Since I'm in my I love writing mode and I'm
turning 30 in a few months, I decided to share some important
realizations I've had in my time on this planet.
LESSON #1
1. Loving and being loved is the biggest blessing in life you can have.
Choose well and never settle. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence, gift from the universe, good karma
or sth else. I’ve been blessed with my relationship with Jost and he’s
been the most important person in my life for the past 13 years.
We’ve had our ups and down, but the downs were so rare that i really
have to think hard to remember what they were. We complement each other
almost perfectly, with me being “fire” and him being “water”. Loving
each other, living together, learning from each other, we make each
other grow in areas that are our biggest weaknesses. He is my water,
calming my fire down, learning me how to stop, think and not take every
decision in a second. I am his fire, pushing him to decide faster, o get
out of his usual zen mode and open himself up.
We also complement
each other with values. Jost is very ambitious and i don’t know anyone
else that would thrive so much on learning new things. If he would have a
completely free Sunday, he would always learn sth. Read, code, develop a
new project … With this, he inspires me to learn and get better all the
time + he is endless source of knowledge about everything, like a small
encyclopedia sleeping next to me. When he is not home, i sometimes get
really lazy and I procrastinate more often. At the same time, I thrive
in the outdoors and when I spend time with friends. I need nature and
mountains to calm my fire and to fill myself with energy for the next
week. I love spending time with friends, talking, eating good food and
hanging out. So I push Jost to leave his computer alone and go out,
spend some time in the nature and meet up with some friends.
The
person you live with and decide to spend your life with influences you
so much with their thoughts, actions, values … so, choose well and don't
settle. Thank you, universe.
Pursuit of happiness
11/30/2018
2/02/2018
Ayurveda antistress therapy in Srilanka: my burnout solution
Ayur .. what? Ayurveda!
When it comes to health, you I didn’t really care
about it until I got really sick, I took it for granted. And when you
experience something like burnout you start searching for a solution and it
does not lie in western medicine. We’re great when you break a leg, but when
you break your inner energy, it’s a different world.
My experience with Ajurveda antistress therapy:
One month after my burnout I started to notice that I
am not moving anywhere - I was still tired, I could not sleep, my chest
was burning like hell and the thought that it could take a few more months to
get better was scary. I was scrolling Instagram, when I saw the post from Zen
zone. YES! I thought. This is it. I consulted my doctor, bought the plane
ticket and 3 days later I was in Srilanka, attending Ayurvedic anti-stress
therapy, perfect for burnout sindrom. I had no idea what is ajurveda or what to
expect - I just had a really good feeling about it and I promised myself that I
will stay open-minded all the time.
The flight there was horrible - my chest hurt like hell
if I was even a bit stressed, so a bumpy flight and snow storm on the way to
Istanbul did not really help. I was actually scared that I will have a heart
attack or something like that on a plane. The destiny kicked in - on the flight
from Istanbul to Srilanka I was actually sitting next to Srilanka’s Minster for
health and there were 15 doctors surrounding me, coming for a conference in
Zurich.
Siddhalepa resort
was recommended by Zen Zone and the
whole experience was great. Everything started with a doctor check-up, that
lasted 2 hours. They prescribed me a diet, a few pills and explained my daily
ritual for next 10 days: yoga in the morning, breakfast, doctor consultation,
2-3 hours of therapies (massage, bath, sth else), lunch, rest, meditation,
dinner, sleep.
The whole experience was hard core. It was not
vacations, it was hard work. Eating fresh and healthy food was great but after
5 days of brown rice I was going crazy. Beginning with massage was nice, but
then came the shirodhara. They were pouring oil on my forehead to calm my head,
that was still full of thought and ideas. It felt like the weight of my thought
moved to my body - i literally did nothing the whole day, since it felt like my
legs and arms have 1000 kilos. In the end, the weight went outside of my body.
I felt light in my head for the first time in my life. No thoughts. Pure
silence. It was new and amazing and i think people that meditate a lot
experience this feeling. For someone that is thinking all the time, it was like a well-deserved vacations for the
brain. And then, my body could start recovering as well. I could not do
anything on yoga the first days and on the last day i did 10 sun salutations.
Chest pain was gone and i slept like a baby again, 8 hours without waking up in
the night.
The best question that my doctor asked me, was: “tell
me about your lifestyle”. I found it weird, but the only word i saw there, was:
BUSY. I finally realized how ridiculous my life was, I was running from one
project to another, I never rested. I didn’t know how to rest, how to take it
easy.
6 months later, I saw that I can attend Ayurveda
course in Ljubljana and learn more about the philosophy, background and how to
implement it in my life. Of course I applied!
What is Ayurveda in my own understanding: science
about how to live a good life. The purpose is to discover, how to live the best life possible
based on your way of thinking, working, living, your body etc. You can adapt
the way you eat, the way you live, who is your partner, why do you have certain
health problems - it is all coming together.
I will write more about Ayurveda, my main learnings
and how I changed my life because of it once we finish the course. Until then …
stay curious. Or simply Google it and learn everything about it.
When should you spend your vacation days in 2018?
My efficient way of maximizing my vacation days
Okay, this is relevant
for Slovenians since it’s based on our holidays. As a travel addict, the first
thing I often do in a year is to check how many vacations days don’t overlap
with weekends and I make a plan for optimal usage if my vacation days. 2018 is
in fact the best year ever - 0 Slovenian holidays overlap with weekends. So,
when should you take your days off?
- Friday, 9th of February: our cultural holiday in February (8.2.) is a great opportunity to have a 4-day getaway. I am going skiing with my friends in Austria and I’m thrilled about it.
- Tuesday, 2nd of April: if Easter holidays don’t mean much to you (meaning you can miss out on the family breakfast with eggs and ham), you can get another 4-day getaway for just 1 vacations day. Me and Jost are flying to Montenegro from Ljubljana (we got a return ticket for 80 EUR from Ljubljana, say whaaat?) and it’s perfect: the flight is on Friday afternoon and we’re coming back on Tuesday evening. I am VERY excited about exploring Montenegro, we might also go to Albania and Kosovo, since it’s only 30 minutes away and the mountains there look awesome.
- 1st of May vacations: classic choice, for 3 days of vacation days you get 10 days getaway. I was thinking about going to Greece but then we saw this ticket to Calgary, Canada for 330 EUR return from Venice and we just had to get it! Banff national park in Alberta was on my to-go list for years and now it’s finally happening.
- 25th of June is a holiday and does not require any holidays, of course you can add a day or two, perfect long weekend to go hiking in Bovec or drive to Krk island and swim in the sea for the first time in a season
- 15th of August comes on Wednesday, so taking 2 days before or after brings you a nice 5-day holiday!
- Autumn vacations: calendar is treating us nicely, take a trp from 27.10. - 4.11. (9 days) and spend only 3 days of holidays. Last autumn we went to Tuscany and it was amazing: 22 degrees, autumn colours, low season prices, no crowds, superb food …
- New year vacations: the jackpot of 2018 is new year vacations. I love Christmas and holiday time so I’ve actually never travelled in this time. However, looking at the calendar, we’re definitely escaping somewhere to Asia this year: 22.12. - 6.1., 6 days of vacations for 16 days of holidays!
Thank you 2018 for
treating us so nicely.
Take time to set your goals (but also to check up on them!)
My goal setting on another level
I was talking about
reflection in my last newsletter, so I wanted to share how am I doing with my
goal setting and tracking achieving my goals. I admit: I still did not finish
setting my goals for 2018 with Lisa Jacob's My best year 2018. It is hard and i don’t really know what exactly do i
want. but , I did manage to set my goals for January and I just checked how am
I doing. I wrote down the list of achievements and I must say that I feel
pretty fucking awesome about it! I would never realized how many things I
started/improved from 2017 and I actually kept them going the whole month.
My achievements in
January:
- I read two great books and I started to read before sleep regularly
- I finally went to off-piste skiing course, where I went 100 % out of my comfort zone (I never thought I will hike to Vrsic pass with 10 kg backpack and skis on my back … crazy!)
- I took a good care of myself: went to massage twice and each week I went to sauna
- I started with morning sport trainings due to my neck and back issues and i managed to wake up early twice a week
- I wanted to go to bed earlier and I managed quite well, I go to bed around 11 pm and wake up at 7 am (1 hour earlier than before)
- I managed to do one cool project besides my job (developed educational module for social entrepreneurship within MSS and I really enjoyed it)
- I kept on going to yoga twice a week (even though I had to push myself sometimes)
- I managed to lose a bit of my weight and eat very healthy (almost 0 sugar in January, low amount of carbs, a lot of vegetables etc)
- I survived 10 days without Jošt, when he again went to San Francisco very well
- I spent a nice amount of time with my friends, catching up
- I still did not have too many things in my schedule, I did not feel tired at all
- I started a Tuesday dates routine with Jošt and it’s working out very well: we always do something exciting and I love it
- I narrowed down my master thesis topic and now I have a concrete idea what I want to do
- I sent Pursuit of happiness newsletter and kept going with this mini project
- I hiked, spent quite some time in nature and I had super fun weekends
- I continued with my Ayurveda class even though I was thinking about quitting and I am so glad I’m still in
I achieved my goals in
70 % and achieved 40 % of things that were not even in my goals. Of course i
failed in quite some things as well:
- I didn’t meet my financial goals (I will try again in February, haha, lets see)
- I didn’t meet my goal to walk to work more often (partially due to shitty weather, I made this goal more concrete for February - walk to work at least once a week)
- I got upset over some things I would not have to get upset about, it was just my reaction to the situation that I didn’t like (I will observe myself and my thoughts more to not obsess about the small things)
- It wasn’t really in my goals, but I did experience too much stress (much less than in November and December, but still, I expected that it will be much more easy-going in terms of my job). Stress mostly came from my high expectations / trying to do a lot, expecting too much from others, so I simply need to lower my expectations and not get frustrated if things happen much slower than I would want them to)
Overall, January was a
great month. It was really helpful to set goals on a weekly basis and later
check if i achieved them.
In February, I will
change:
- I will not write my monthly & weekly goals only in my book but also on a piece of paper I will stick on the door to see it all the time
- I will try to get even more strict with my new rhythm (sleeping 23-07) by setting up a calendar reminder to go to sleep at 22:30
- I will track my financial state regularly to not spend too much
Oznake:
ajurveda,
cilji,
dosežki,
failure,
goal setting,
health,
healthy life,
january,
joga,
lisa jacobs,
postavljanje ciljev,
reflection,
sports,
telodrom
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