, all wrapped in all the colours of the universe. And somewhere deep inside I wonder whether I will ever be able to abstain from sugar for good.

Of course, my 30-year-old self still couldn´t help itself in view of the Christmas treats, though it was more in control than the last years. I had cut down on sugar in every-day life, with the exception of festive periods. With every sugar-coated almond, chocolate coated marzipan, chocolate nougat ball, poppy crumble cake, waffle topped with hot cherries and rice pudding I ate, I said my last goodbye, knowing that if I want to change, I will have to just do it.

The same goes with my material belongings. If I want to be free and filled with happiness, I will have to just let go of things that don’t serve me no more. I know that it is about time to let go and I vow to myself that I will lovingly do so. And if it isn’t so much letting go of all worldly possessions yet, so it will begin with thought processes. The past is over and gone and has no impact on me. I acknowledge it as a stepping stone that made me who I am today. My life is full of joy, laughter and fun and I fully love myself and those around me. I choose my own future and create my life to my highest good. Wherever I go, life offers me splendid opportunities to grow. I only hold love in my thoughts, speak truth with my words and warm others with my radiant smile.

For this is not happiness 😉

To a new year, filled with new adventures.

Love
Anna

How to have a proper day off

I am terribly guilty of packing my days off with all those important and often vitally necessary stuff from studying to shopping and rarely take time off properly for what it is meant to be: a day off from all the hustle and bustle.

Now, I am certain that I am not alone with this attitude considering most of us have a very all-encompassing and over consuming life, but consider this: never mind the proverb “Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today.” Put it off anyway, at least for once in a while.

It does help, in my case, to have a dear friend who is mad enough to create a list of 71 points on how to seize the day (www.lifestarts.co.uk/the-vows). Point 37 on her list was to create a home retreat for one day. And I was lucky enough to be part of it. What at first sound like she just wanted to show me a yoga DVD turned out to be a perfectly choreographed day without me having to worry a thing and to be able to simply just relax and go with it. I do wonder, however, if she actually managed to get the same contentment out of it as me, since she clearly was the “maîtresse de maison” 🙂

We started following instructions for a Kundalini Yoga session on the telly screen which wasn’t as hard as I had feared it would be. Yet my bones did make all sorts of noises…yes I have been putting off some of my morning yoga sessions in favour of other worldly commitments…

Then she created a beautiful light lunch of salad with carrots, olives, beetroot, celery, rocket and hard boiled eggs which was soo yummy and refreshing. She can be very territorial though when it comes to food, even in my own kitchen!

Her scheduled walk was abandoned due to torrentuous rain but instead we took to pens, watercolours, crayons and paper and indulged in an activity of painting and drawing which we both felt like we haven’t done for far too long. It was like being back in kindergarten – so happy and content.

And then, there was even more. She mashed up an avocado and mixed it with a little olive oil and we splashed it all over our face. Again, just like back in kindergarten, the pure gist of mashing up stuff and smearing it on your face. And the most beautiful thing: while we let it soak in and do its job on our face, we layed back down on our yoga mats and listened to a guided meditation. All the way one of my friend’s cats curled up on my legs mildly massaging them with its purring. Oh, the sheer beauty of it all..

Finally I was allowed to approach the dining table that has been my focus of attention since my arrival for it was loaded with books that had such fascinating and interesting titles to look at that I found it hard to just ignore them. But throughout the morning I was again and again promptly reminded to get the hell away from them. Yes, I do have a weakness when it comes to interesting books. But now that I was allowed to just curl up on the sofa with books and a cat on my lap I made the most of it.

In between we had herbal teas with detoxifying properties and there were endless opportunities to cuddle and stroke cats which has such a tremendous therapeutic effect on relaxing your mind and soul. I can only stress to do something in the line yourself. And do it sooner rather than later! Don’t let yourself be overwhelmed by your everyday stress, take a day off. And make sure you take it off properly!

Love
Anna