• Bewusst Leben,  Sarines Gedanken

    On abundance

    I have been thinking about money a lot lately. Or rather: I have been observing the way I think about money, and how I handle money.

    Three things have triggered this sudden interest: First off, I am at my grandparents‘ house, and a lot of family-related issues have surfaced since my arrival, the importance of success, prestige and financial wealth being a dominant theme. Second, I have come across the blogs of two women who talk about how to deal with money issues in a way that really speaks to me (Mara Stix and MyMoneyMind – both in German). Third, for the first time in my adult-life, I don’t have an income. I am currently living on my savings. Some days that feels like the greatest luxury, other days it terrifies me.

    The money mystery

    Not all of the insights that keep coming are new, but what is new is that for the first time in my life I am taking an active interest in my financial situation. I am realizing how much my avoiding the topic has been connected to my fear of lack of control. I have mostly lived with the feeling that I can afford everything I really want to do – which is not a bad place to start. However, since I avoided thinking about money, I always felt a powerlessness, both regarding my income and my expenses. It seemed like a kind of magic: if I went into my savings because I wanted to travel, money suddenly appeared (often only after I bought the tickets). The times I did try to take responsibility, I thought tracking my expenses was the best way to gain control – but suddenly all I saw was money running through my fingers like sand, and I hated the feeling of having to think over every cent I spent. It made me feel poor, even though technically I wasn’t.

    I wasn’t able to connect the dots, so I thought that it was best for me not to actively think about money – I thought that was the part that made it „disappear“ because whenever I just did what I felt like, I was fine! I honestly thought that thinking about money was the problem. I am taking the liberty to blame my German heritage at least partly for that – just look at German expressions and proverbs about money, and you’ll understand: money stinks; stinking rich; Money isn’t something you talk about, it’s something you have; … the list goes on, not everything translates well but you get the gist.

    Family business

    This is also where family history comes into play: like everything else, my family’s values and ideas about money shaped my own values and ideas about money. Since I avoided thinking about money, I naturally was blind to how my family’s way of handling money had shaped my own view on it.

    So here are the facts: I have never been actually poor. Even as a kid, my parents (and my grandparents, too) had savings accounts for us, so as an adult it was a given for me to keep it that way. I have gone into these savings whenever I wanted to travel or if I really wanted to buy something that my regular income didn’t cover. I have never spent any money I didn’t have, meaning, I have always made sure my credit cards had their limit at the amount that the balance on my account covered. I have been fortunate to have parents who paid for my university studies. The only time I went into debt was when I bought a house with my boyfriend. And even then, we would have had the means to pay cash, and that was the main reason we felt comfortable taking the loan. (Before you get the idea that I am loaded: houses on the Swedish countryside are ridiculously cheap, at least in the less populated areas, for obvious reasons – lack of jobs, schools, etc.) Since I no longer own that house, I don’t have that mortgage anymore, either.

    All that sounds pretty good, right? Then here’s the real question: how is it possible for someone like me to have money issues? How could I for even the fraction of a second be under the impression that I am poor – let alone for longer periods of her life? The answer, as the a fore-mentioned blogs reminded me, is that wealth has less to do with your bank account balance than your state of mind. The Secret, anyone?

    Abundance and scarcity – It’s all in your mind

    According to the law of attraction, what you think is what you get. When you experience yourself as being in a state of abundance internally, abundance is what you get externally. Same goes for scarcity, of course. That explains why money always „magically“ appeared, when I decided to spend it on something that wasn’t a necessity for survival but just something I knew I’d enjoy. You can only make that kind of decision out of a sense of abundance, with the confidence that you’re provided for, that the money you’re spending on something fun won’t be missing when it’s time to pay the rent. The law of attraction is also the explanation why money suddenly seemed to be disappearing whenever I focused on money: the only way of focusing on money I knew was looking at the expenses. Naturally that created a sense of scarcity, which in turn invited scarcity into my life.

    In the past few days I have been observing myself, and experimenting with some of the insights I’ve had.

    How much money does it take to feel rich?

    I started tracking my expenses shortly before I understood that the focus on them can produce the scarcity-mindset that leads into panic. After giving it some thought, I decided that I’d continue anyway because I wanted to know how much I need to live comfortably. Of course, the sky is the limit but sometimes it helps to have an actual number. It feels easier to think, „OK, I need X€“ thank thinking „I need a lot of money“. What was even more surprising: My X turned out to be not even a crazy high number. I have only been tracking my expenses for little over a month but I am seeing that I’m nowhere even near that number, and I have been making an effort to not be cheap. That was one of things I had promised myself: if I was going to live on my savings, I didn’t want to do it feeling like I can’t afford anything. I mean, savings are finite, so I obviously need a new source of income at some point. I’d rather have short while of fun with my money than a long period of dreading every cent I’m spending of it. From that perspective, keeping track has calmed my mind tremendously, and has reduced that aspect of lack of control. Just goes to show that it’s not what we do, it’s how we do it that makes all the difference.

    Napkins, prayers and wedding dresses

    Speaking of intention: I found that when it comes to spending money, how I feel about it has often very little to do with the actual amount.

    The other day I found myself fretting over buying paper napkins. I was standing in front of the shelf thinking „Yeah, but I don’t really need those. Sure, these are prettier but I still have napkins at home, better use those up first.“ Then I realized: I was acting as if this were a life-and-death-situation when in fact it was napkins – that cost 99c! Also, the reason why I still had napkins at home was that I never wanted to use them because they were depicting a scene from a children’s book in which a teacher is chastising his student. (I’d really like to meet the genius that thought „Hey, this’ll make for great merchandise – how about some napkins!“. No wait, I don’t.) I came to my senses and bought the happy napkins. Really, they have hearts and birds and little doodles and it even says „Happy“ on them!

    The next „exercise“ was more legit: taking my wedding dress to the dry-cleaner’s because I was planning on selling it. I learned that depending on the dress, it was going to cost somewhere between 75 and 140€. If you consider how my mind felt about the napkins you can do the math and figure out how it felt about that … Was I even going to get that money for the dress?! Heck, I wasn’t even sure I’d be able to sell it at all – not because of the dress but because I don’t consider myself to be a good sales-person (that’s another story for another time). Then it occurred to me that this was just what I needed as incentive. If it costs that much to clean it (and I knew I wouldn’t have the guts to only pretend I cleaned it and sell it as is), there was no way that I wasn’t going to sell the dress. So the same mind that almost wasn’t going to spend 99c on napkins was suddenly ok with spending up to 140€ not knowing whether that would turn out to be money down the drain or an investment. (Still not a life-and-death-situation, though.)

    As I approached the dry-cleaner’s with my dress the next day, I noticed how much I was worked up over the whole situation. Of course, it was more than the money – I clearly hadn’t really come to terms with the whole decision to sell my wedding dress … I stopped, took a deep breath and prayed. More specifically, I prayed for help to let go of my fears, to stay with love, and for the whole situation to resolve itself in the best way possible, regardless of my fears. This is what happened: when the lady at the dry-cleaner’s saw my dress she said: „OK, this may have been your wedding dress, but here it’s an evening gown. That’ll be 17€.“

    Do I think that was an answer to my prayer? Maybe. OK, I do. But I am not sure that that prayer was my prayer. Maybe the fact that I had made a deliberate choice to be fine with the cost and not fret over it was that prayer already. Maybe that was the step that was enough to tell the universe I was ready, that it was OK to come and meet me (more than) half-way. Maybe that prayer on top was just for me and my fear. Maybe it got me an additional discount. I don’t know.

    I have been doing a lot more things since then: taking my beloved cat wrist watch in to get fixed (it was so cheap that the cost of fixing it was absurdly disproportionate to the original price). Buying a new pair of glasses AND sunglasses even though I don’t „need“ them (everything is relative – I’ve had my glasses for 9 years, and besides, some might say that there are more decadent things to own than a second pair of glasses). Buying a bunch of flowers for the house (my no. 1 quick fix tip for creating spaces with a sense of abundance when a place is lacking that feel). Eating out (I haven’t felt like cooking or doing the dishes lately, so I decided that it’s time to take a break at least some days).

    The luxury of not buying something

    As I am conducting my little experiments, I notice several things:
    1. I can afford everything I really want because none of the things that I find pleasure in turn out to cost as much money as my fear wants to make me believe. For instance, I have no desire for objects that are mere status symbols. I tried on two pair of sunglasses that looked almost identical. Both were brand names but one was about half the price of the other. Of course I didn’t get the expensive one, just because it had the Michael Kors logo! I don’t think I will ever define wealth as the ability to afford brand names for their own sake. (Which is not to say I judge people who do – if it makes you happy, it’s cool. It’s just not me.)

    2. When my mind is in a state of abundance, I actually buy less of certain products. I used to buy a lot of groceries in bulk – because it’s „cheaper“ that way. I bought stuff just because it was on sale. I bought things „just in case“. All of these types of purchases come from the scarcity mindset. The amount of money you spend on those can just as easily add up to a small fortune – or even a large one. I love having an empty fridge because that makes it easier for me to eat whatever I feel like on any given day. If the fridge is full, I feel burdened by the „task“ of taking care of its content before it goes bad.

    3. When I am in a state of abundance, I suddenly have to focus more on what I really want. I wouldn’t buy a pair of glasses that cost a fortune when I don’t feel like they’re „totally me“. However, I have probably spent a fortune on things that were not „totally me“ – just because they were cheap. Abundance then is not just being able to afford „expensive stuff“ – it is also being able to afford not buying something that doesn’t feel 100% right. In that sense, I can feel rich not buying something. It is about living in the awareness that I am provided for, always.

    You may have noticed that my focus here was purely on the expense side. That’s because the income side has been even more „magical“ in the bewildering and confusing sense to me. I am in the process of changing that but not quite at a point where I have anything ready for sharing yet. If things keep going the way they are right now, that is going to change.

  • Bewusst Leben,  Sarines Stöde

    A path into light

    It’s been two years on this day that I completed a seminar on finding yourself, and your purpose in this life. My expectations, which were pretty high, were surpassed. I gained a lot of insights about myself and life in general during the seminar. To this day these insights keep unfolding even more, my understanding of their significance deepens – or sometimes I even notice how something I realize now was already there, then. I just wasn’t able to „read“ the sign.

    Shortly before the seminar, I read about Ayahuasca ceremonies. What I read reminded me that there is always more than one way. That there is never a single event in your life that everything else hinges on. Yes, there are significant moments in life, and yes, some of them set you on a very specific path. But you only ever know the path you’ve actually walked, so you’re mostly not aware that things could have gone differently, and you’d still be on your path. In fact, life finds ways to open doors for you when the one you (thought you) were supposed to walk through unexpectedly closes.

    I realized that I could have chosen something other than this seminar, or that if I were suddenly unable to attend, there would be more ways for me to discover my life’s purpose. When my head has an idea about the significance of an upcoming event, it tends to put a lot of pressure on me and overload everything with expectations. It felt good to suddenly be able to approach the experience with a kind of „light-headedness“. It also made me realize that while, yes, I could have chosen something else, I did in fact choose this.

    The seminar I am talking about is The Path Into Light®. If it is part of your journey, too, you may find something in my writing that speaks to you. Or maybe you’ll stumble upon it a few more times elsewhere. If it’s not part of your journey, then nothing anyone could possibly say about it will convince you otherwise. You’ll still be on your path, and that is the point.

    That’s what amazes me so much about life: that we all are in it together, just existing at the same time on this earth connects us so deeply. Yet we are all free to have very different experiences, to be on our own path, to be like no one else. Earth is the place where all of that fits in the same space.

    Thank you, La, for guiding me on my path into light with so much ease, confidence, and laughter. Thank you, Agni Eickermann, for having paved this road. There may be many paths that lead into light. This one is the fast track.

  • Bewusst Leben,  Sarines Stöde

    On blogging again

    So. I guess I’m blogging again. Yay! How terrifying! There has been an ongoing internal debate over the past weeks (months?!) on that issue. 1. whether or not to blog at all, 2: if so, why and why now, 3: what and what not, and finally: how to begin.

    In case you are a more result-oriented person: 1. Yes, 2. Because I want to, because now’s a good time 3. Whatever I want to, 4. Like this.

    In case you are a woman interested in the journey as much as the destination, lhere’s a more detailed version:

    1. Yes or no?

    When I noticed the wish to blog again, two sides of me emerged: one wanted nothing more than to get started, it even felt that it was absolutely critical that I start immediately, that any delay would be terrible, and that I absolutely must go ahead. Right. Away. The other side felt like I had nothing to say, nothing to share that could possibly be of any value to anyone. And the internet is already full of people who do that.

    Also, the side of me that felt hesitant was concerned about the obvious risk in the instant nature of blogging, or social media in general: you think it’s a great idea to share something you’re going through – and then you realize it’s not. Because you don’t get the reaction you weren’t even aware you’d wished for, or maybe you didn’t want to any at all. Or maybe you did and nobody said anything. Bottom line:  All that happens is you add drama to your pain.

    At the end of the day, conflicting feelings arise no matter what I do when I do it for the first time (or the first time after a long time). And there are always valid points to both sides. (Coming up: a post on how I deal with these conflicting feelings.) For now let me just say that at the end of the day it’s a good idea to be aware of all your emotions involved in a decision – and then to make a choice and do what makes you happy. That doesn’t mean the other side disappears but you can make active choices on how to handle that side of you.

    2. Why, and why now?

    I realized that my reason for not blogging had been that for a very long time I was afraid that being visible in that way would trigger emotions within me which I could not calculate beforehand. It was a good thing I listened to that feeling for as long as I did feel vulnerable, and people’s reactions (or lack thereof) to what I would have shared only would have caused drama.

    Eventually I came to the point where protecting myself by not putting myself out there didn’t feel good anymore. I understood that, yes, if I do allow myself to be visible, I make myself vulnerable, and that will stir up emotions in me regardless of any external reactions. But I had begun to feel unhappier about not allowing anyone to see me. I realized that I would feel a lot better about just doing what I feel like, and there was even curiosity as to what kind of emotions that would trigger, and how I would deal with them. I simply came to the conclusion that I didn’t want to avoid any potential emotions anymore if that meant not doing something I really enjoy. Because no matter where I go, they are always there with me anyway – emotions, thoughts and ideas of how I/things „should be“.

    There is a middle ground. It’s possible to face my doubts without forcing myself to tackle anything I’m not ready to take on. To be honest without unnecessarily exposing myself. To write and share what moves and engages me without navel-gazing. To be spontaneous and following anything that intrigues me without being random and all over the place.

    3. What?

    What is the thread connecting it all? I’ll write about what I wish someone would have told me. My earlier mission statement(s) for this blog still passes the test of time: I want to live my life deliberately, and I want to document and share that journey. That is the thread tying it all together, it’s what I’ve been interested in ever since I was fourteen, read Sofie’s World, and understood what it meant to be self-aware. Then came Thoreau’s Walden, and the notion of living deliberately impressed me equally. And a bunch of other books and experiences that are too many to list here (that’s maybe another post – or a gazillion).

    My idea of what deliberate living means have changed. For a while I even attempted to follow Thoreau quite literally (although he was never expressly the reason behind the path I’d chosen): living on the country side, growing my own veggies, being close to nature and contemplating what the necessities of a good life really are. I came to the conclusion that for me they were something else. I think Thoreau would have approved because deliberate living is just that: not blindly following someone’s concept of how life should be but coming up with your own.

    For me that means whatever makes me happy. I still want to fill my life with as much awareness as possible. Being aware of one’s self is crucial in the pursuit of happiness. At the end of the day, happiness is the meaning of life. Of mine anyway.

    What not? I will not share anything that I know still has an emotional grip on me. True, there are no guarantees, comments (or the lack thereof) can hit you unexpectedly. But that is a risk I am willing to take. In fact, that can be a good thing, if you want to know where you still have buttons to push. And I do! (Have buttons, and want to know where they are.)

    A way that works for me to put myself to the test, regarding where I really stand on an issue – in this case, whether I think it’s a good idea to share stories about my personal development in a public forum – is asking „How would I feel if everyone did this?“. I have to say: I would love that! It’s in fact the number one thing I am interested in. Not interested in what cause you think I should support, not interested in what political party you support or hate, not interested in what ongoing atrocities you think I should be aware of. If I am following you on a social media platform, I am interested in you. Pictures of and by you, and your perspective on life.  I appreciate honesty in social media. That includes pretty pictures, words of wisdom and encouragement. That also includes descriptions of how people deal with the not so pretty stuff. At the end of the day, social media profiles show less of how someone is than how they want to be seen. And I appreciate people who dare to show their shadows as well as their light. I was waiting for someone to ask me to be one of those people, respectively to give me the permission slip. Then I realized, that none of the people who do claim their space do so because they were „tapped“ – they just do it, and that’s all there is to it!

    4. How to begin

    That’s the one my mind can easily get stuck on, a good place to look when I don’t know what’s keeping me. Often it’s simply that I overburden the beginning with significance. The point, of course, is really just to jump in anywhere. Maybe that was one of the best lessons my philosophy studies taught me: there is no „easy“ place to start, you just start anywhere. In the beginning it’s all uncharted territory but the more you dare to venture out there, the more you learn how to be an explorer.

    This is the story of how my head came to the conclusion that it would be a good idea to blog again – and also what it deems worthy of sharing. And I can appreciate it’s job . It’s not like I have a choice anyway, my mind is debating, rejecting and glorifying stuff all the time, so I might as well involve it in a productive process. You know, like those dogs that need a lot of exercise or they’ll trash your home.

    However, the true reason is undebatable, undeniable, completely illogical, and beyond rejection and/or praise: I enjoy doing it. I cannot count the number of blogs I have started and deleted over the years since I was 18 or so. They never made me any money, they never changed the world – but I’ve always had so much fun writing them! When you find yourself enjoying something in and for itself, regardless of external reward, you have to trust that you found the best way to spend your life (or as much time of it as possible).

    I have found myself coming to this conclusion over and over again, and sometimes I still keep forgetting it. That writing (and sharing that writing) is that for me. The thing I can do no matter what, the magic process that opens up a space where I am the most me. Just out of curiosity: What’s that thing for you? Is it always there with you, or do you also forget/doubt it? What happens when you do? How do you re-discover it? Do you make any conscious efforts to re-discover it, or does it just sort of come back on its own accord?

  • Bewusst Leben,  Sarines Stöde

    Life | Work in progress

    The original purpose of this blog was to document and share my journey as a soul-searcher. I think the main reason I haven’t done that lately (apart from the fact that our internet situation is still kind of a non-situation and I haven’t felt like staying at the office just so that I can spend more time by the computer) is that some things are still too new and fragile to share yet. I need to manifest and live them before I can share them. Does that make sense?

    But spiritual growth for me is nothing separate from physical growth, and I see our garden as a big part of what I want to accomplish in this life. So lately I have been thinking that I want to document that part more, even if it’s just to be able to see how things evolve from one year to the next.

    Last year, our first, felt like a struggle. I was working full-time, and often felt too exhausted to want to o anything at all after work. We picked the heaviest, most clayey spot on our entire land to grow vegetables on, and nothing much grew besides potatoes. This year we’re only growing potatoes on it – and we dug out another bed (much better soil) where we grow other veggies.

    We built a greenhouse last year, and the tomatoes and squash grew into a jungle. The cucumbers died, we watered them with cold water. I made tomato chutney and jam, and lots of squash cheesecake. At the end of the season I got hold of another (a „real“ greenhouse) through the Swedish equivalent to craigslist. The previous owners sold it for next to nothing because a storm had destroyed a lot of the glass. So this year we have two green-houses.

    The tomatoes I pre-grew all died because I didn’t think to harden them before planting them into the green-house. Luckily, a much more experienced gardening-enthusiast down the street sold their excess tomato plants. That way I even got hold of a couple of exotic specimens they had brought home from a vacation. No suqash this year, I simply forgot to pre-grow it. Cucumbers, though, and melons!

    We have been talking about chickens, too. Haven’t gotten further than getting books from the library, though. That’s one of the things that I like about gardening (besides lovely „free“, organic food): there will always be another chance, another spring, another summer, more time to grow.

  • Bewusst Leben,  Sarines Stöde

    Happy B-Day, me!

    I spent the entire day in a car, which is not really how I had planned it but the important part is: I was at our new home before the end of the day.

    This sunrise greeted me when I got up that morning:

    Quite the appropriate start, don’t you think?

    Something really strange and amazing happened to me on the way: There are several ways to choose to our new place for the last few miles. I ended up choosing the one that felt most familiar, which turned out to lead me into driving through complete darkness in the woods. I barely saw the dirt road ahead of me, the view in the rear mirror: pitch black. I felt like I was in a David Lynch movie. I got a little scared, and then a thought popped into my head: what if I was in the middle of some sort of real life metaphor? My old life was clearly behind me, no point in looking back but my new life was still something unknown. I was completely in the dark as to where I was in my life at that moment. All I could do was have faith that I am protected and that everything would be ok.

    The clock in the car showed 9.11 pm – I was born at 9.17 pm. I was a little disappointed because I so baldy wanted to be at the house before I turned 30, and I clearly wasn’t going to make it that far in eight minutes. Then I got distracted by contemplating the birth (metaphor – was it really a metaphor, or was I actually going through some sort of real birthing process?) I found myself in. Suddenly the road was lit again, I was out of the dark. After a few moments I thought of looking at the time. It was 9.22, and I just couldn’t help but think (or wish to believe) that I probably must have driven out of the darkness into the light at the exact moment of my birth thirty years ago.

  • Bewusst Leben,  Sarines Göteborg

    Summary – So lucky | Feng Shui

    Cameron House Feng Shui by tronathan

    In this last part of my little „Feng Shui 101“ it is time for the big reveal. At least it’s big for me. However, I am going to begin with a summary of what I find to be the most important points. So, be patient – or scroll to the end of this article.

    With all these personal Kua numbers, lucky and unlucky directions, and houses with back doors things can get pretty complicated: you and your partner/family members/room-mates very likely have different personal Kua numbers, plus the house has lucky and unlucky areas, which in turn might not match your personal areas of benefit/disadvantage.

    And that’s not even considering that you might be living in a western house that was not built according to these Feng Shui principles, the toilet might be located in the wealth area, or the only physically possible way to have your bed facing is death … And how could knowing this be of any help?! Isn’t it just making you aware of that you’re doomed? Maybe ignorance is bliss …

    Well, that’s not how I read it. From what I understand, it is important to remember that these „lucky“ and „unlucky“ areas/directions by no means equal „destiny“. With the knowledge about these directions, and the knowledge of the Feng Shui teachings, you can optimize the benefit from the „lucky“ areas – and there always seems to be a way to minimize the harm in the „unlucky“ areas.

    If your personal beneficial and detrimental directions do not match the ones of your house, the personal ones seem to be more important.

    And, maybe most importantly for the „worrier“ in you (that includes me, too): if your place of residence is constructed in a very un-Feng Shui manner, do not get hung up on the fact that your toilet happens to be in the wealth area. Focus on the things that you can do and let the rest go. Again, this is not determining your fate.

    Now for the big reveal (for real now): Not only do Peter and I have the same Kua number (7), no – the lucky and unlucky directions of this number are also identical with those of the house (Tui)!!! Once again, I feel like the universe is waving it’s big foamy pointed finger …

    At first I didn’t even realize the match between us and the house, I was too busy drawing the floor plan. Then, when I did see it, I thought that it had to be one of those math problems where it turns out that no matter which numbers you fill in, you always end up with the same result. Then I realized that, nope, if the house had been facing a different direction, we would indeed have a different result. So much for not questioning luck.

    And just for fun (I really don’t know if this is interesting to anyone but me but anyway): here’s a list of the different rooms and their areas/directions in „our“ house (can’t wait for the day when i can drop the „“):

    Bottom floor

    • Entry hall – death: Better than it sounds, since you don’t really use this room for anything, I’ll just put in a bunch of plants, that seems to be a good remedy for most things unlucky. As are toilets, by the way, but I putting in a toilet in each of the four respective unlucky areas doesn’t seem very practical to me …
    • Staircase/closet – loss & scandal: Also cool with that, for the same reasons. We’ll just keep the closet shut.
    • Medium bedroom – obstacles, health, harmony: One of our office/guest rooms. Looking good, face desk away from obstacles, towards harmony. Too bad that the window is facing obstacles, I always want my desk by a window, not facing a wall. We’ll see.
    • Bathroom – harmony: Some might say that’s a waste but, hey.
    • Living room – harmony, wealth, misfortune, long life (and maybe some death): I think we can work with that.
    • Front porch (don’t know if it counts) – loss & scandal, death, long life: plants, plants, plants

    Second floor

    • Staircase – loss & scandal: see above
    • Hall – death: see above
    • Master bedroom – obstacles, health, harmony. We should be able to have the head of the bed towards harmony, so I think we’ll be good.
    • Kitchen – (a little bit of) death, long life, misfortune; with a pantry towards wealth: Well, let’s keep the glass half-full and focus on the pantry in the wealth corner. Long life is where the dining table is placed, so I guess that’s pretty good, too.
    • Mini-bedroom – harmony: Our second office/guest room. I guess deciding who’s going to want which room will be tough – the harmonious but tiny one or the big one with the obstacle area?
  • Bewusst Leben,  Sarines Göteborg

    Lucky and unlucky compass points | Feng Shui

    Compass Study by Calsidyrose

    Before I go into the different kinds of houses and their respective beneficial and detrimental areas (according to the compass tradition of Feng Shui), here’s a brief overview over those lucky and unlucky directions/areas:

    Lucky directions – and their main benefits

    Sheng Chi (Breath Of Life) – wealth/prosperity

    Tien Yi (Heavenly Doctor) – health

    Nien Yen – long life, also in the sense of many descendants

    Fu Wei – complete harmony

    Unlucky directions – and their main problems

    Ho Hai – bad luck and misfortune

    Wu Kwei (Five Ghosts) – obstacles

    Lui Sha (Six Killings) – loss and scandal

    Chueh Ming (Disaster) – death

    Here’s an article, that’s great for a brief overview, if you want to know a little more about these directions: Eight Mansions in Feng Shui.

    This page about the Kua number has charts for each of the nine numbers with the respective lucky and unlucky compass points, and how to optimize the benefits and how to do „damage control“ in the harmful areas.

  • Bewusst Leben,  Sarines Göteborg

    The importance of back doors | Feng Shui

    Sharma Back Door by tantrum_dan

    Now for the houses and their lucky and unlucky areas. According to the compass school of Feng Shui, there are eight different types of houses, depending on which compass point the back door is facing. (It doesn’t seem to matter, whether your house actually has a back door, it’s automatically the side opposite the side with the front door.)

    The eight kinds of houses and their beneficial/detrimental directions are:

    Kan (back door facing north)

    • most important direction/direction for harmony – north
    • direction for health – east
    • direction for long life – south
    • direction for wealth – south-east
    • direction for difficulties – west
    • direction for loss and scandal – north-west
    • direction for obstacles – north-east
    • direction for death – south-west

    Ken (back: north-east)

    • most important direction/direction for harmony – north-east
    • direction for health – north-west
    • direction for long life – west
    • direction for wealth – south-west
    • direction for difficulties – south
    • direction for loss and scandal – east
    • direction for obstacles – north
    • direction for death – south-east

    Chen (back: east)

    • most important direction/direction for harmony – east
    • direction for health – north
    • direction for long life – south-east
    • direction for wealth – south
    • direction for difficulties – south-west
    • direction for loss and scandal – north-east
    • direction for obstacles – north-west
    • direction for death – west

    Sun (back: south-east)

    • most important direction/direction for harmony – south-east
    • direction for health – south
    • direction for long life – east
    • direction for wealth – north
    • direction for difficulties – north-west
    • direction for loss and scandal – west
    • direction for obstacles – south-west
    • direction for death – north-east

    Li (back: south)

    • most important direction/direction for harmony – south
    • direction for health – south-east
    • direction for long life – north
    • direction for wealth – east
    • direction for difficulties – north-east
    • direction for loss and scandal – south-west
    • direction for obstacles – west
    • direction for death – north-west

    Kun (back: south-west)

    • most important direction/direction for harmony – south-west
    • direction for health – west
    • direction for long life – north-west
    • direction for wealth – north-east
    • direction for difficulties – east
    • direction for loss and scandal – south
    • direction for obstacles – south-east
    • direction for death – north

    Tui (back: west)

    • most important direction/direction for harmony – west
    • direction for health – south-west
    • direction for long life – north-east
    • direction for wealth – north-west
    • direction for difficulties – north
    • direction for loss and scandal – south-east
    • direction for obstacles – south
    • direction for death – east

    Chien (back: north-west)

    • most important direction/direction for harmony – north-west
    • direction for health – north-east
    • direction for long life – south-west
    • direction for wealth – west
    • direction for difficulties – south-east
    • direction for loss and scandal – north
    • direction for obstacles – east
    • direction for death – south
  • Bewusst Leben,  Sarines Göteborg

    Kua! Quoi?| Feng Shui

    Three „Feng-Shui Cats“ by Bahi P

    While we were up in Sundsvall, Peter found this Feng Shui book at one of the second-hand places. The discoveries we’ve made about „our“ house (and ourselves) are just uncanny. In a good way!

    OK, I don’t know all that much about Feng Shui, and from what I gather so far it’s a rather complex teaching of energy flows, going way beyond the home decorating stuff that „we Westerners“ associate it with. So I am going to worm my way out of explaining it to you by recommending you do some research of your own, if you’re interested in the details.

    I am just going to touch on the things related to our discoveries about us and the house, hoping I will get some of it right. So, here goes nothing. Oh yeah, the book is Feng Shui (totally makes the search for it easy … not) by Lillian Too. It’s from the 1990ies, so the pictures and illustrations don’t always appeal to me (weird, I grew up in the nineties!?) but anyway.

    According to the Pa Kua and Lo Shu tradition of Feng Shui, there is this thing called Kua number. This number is determined by your sex and your birth year, and it gives you information about the which of the compass points are beneficial respectively detrimental for you.

    Here is how you calculate your Kua number.

    This site’s got a calculator, plus charts about the lucky/unlucky cardinal directions for each number.

    But wait, there’s more! Houses/buildings have „lucky“ and „unlucky“ areas, too. More on that coming up, so stay tuned.

  • Bewusst Leben,  Sarines Göteborg

    Ayurveda on eating disorders

    A lot has been going on. It’s hard to put in words, I have been re-writing this sentence several times now. Part of me wants to tell the whole story, another part doesn’t think it’s relevant for anyone but me (maybe that’s true, or maybe that’s just the part talking that is reluctant to show itself for what it is).

    Waking my demons

    The short version is: The circumstances in my life – less than two weeks away from unemployment, a long week at work coming up involving travel, and spiritual growth – have awoken an old demon: my eating disorder (binge-eating). It hasn’t been this bad since university, in some respects it’s even worse. For several weeks now it has been a daily struggle („struggle“ seems like a euphemism since I haven’t had much fight in me it seems), I have even gone and bought stuff I craved, which I never ever have done before.

    Practical remedies for when you feel weak

    I think I know what the underlying issue is here: and old karmic trauma, the memory of which I recently conjured when I made a wish. I do want to get into that at some point but right now I want to focus on the symptoms. For while I believe that my best chances of overcoming this self-destructive habit is by dealing with the issues I am trying to distract myself from with it, I also feel a need for something more hands-on, a lower obstacle. Because honestly: sometimes the advice „Well then just don’t give into these cravings, and you’ll find out what’s really the issue“ is just not practical. If it were easy, or if I felt that strong, I probably wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place.

    This is the part I want to share with you not just because it helps me writing about these things but because I think that the information I came across this afternoon is helpful to anyone with an eating disorder/an unhealthy relationship to food (just out of curiosity, are there any people left who have a healthy one?).

    An Ayurvedic approach to eating disorders

    I remembered some of the Ayurveda books I read also mentioned eating disorders as symptoms of dosha imbalances (I wrote about Ayurveda and its terminology before, click on the category „Ayurveda“ or scroll down to the relevant links if you want to know more). So I tried to find books with an Ayurvedic perspective on eating disorders. Once again I am grateful for the internet, and people sharing their work there so generously. I found a very informative article (please note that all facts I’ll be stating are from that article, unless otherwise marked):

    „Pathology of Eating Disorders From an Ayurvedic Perspective“ by Alakananda Devi

    It uses a lot of Ayurveda terminology, so I am trying to make this a sort of easy to understand summary. I encourage you however to read the original article in any case. There are lots of cases to illustrate the technicalities, and also because I will (for obvious, selfish) reasons mostly be going into the things that pertain to my situation, since those caught my eye.

    Some basic insights

    Let’s start from the beginning:

    1. Eating disorders (anorexia nervosa, bulimia, overeating) are related to stress and/or food allergies.
    2. How we react to stress in our eating habits depends on our individual constitution (dosha – Vata, Pitta or Kapha).
    3. Bad choices regarding food may stem from lack of education (meaning: we just don’t know any better than to eat they way we were taught as children), and for some (especially Pitta) they are a way to cope with trauma.

    I am a Pitta-Kapha (right now with a severe Kapha imbalance, I’d say). For me, just recognizing myself in a lot of the symptoms stated in this article helps. Heck, just reading that

    • Vata types are prone to anorexia/bulimia and tend to forget to eat,
    • Pitta cannot skip meals and has a tendency to sugar addiction,
    • Kapha easily puts on weight and is inclined to overeating

    is huge! It takes away the feeling of personal guilt, and shifts the perspective to „This is how I as a Vata/Pitta/Kapha person react to stress, now let’s see what can be done about that“.

    There is no „one size fits all“ solution

    I have been praising Ayurveda for its individualistic approach in probably every article I wrote, and I find myself wanting to stress this crucial point once again: what is great about Ayurveda is that it does not claim to offer a universal solution. What is good for you always depends on who you are, therefore any „‚one size fits all‘ approach“, as Alakanda Devi puts it, is bound to set you up for failure. Unless, of course, you just happen to be the right person for the method but I’d prefer finding the right method for me …

    Like increases like

    Although there are no universal remedies, Ayurveda knows of certain universal principles. One of them is: like increases like. Often times like is also attracted to like, which is highly relevant when it comes to eating disorders. For according to Devis article, some eating disorders are the result of food allergies, and once recognized as such can be (relatively) easily cured.

    For example, Kapha types are often (or more often than other types) allergic to wheat, gluten, and cow dairy. The „like increases like“ and „like is attracted to like“ explains why someone can be craving food that is actually bad for them. Various readings and nutrition experiments have led me – time and time again – to the conclusion that I am better off skipping sugar, dairy, and carbs (mainly wheat/gluten). Yet when I have cravings, I want ice-cream, cereal with lots of milk, and bread with cheese. Now I know why. (I kind of want to put sugar in a separate category because it seems like it works more like drug. Some say that refined sugar isn’t good for anyone, especially not the amounts we are used to consuming nowadays, others say that only certain people are more sensitive to its negative effects – either way, I’m it, I guess.) I know that cutting out the foods that are bad for me does not help with the psychological aspect of my eating disorder – but I imagine that for someone whose problems with eating are the result of an (undetected) food allergy, this information is really a big piece of the puzzle.

    I think my Kapha is out of balance …

    Even before I read this article I had been observing myself and recognizing certain tendencies which just seemed to have „excess Kapha“ written all over them:

    • I have been feeling very tired, pushing my getting-up time gradually to way into the Kapha or even Pitta phase of the day.
    • I have been feeling heavy, and at the same time craving foods with that exact quality (peanut butter with honey turned out to be my no. 1 poison, not to give you any ideas …), which made me feel even heavier – both principles, „like is attracted to like“, and „like increases like“ working at their utmost here.
    • My cravings and the binges have been at their worst at night, between 6 pm and 10 pm, which is the second Kapha cycle of the day (despite the knowledge of the different dosha cycles, I had not been able to connect the dots previous to reading Devi’s article, so thanks for that!).
    • I have been lazy, not exercising at all, basically the thought of physical labor could make me feel exhausted.

    There is a lot more in that article but this seems like a good place to stop for now.

    Now that I have realized all this, what am I to do with this?

    First of all, like I mentioned in the beginning, just having this information and recognizing myself in the symptoms/cases described makes me feel like a weight has been lifted off me. Apart from dealing with the underlying issue, which may seem daunting and hard to grasp at times, there are „hard facts“. There are factors that contribute to me going on binges, and factors that can make it easier to withstand them. Those seem more tangible, easier to change, even when I don’t feel strong enough to deal with the big picture.

    Once again, it’s the little things – baby steps.

    Like being aware of the fact that it’s not necessarily just a question of willpower and discipline whether I can withstand cravings at night but that the Kapha dominance during these hours is a contributing factor. So I prepare myself for the risk, and find something to do to take my mind off of food – like writing this post.

    I am reminded of the impact that sugar, wheat, and dairy have on me – not only on my physical well-being but also emotionally. This makes me feel motivated to try and make more deliberate choices about what I eat. I try to focus on what is good for me, and what I enjoy eating instead of thinking of it as „All the things I’m not allowed“. This is a tricky one since I am never oblivious as to whether what I eat is good for me or not …

    Exercising helps reduce Kapha – as with everything, I am going to try and set the bar as low as possible, and raise it gradually (I tend to set my goals to high, get frustrated by failure, and respond by giving up completely). Going for an hour long walk every day seems do-able.

    I want to try and see my cravings as something positive: after all, they are undeniable hints of something being awry. In my quest to find out my what my issues are, what it is that I am so afraid of to surface that I need to stuff it down with vast amounts of food, there is one fail-proof way of finding out: not giving in to the cravings, and seeing where that leads me. Like I said before, this is the hardest part.

    I want to get better at asking for help. Both friends and the universe in my morning meditation.

    Going to see to it that I get back to getting up early again.

    More practical advice

    Here’s another site with a few more hands-on things to do, e. g. different yogi techniques, which I want to try:

    • Sweet Ayurveda Treatment to Stop Emotional Eating & Lose Weight – I know I’ll feel silly doing this even when nobody’s around, but it’s worth a try, right?
    • Healthy Ayurveda Diet To Burn Fat & Lose Weight – OK, that title does not sound good, and I am not so sure about some of the advice but still, I’m definitely in need of some Kapha reduction.
    • 5 Healthy Weight Loss Tips from Ayurveda – More weight loss stuff. I am actually proud of myself for not even having tried hard to not make this the focus of this post (gee, that was a lot of negatives). And the fact that I am finally at a point where weight loss isn’t my main concern anymore (although claiming that it isn’t a concern at all would be a lie, sadly).
    • 6 Safe & Natural Weight Los Solutions – again, dumb title, not so sure about some of the advice (drinking hot water with honey? From what I understand honey has the same effect as sugar, so probably a red flag for me) but most of it sounds pretty good to me, especially the meditations and yoga exercises.
    • 11 Guidelines for eating healthy | Guide on how to eat right – This is straight up Ayurveda, you can probably find this in every book on the subject. I should print these out and put them up somewhere to remind myself. Very basic, very true – often times hard to abide by because we’ve overwritten this common sense (for that is really what this, or anything Ayurveda, is) with other rules.

    Other relevant links

    Ayurvedic Diet – A good overview

    Ayurveda – Becoming your own expert

    A Science of Sleep

    Which is your dominant dosha?

    What’s your morning routine?