Posts Tagged ‘Relationships’
Women: we share, we care
Posted on: April 17, 2013
My friend at home calls me on a Sunday morning, crying.
Twenty minutes later I am in her kitchen.
She is feeling emotional and calls her boyfriend who is abroad but he doesn’t want to talk until he gets back, a month from now. She needs to stick it out.
❤
Meanwhile a friend in Oslo is going through a depression. She tells her boyfriend she needs him to just be there. But he doesn’t understand how.
On my way to her place I happen to pass by a flower stand and decide to run in and buy her a bouquet.
She realizes her boyfriend has never brought her flowers.
❤
In Switzerland my friend is sad, missing her boyfriend who is left in South Africa. She wants to talk, but the internet in Africa is slow and the connection is cut. Everything remains unspoken.
❤
Speaking to my friend in Stockholm her story tears up my heart. She met a man four years ago and they were crazy in love and planning her move down to his home country, when her dad got sick and she had to stay in Sweden to take care of him.
As her dad got worse, her boyfriend stopped answering her messages and just disappeared. Four years later, he gets in touch and asks her to come visit him. She gets on a plane across the world and they spend three weeks together. When she gets back home he disappears again.
And she is alone with all her thoughts and feelings.
❤
These are the stories we share, us women.
All this silent suffering caused by men,
we pour out and help each other carry.
We don’t always have the answers or know the right thing to say.
But we stay.
THINK before you speak
Posted on: January 31, 2012
Remember to THINK before you speak:
T: is it True ?
H: is it Helpful ?
I: is it Inspiring ?
N: is it Necessary ?
K: is it Kind ?
* A modern version of a quote by Sri Sathya Sai Baba, Indian Spiritual Leader born in 1926: Before you speak, think: Is it necessary? Is it true? Is it kind? Will it hurt anyone? Will it improve on the silence?
I just came back from Ashtanga yoga class, held by an Indian, quite attractive, young man.
Relax your body and surrender to your breath, he repeated with a soothing and set voice.
I was busy trying to keep my balance with my knee bent up to my face, both my arms curled behind my back and my neck craned to the other side, trying to focus on my breath while holding the gaze on the tip of my nose.
My thighs and ass were aching from yesterday’s Zumba class.
Wednesday: Piloxing.
Thursday: Pilates.
Weekend: Random parties, meeting people.
After last week’s late-night-and-lavishness I decided to create a good routine this week with work, training and enough sleep, at least during the weekdays. There isn’t much summer spirit since the weather is bad, so I might just save myself for August when three friends are visiting.
Speaking of friends…
It’s Frida’s birthday today and I miss her and her lovely family. I miss a lot of people actually but I’m also making new friends and I know whenever I leave this place, wherever I go, it’s them I will miss. It’s just how it is.
But you never know what roles people play in your life.
I’m amazed by the circumstances and coincidences that arise when you appreciate and prioritize good relationships.
Years can go by and people you’ve only met briefly show up in your life and you become really close, or friends from old places re-appear and suddenly the different chapters of your life emerge into one amazing story;
Your life.
I didn’t know I would live with Charlotte, whom I barely hung out with when I studied in Båstad and I didn’t know that Louise, from our same class, would show up here in Oslo on Saturday and invite me to have dinner with her boyfriend and his sister, in a family penthouse they borrowed for the weekend.
Her boyfriend who’s a pilot is applying for jobs in Norway and they both want to come live in Oslo. No one would be happier than me if they did.
Anna from my home town, whom I really only spent time with once in Greece ten years ago, but that I have a lot in common with, is here in Oslo working for two months and Malin, also from back home, lives here since four years. There are a few others as well, but my point is that friendship isn’t restricted to time and place.
It’s what you carry with you.
It’s what carries you.
Confused Love
Posted on: June 5, 2011
Love easily confuses us because it is always in flux between illusion and substance, between memory and wish, between contentment and need.
Tom Robbins; Even Cowgirls Get the Blues
When the limo breaks down
Posted on: April 9, 2011
Lots of people want to ride with you in the limo, but what you want is someone who will take the bus with you when the limo breaks down.
Oprah Winfrey
You always have a choice
Posted on: April 3, 2011
From the backstabbing co-worker to the meddling sister-in-law, you are in charge of how you react to the people and events in your life.
You can either give negativity power over your life or you can choose happiness instead.
Take control and choose to focus on what is important in your life. Those who cannot live fully often become destroyers of life.
Anaïs Nin
Treat me like a woman
Posted on: March 8, 2011
Because today is International Woman’s Day, because Anaïs Nin is my idol and because the greatest fighter is always a lover.
I, with a deeper instinct, choose a man who compels my strength, who makes enormous demands on me, who does not doubt my courage or my toughness, who does not believe me naïve or innocent, who has the courage to treat me like a woman.
Anaïs Nin
Bad energy bug
Posted on: February 16, 2011
This morning I woke up with a sore throat.
Although I had promised to run some errands for my grandmother, with a quick glance outside my window – minus twelve degrees and heavy snowfall – I decided to ask if she could wait another day or two for the marmalade.
First of all, she wants this particular marmalade because it’s the cheapest. Second, she’s half blind so she needs help with shopping. And third, she likes it when people do stuff for her.
I asked her how she was doing.
First of all, to be polite. Second, because I care for her.
I know it should be the other way around but after many years of constant illness, depression and inconsiderate talk, my grandmother’s negative energy is like a disease in itself.
I tried to get her in a better mood, make her focus on the positive side of things but her negative thoughts and words were like big, dark clouds that overshadowed everything.
It was so obvious when we had hung up the phone how I myself, had been affected – or infected – by the negativity.
I found myself calling both my mother and my best friend to complain and thereby ignoring all the advice I give to others and worse yet, spreading the bad energy bug.
The fact that I’m feeling sick and emotional today is no excuse but maybe an explanation.
Sometimes, we get so caught up with what other people say or do, that we forget to pay attention to our own words and actions.
With what kind of energy and expectations did I speak to my grandmother?
How did this effect the negative turn of our conversation?
How could we have better communicated?
If grandma on this side of the family is negative, my other grandma’s positive spirit balances up more than enough.
Today I got a little envelope. When I opened it there was a newspaper clip with regards from positive grandma. The article was about job coaching which we spoke about on the phone a few days ago. For fun, she had put a little tiny stone on top of the A in coach – because the sound of “OA” becomes the Swedish letter Å.
Coåch. Made me smile.
And remember that a considerate act speaks volumes more than words.
My dad says I live in a fairytale.
Although expressed with equal consideration and sarcasm, he is right.
It feels like I’m living a dream when I walk home from the gym, boosted with energy, focused on how beautifully the snow is sparkling around me, how cold the air is against my cheek, but how utterly warm I feel inside.
How amazing my life is right now!
The amount of energy that has been building up over the last couple of months is starting to overflow!
Six months of catching up with life, with my beautiful friends and family, making trips to Italy and South Africa, eating amazing and healthy food, getting good sleep and lots of fresh air!
Add inspiring coaching talks to that and an emerging business idea that is slowly materializing.
I know I am spoilt to pieces.
I got to be “on holiday”, “in between jobs” and finally “unemployed”, living under my mother’s roof and off my savings. I know not many people have this opportunity, this safety net of people that lets me know I am blessed and loved, that I can take my time and that everything will be alright.
I am excited and ready to give back with all my heart and positive spirit!
Maybe one day I’ll tell this fairytale to my grandchildren…
What is it you DO, exactly?
Posted on: January 22, 2011
I went out with a friend last night for a couple of drinks. He was home for the weekend visiting and wanted to catch up, because “he just couldn’t figure out what it is I do all day”
Truth is I have been kinda vague about what I’m doing.
People judge so much by what they see on Facebook or read on Twitter. They try to paint a picture about a person, make them fit into a box. And all my friend had seen for the last six months were pictures from Norway, Italy and South Africa.
He wasn’t even sure where I was living.
But more than anything, he wanted to know what it is I do?
I don’t blame him for not getting a clear picture. Of course, I choose what I share and that info become the tools, the pencils, the colours that people use in their mind-work.
I don’t know if I’ve become a little sneaky or if I’ve just grown tired of the idea that we are what we do.
How people are associated with their work titles.
Now, I’ve done a lot of different stuff. I’ve been to different places. I’ve had different jobs. And during all this time, I’ve had ideas, plans, projects, relationships, emotions, aspirations. And because I’m an expressive and open person I’ve always shared so much with people around me, let them in on my thoughts, my ambitions, explaining my every move.
When I asked friends and family a few months ago how they would describe me, many of them said I was determined which at the time I didn’t relate to at all. But then I realized it was probably because I had always told them what it was I was going to do, before I did it.
And that can be a great thing. It can open up many doors. You may get good input or advice, encouraging words or careful warnings. It can make you feel stronger, but also more vulnerable (What if things don’t go your way? What if you don’t follow through?)
I promise to tell you in another post, what it is I “do”.
But since I’m still planning, I’d rather just show you when it’s done.
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