I learned a lot this week

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I’ve had a really intense week – I was co-hosting a 3-day training on participatory leadership, which is all about changing mindsets and requires full emotional involvement; I received training on welcoming newcomers to the institution I work for, and another training on clear legal writing for my main job as editor; I had the end-of-year evaluation for the creative therapy course I am taking, in Dutch, a language I don’t really speak; and I  prepared for and took part in some auditions for a local production of Evita.

Phew!

It was long, it was intense and it involved a steep learning curve. Here are a couple of things I learned:

  • Think before you speak and only speak with intention. Speak from your heart, not just your mind.
  • When in conversation, listen to the other person or people and be conscious of where the conversation is going. Don’t hijack the conversation.
  • Even when not in a conversation, don’t do stuff on automatic pilot, you are not a robot.
  • Not every comment made needs a response from me, especially if it’s negative. Sometimes it’s simply not worth engaging in what will become an argument that nobody wins. In fact, nobody needs to win and we don’t need to argue. We don’t need to be on the defensive all the time.
  • Brings everything back to ‘need’ – we do not live in a vacuum. As in, do we need to keep working on this project? Why did we start it in the first place?
  • Loads of people around the world are doing great things. Tune in.
  • Don’t be scared of having conversations about difficult things. Apparently, the Queen of Denmark once asked: What if some of the things that are wrong with the world are that way because of conversations that didn’t happen?
  • It is possible to be afraid of success. In fact, I am afraid of success and that fear is holding me back.
  • You have to let some order into chaos and some chaos into order to create anything new. The balance is not defined, it is rather a dance between the two, continuous movement.

What did you learn this week?

On the importance of every day

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Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about the things I do every day, how important they are, and whether they make my life better or contribute to my happiness. I was inspired by one of the lessons in Gretchen Rubin’s The Happiness Project, that what you do every day matters more, makes more of a difference, than what you do once in a while.

This is serious, turning-my-life-up-side-down stuff. I mean, my life is pretty good, but if I look at what I do every single day, it’s pretty depressing, especially if I compare it with the list of things that I would like to be doing regularly. Basically, my days involve rushing around between work and home responsibilities, spending time with my family, reading (on my commute) and watching TV. I do loads of other things occasionally, maybe once or twice a week – I excercise, I write, I paint or do other creative projects. But I don’t do them regularly and I always feel disappointed that they’re not bringing me the benefits I expected them to.

I decided that it’s the TV-watching that’s a problem, even though I am a proud TV-series fan and definitely don’t think that watching TV series is a waste of time. But even if it’s not, even if it’s fun, do I need to be doing it every single day? Wouldn’t it be better if, say, I went for a walk every single day and only watched a little bit of TV? Or went for a walk every single day, did something creative every other day, and only watched TV every other day?

Thing is, after all that rushing around between home and work stuff, I’m so tired that all I want to do is veg on the couch and have someone entertain me with a good story. So introducing changes had to involve some extra thinking.

I thought about the way I wanted to feel every day. I want to feel energised, inspired, productive, calm and happy. I can get 4 out of 5 of those out of something I picked up in the past year, though haven’t been doing regularly. Yoga. The fifth, feeling productive, can easily be a product of the others. I know I accomplish more if am energised and calm.

So there it is, my transformation of the every day. I added yoga to my days and so far, so good. Yesterday, I also added meditation, because I’ve been talking about it for ages and, having done it regularly before, am perfectly aware of the benefits it brings.

If you’re on a similar track, I can recommend the yoga books by Tara Stiles, because they have 10-15 minute routines for specific things that may be troubling you. For meditation, I started Deepak Chopra’s 21-day meditation challenge, available as an iPad app. Each meditation has a different focus and I’m enjoying it so far. Both the books and the app were recommended by my friend Agnieszka, let’s see if she still reads this blog! :-)

For extra inspiration, read this article on Brain Pickings.

How about you? Are you happy with your every day? What would you like to fit in more regularly?

Sunday Salon: Blogging, reading and mood

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It’s been a long time since I blogged, I completely lost my blogging mojo. I have been reading, some, but not as much as in previous months and it got me thinking about how my mood influences everything.

These past weeks (um, months?) have been very, very busy at work. The job is still new to me, so I have to put in more effort than someone more experienced would. Being new also influences my confidence levels, so I am more conscious about the quality of my work.

The work transition is part of a bigger change in my life,  I am really in a transitional place. This means that mood-wise I’m all about self-improvement, happiness and mindfulness. And this is reflected in my recent reading – and probably my lack of blogging too, since my mind is so all over the place.

So this is what I’ve been reading:

The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin – I got this from the library as an e-bbok, read half, loved it and ordered my own copy so that I could see my highlighting better and flip back and forth. I still haven’t finished it, mostly because I’m trying to figure out how best to record the quotes I love and my thoughts as I’m reading. I’ve been experimenting with mind mapping – do you find it useful for projects like this?

Revive by Frank Lipman – A friend who is introducing a number of health-related changes into her life recommended this one, but I got stuck after a few days. I definitely don’t want to follow it exactly, it wouldn’t work with my current lifestyle, but I like some of his ideas. Hmm, it might be another case of figuring out how to capture everything I want to keep filed in my head.

Slim, Calm, Sexy Yoga and Yoga Cures by Tara Stiles – I want to get into the habit of doing yoga every day, even if just for 10 minutes, and these books are really nice for that. Now I’m looking for a book that explains the spiritual and physical benefits of individual yoga poses, so that I understand what I’m doing a bit better.

Green Smoothie Revolution by Victoria Boutenko – I never thought I’d be a green-smoothie person, but I am, I love them! I don’t have them every day, largely because we don’t have many kinds of organic greens available here and I don’t think there’s much sense in making green smoothies with sub-standard ingredients. So I have one maybe once a week with spinach, and have regular fruit smoothies a few more times. If you’ve ever wondered about green smoothies, just try them, they are delicious!

I’ve been reading fiction too, escapist stories so that I don’t have to think too much and reading can be a rest from work. These are the books I finished recently:

Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard
Every Day by David Levithan
Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George
Welcome to the World, Baby Girl by Fannie Flagg

I’m planning on doing some mini-reviews soon!

Have a good Sunday, everyone!

How do you keep your blogging mojo?

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mojo

I’m back, kind of, of it took a while. I’m not sure what happened. One day it was the week before Easter and I had loads of ideas and blogging energy and now it’s mid-May and I haven’t posted anything. How does that work?

How do you keep yourself blogging?

I know that scheduled breaks are sometimes needed and that’s fine. But I didn’t plan on being away for this long. I think I should have taken advantage of my blogging/writing energy when it was there and should have taken the time to pre-write loads of posts.

Is that what you guys do?

I’m surprised that blogging is just like exercise, which I also lost somewhere on the way. If I skip a few days it’s oh-so-hard to get back into it.

I keep re-considering whether I want to keep blogging at all, but the answer is always ‘yes’. When I do it, I love it. Again, just like exercise.

So, here we go again. I missed you guys!

* photo credit

Hello April, have you seen Spring anywhere?

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Seriously, is this what my Easter break is supposed to look like?   20130403-125948.jpg This is the view from my parents’ house near Warsaw. And the snow is still falling. Will it ever stop? There isn’t much comfort in staying warm, indoors. I love staying all snug when winter just starts, but this is ridiculous. I long for the outdoors, for my garden. I’m sick of winter boots and hats and scarves. I’m ready for ice cream and sunshine.

So I take comfort in too much chocolate and in my books. I just finished reading Seraphina by Rachel Hartman, which I loved. I’m now reading On the Banks of Plum Creek by Laura Ingalls Wilder (for this readalong) and Every Day by David Levithan. Both are promising.

I don’t have access to all my bookish stuff from my parents’ house, so I’ll leave my bookish goals update for another time. Maybe it’s actually better that I can include April too, I didn’t get much reading done in March… Well, I did read a lot, but I couldn’t concentrate very well and I didn’t finish much.

What are you doing to get through this long winter? I’ll bet chocolate and books are also involved!

March is almost over, time to revisit my goals for the year

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goals

(photo credit)

Ah yes. The first quarter of 2013 is almost over (already??) and I thought it would be fun to look back on those lists of goals I made back in January. In previous years, I didn’t look at my lists again until December and I’m hoping that thinking about them more regularly will help keep me on track.

Today, I’ll talk about my non-bookish goals. How am I doing so far?

I’m still not leaving enough time to make things with my hands. I am, of course, attending my Creative Therapy course where I do lots of interesting artsy things, but the idea was to also do them at home. I made one mandala and that’s it so far.

I’ve also not read anything about mandalas, nor explored anything non-fiction and creativity-related. Maybe I should make a list of books to choose from.

deck-of-tarot-cards

(photo credit)

I am learning the tarot, Ms Bookish and I have a project going. It’s slow, I only have time to look at the cards once a week at most, but at least I started. Yay, me!

Hmmm… have I learned to love and respect myself? Maybe not fully, but I do feel that I’m on the right track. I do loads more exercise than I did at the beginning of the year – I got a pedometer so I’m walking a lot, I do yoga and I went back to my tap class. I also kind of started running, but my enthusiasm got derailed by the return of winter. It’s way too cold to go outside unless you absolutely have to. I have been much better with healthy food too.

I’m definitely writing more and I feel like writing is becoming part of who I am. I took a skillshare course on writing blog posts taught by another jennifer and that kickstarted my blogging again, gave me focus. I’m happy with how that’s going.

We haven’t travelled a whole lot this year yet, but we have lots of plans. We were in Wales in January, we’re going to Poland next week, we have a couple of weekend trips planned (including to Dublin!) and will travel a lot in the summer. Summer will probably be Slovenia and Croatia, though we’re not completely sure yet.

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Shane in Dublin when he was much smaller. His first time crawling on grass too!

I’m getting better at watching my money but still spend money recreationally, so to speak. Sometimes it’s just nice to go shopping! :-)

De-cluttering is a work-in-progress. I got rid of a couple of big items of furniture and am always selling toys and clothes that Shane has grown out of, but our house needs so much more. It would be great if I could take a week off work and just de-clutter the house, but that’s not going to happen. I need a plan.

I’ve been working on my relationships and I’m much happier for it. I make sure to spend quality time with my husband and with Shane, and I make sure to go out with girlfriends regularly too. It’s amazing what catching up with people you love can do for your soul!

And, last but not least, I have been reading a lot. But a bookish goals post will come separately, probably on Sunday, so I won’t go into that here.

All in all, I’m happy with how things are going. I would need loads more time to do all the things I want to do, but I’m doing well with what I have.

Do you make goals for the year? How are you doing?

Howl’s Moving Castle by Diana Wynne Jones

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howlI finally understand why people love this author so much. Howl’s Moving Castle is so fun to read, a fairy tale that’s not only for kids, a story that warmed my heart. And how timely  to have read it now so that I can review it for Diana Wynne Jones March organised by We Be Reading!

The story takes place in a magical world where pretty much anything is possible. Sophie, the eldest of three daughters and therefore destined for absolutely nothing (the eldest is always destined to fail), doesn’t have any expectations for her life. Until the Witch of the Waste visits her hat shop and turns her into an old woman. Now, free from rules and expectations, Sophie can go on an adventure of her very own. This leads her to Howl and his moving castle, where she makes a deal with Howl’s fire demon and ends up staying. While trying to break the witch’s spell she discovers more than she could have imagined.

What I loved most about Sophie is the change that happened in her when the witch made her old. She had always followed the rules and didn’t expect anything more than what she was entitled to, which in her world meant nothing. But then, when her whole world was taken away with that spell, she didn’t break down or despair, she got on with it and just did whatever she wanted, not caring who it pleased or displeased. It’s a great idea to put in a story, the ridiculousness of following expectations when you’re clearly capable of so much more. And the idea that when you grow up you’ll look at things very differently.

“It was odd. As a girl, Sophie would have shrivelled with embarrassment at the way she was behaving. As an old woman, she did not mind what she did or said.”

I admit that I loved Howl… I think I could have been one of those enamoured girls they talk about at the beginning of the book.

I also really liked the story. Some of it was predictable, sure, but it was still enchanting enough to hold my interest. And I loved the fairy-tale feel of the book, but without any of the sugary, almost forced sweetness you sometimes see in such stories. It felt like a fairy tale, like a crazy world that could never exist, and yet it felt real somehow, too.

It was comforting to spend time in the world Diana Wynne Jones built, and I would like to go back again. I understand that there are two sequels to this book, and I know that there is a famous movie.

Have you read/watched them? Should I bother?