.SOMETIMES RAW.

It seems the older I get, the more the holiday season weighs on me. My parents and brother left a couple of days ago and, as usual, it broke my heart. Family means everything to me and I am so grateful that they are all in my life. My brother and I had conversations on my balcony while snowflake die-cuts and strings of tinsel summon somber reflections on all the things that have not worked out as planned in 2018 which in the end, is all okay. My friend brought over twinkly lights to outline my windows and get this special Christmas feeling. More conversations, more love, more light, more everything.

My initial reaction to the lights and decorations was warmth, comfort, and family without linking it to the particularly challenging year I had been through. I am still without a job in December, arguably the worst time of year to be without a steady paycheck and too busy cursing at my pending job applications and LinkedIn inbox to feel anything remotely close to gratitude. The preceding months of 2018 had overflowed with life’s lemons, and I did not want to make more lemonade so I stopped. I actually resolved to obsessively seethe in the darkness over all the things that were going wrong in my life and appreciated the bright twinkle lights that interrupted my plans to feel sorry for myself.

With all the people I love around, I suddenly felt so much gratitude for the life I built for my son and I. We have limited support but we make it work – and even make it comfortable when my family is visiting. My apartment was full of the items we needed and held plenty of the things we love. I am blessed to have my family and friends to lean on, which is most important to me.

“Do we have to take the shiny, beautiful lights down after Christmas, “my son asked the other day. “Well, if they make you happy, let’s keep them up, ” I replied, not questioning the speed with which my skepticism had turned to devotion. My son loves those shiny lights and turning them on became a delightful nightly ritual. For some reason, they also make me feel less agitated and more inspired in these cold, dark, gloomy month of winter in Canada. I have this feeling that they have to keep glowing until I find a job, either in this country or anywhere else distracting me from all the irrational reasons I have in my mind why things take longer than expected. My family reminded me to ruminate less on what is going wrong, but rather on what I can focus more and on all the things I already have to be grateful for since every moment spent in that kind of presence is a moment worth celebrating.

I had to say goodbye to my family at the airport. Did I cry? Sure did but I had my friend with me who is the best support I could ask for. Crying is fitting though, I suppose, since tears have at times felt like glue: tears of laughter, of stress, empathy, love, support, help, sadness and so much more. Everybody has their own routines and rituals but it is good to share emotions. Whatever anybody feels and to enjoy them fully is to traverse the emotional chasm that typically separates human being. With this in mind, it is important to chip away at things that are not important and to focus on stuff that truly matters to me. With my family, I do not have to give the impression that it is all good, even if it is not. They simply have to look at me and know anyway. I knew it was time to escape this morbid loop of lies and mistrust I was stuck in and did not make any real or tangible progress in life. I know that I do not have to jazz my life up for display purposes only because many things cannot be captured in a post for an invisible audience while desperately waiting for “views” or “likes”. It is important to realize that decorating our masks will not improve how we look underneath.

We all have been hurt by someone we care(d) about. The pain of what they did is one thing but this feeling of betrayal is another. Letting down my guard was a mistake but a valuable learning experience and life lesson that I apply for the future. People who hurt us also teach us. I rather focus my energy on people who deserve it. I know I won’t receive an apology at this point because certain individuals may not even think they did something wrong. Apparently, everyone always has the best intentions. It all does not matter anymore. What is important is that I am able to move forward in my life without dragging the past along with me.

With this being said, I wish all my readers a Happy, Healthy New Year. Let’s all start it in style. Thank you for reading my blog and purchasing my book. 

Stay tuned for a bunch of projects and changes on the blog in 2019.

[Photo credit: Veronica Van Gogh]

I spent last weekend at the Rosseau Sanctuary as a holistic nutritionist (to be) and provided healthy vegan, lactose and gluten-free food for women who attended the event hosted by Jennifer Polansky.   It was an amazing, challenging new experience for me since I never cooked for so many people in this kind of environment but, in hindsight,  I enjoyed every minute of it.  I mentally grew and this process already started when I drove all the way up to the retreat from Ottawa through Algonquin Park. It took me almost seven hours to get to the sanctuary which was a great opportunity to practice mindfulness, peace, and quiet in the car. I so enjoyed the ride, even though it was not easy. I was tired, saw two wolves on the side of the road, did not encounter another car or human being for at least two hours straight and wondered what would happen if the car breaks down. This is what I basically looked at the entire time I drove to Muskoka:

Traveling is a fantastic tool of self-development simply because it extricates me from the values of my culture and shows that another society can live with entirely different values and still functions. On one of my walks “in the wild” last weekend, I had a great conversation with a local who moved to Muskoka from Toronto, got married, had three kids and lived there ever since.  They seemed happy; chaotic but content – the wife, kids, dogs, and cats running around in the house while I still tried to figure out where the main entrance was. They trusted me instantly, even when I said I would love to see their puppies in the backyard. This then makes me think and re-examine my own life. My brother told me, after he visited Russia,  that the most currency to be found there is trust. And to build trust you have to be honest. Being honest means, when things suck, you say so openly and without apology. I think trust lost its value because appearances became more advantageous forms of expression. This is why people start lying, say polite things even when they don’t feel like it, tell a little white lie and agree with people they don’t actually agree with. Why not just say what is on your mind?

Others pretend to be friends or partners. What I am facing these days is, that I never know anymore if I can trust a person but yet, I open myself up to opportunities and new people because I am always choosing. If I am choosing to make my relationship the most important part of my life, that means I am not engaging in and choosing to go to meth/cocaine parties all night long and come home at 7 a.m. We all worry about something in order to value something, right? And to value something, I must reject what is not that something. The something I don’t want in my life anymore. Nobody wants to be stuck in a relationship, for example, that is not making them happy. Nobody wants to be stuck at a workplace that does not make them happy and that they hate and don’t believe in.

Yet people choose these things. All the time. This is when I thought I have to become comfortable with saying the word “no”. In this way and rejection, it makes my life so much better. By just saying NO while a red neon blinking “STAY OUT and AWAY” sign is flashing and police are putting up tape that says “DO NOT CROSS” to make extra sure. There are healthy forms of love and unhealthy ones. Unhealthy love is usually when two people try to escape their problems through their emotions for each other or they are using each other as an escape. I think that on the other hand, a healthy relationship is when love is based on two people acknowledging and addressing their own problems with each other’s support. I believe now that in a healthy relationship, there are clear-cut boundaries between the two people and their values, and there will be an open avenue of giving and receiving rejection when necessary. Entitled people for example who take the blame for other people’s emotions and actions do so because they believe that if they “fix” their partner or friend and save him/her they will receive the love and appreciation they have always wanted. The victim and the savior, the person who starts fires because it makes her feel better and the person who puts out the fire because it makes him feel important. These two types of people are drawn strongly to one another. Their model for a “happy relationship” is based on entitlement and poor boundaries. Sadly though, after some time, they both fail in meeting the other’s actual needs. The sex is usually always good in the beginning but there is so much more to it all and to experience and explore together as a couple. In fact, their pattern of over- blaming and over- accepting blame perpetuates the entitlement and shitty self-worth that have been keeping them from getting their emotional needs met in the first place.

Acts of love are valid only if they are performed without conditions or expectations. Partners (or people) cannot solve problems for me. They can help and that makes me happy but I also know that I have to deal with the internal stuff on my own. I do not see myself as a victim.  Usually, the victims create more and more problems to solve; not because real problems exist, but it gets them the attention and affection they crave. The intentions are selfish and conditional and therefore self-sabotaging. Therefore, genuine or true love is rarely experienced and probably never will be.  And in the end,  innocent people lose their passport.

This blog post was triggered by a conversation I had today. I want to write about imperfections and perfectionism. This is probably a topic we can all relate to at some point in our lives. To make it personal: it is definitely something I can relate to and have previously struggled with.  It is not something that overrules every aspect of my life anymore, it rather focuses more on specific things. Previously, one thing I struggled with was that whenever it came to the content I created online or actually anything creative I produced, I felt it is not perfect which was a huge source of anxiety for me.

There was a time in my life when I worried that I am bad at being myself or being authentic which is a really important part of my life. When I take a step back or do not want to share certain private things, it is because vulnerability is still a scary thing for me. It is scary to admit that our life is not perfect.

I read The Gift of Imperfection by Brené Brown and one of my favorite quotes from the book is actually her definition of imperfections which is, that perfectionism is an addictive belief system that if we do everything perfectly we can avoid or minimize the chances of being judged, blamed or feeling ashamed. When I read that, I thought that this relates to me at so many levels. I am German, so being perfect is something that runs in our DNA. Feelings I previously had when I moved to the U.S. in 2005 were for example that I sounded weird because of my accent or I did not want to say anything at all to avoid feeling stupid or to reveal lack of knowledge. But it was not just about that. It was more about this underlying fear or attempt to avoid being judged for who I am or for what my life really looks like which was often really messy.

Life is sometimes messy and can throw us all over the place. Especially, if we are not grounded. According to our Energy Chakras, to be grounded means, we should feel stable and independent, have energy, vitality, and strength and are comfortable in our physical body, in groups or in the world as well as have a sense of belonging. We usually do not live the perfect life; at least not all of the time.  When I mentioned “messy”, I am not necessarily talking about my kitchen or bathroom (German OCD Cleaning at its best!) but the complexity of all the struggles that I go through, the fears that I have, my relationships with others.  But the reality is that nobody is perfect. Perfect does not exist. There is no such things as that. No matter what we do, judgment and criticism is always going to exist in our lives even if we try to make everything as perfect as possible or try to live up to these standards that we create for ourselves.

I think that living in this world these days with being exposed to social media everywhere and that we can reach out to anyone anytime it is important to realize that this is also a place where we compare our lives. Other people you see online with perfect polished images and seemingly perfect lives can distract and put you down. It can give you the feeling that you are not good or adequate enough. Or it may give you the feeling that you need to have what they have to be happy, and be accepted, worthy and all those things.

For a lot of us, perfectionism also manifests as a deep fear of putting anything into the world that is imperfect or quite not what we want it to be. Or we have this fear of failure, to make a mistake or we don’t do the thing we want to do because we feel we will mess up. It is the difference between striving to achieve something as best as we can versus being so fixated on the things that do not matter such as what other people think is good or how others perceive us. Perfectionism can be such a paralyzing part of life. There was a point in my life where I literally had to force myself to feel this discomfort of what I perceive to be imperfect by simply telling myself: It is fine. You are enough. It is enough. It will do. Because that is how I feel I rise above anything in life that I am afraid of. Sort of like doing it anyway, feeling it, experiencing it and gaining confidence in that way by understanding that perfection does not exist.

F*** Botox and plastic surgery! I feel that imperfections shape me into who I am in so many different ways. They are what makes me quirky, unique and different and I am able to sit down and embrace those and accept what makes me me.  I am my own unique opinion, belief, preference, and style and that is when I can really be liberated. This is when I can ultimately relate to others realizing that we go through all the same bs*** anyway. It is okay to be ourselves. It is okay to not be perfect. It is okay to have wrinkles. We do not have to be someone else to fit in or any of those thoughts to be enough; because we already are.