Friend lost

Posted on April 1, 2017 by nomadoftheuniverse

img_0169

I had a dear friend write to me the other day. It was wonderful. We have not been in touch for a while. I do miss him a lot. He is one of those angels, a friendly soul who you seem to have known forever. But he was also an object of my love addiction for too long. In fact it’s thanks to him that I realised I had a problem. So in the spirit of my ‘no secrets, no lies’ approach and in my on-going attempt to live simply, I came out and told him everything. Via email and Twitter messaging.

Continue reading →
Posted in addiction, art therapy | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

How to fail better and not spiral into anxiety

Posted on March 25, 2017 by nomadoftheuniverse

Temp

Recently I screwed up at work and panicked. It’s been a while since I experienced such anxiety — when your heart races, you get tunnel vision, beat yourself up endlessly, your mind is engaged into a negative thought loop, and you just can’t stop it. The worst part is that after talking to my boss I realised it was not a major catastrophe, but rather a minor hiccup which I should not have dwelled on for so long.

I was unpleasantly surprised and even shocked. Years of meditation and work on making myself calmer, more balanced, and I spiral into anxiety so easily and over so little? I was determined to never do it again so I created a one pager that summarises the key learnings about failing better and changing your mindset that I can use next time anxiety rears its ugly head. 

Continue reading →
Posted in money, work, downshifting | Tagged , , | 4 Comments

The Meditator #happiness #

Posted on March 18, 2017 by nomadoftheuniverse

img_0059

With spring comes awakening. Creativity buds and blossoms together with crocuses, cherry trees and daffodils. I can’t draw so I create collages. This one is called The Meditator. In meditation there is an exercise where you imagine that you are plugged into Earth through a golden thread or cable coming out of your heart. I don’t remember where I learned about it but it really helped me through winter. Refill your batteries this spring and create something wonderful for the world to see, my dear nomads!

Posted in art therapy | Tagged , , | 1 Comment

Rescued by spring

Posted on March 11, 2017 by nomadoftheuniverse

img_0007
Thank you, my dear spring,
For dropping by so early
Or even just on time.
For joy and hope you bring,
For sunshine and for smiles.

For filling me with light.
For saving me from cold
Those dark and empty nights
That freeze my poor soul.

Thank you for snowdrops
And filling in the colours.
You did transform the rain
And changed the sky and clouds.

I feel alive again.
Birds sing, light blinds,
I smile.
Thank you, my dear spring,
For showing up on time!

Posted in art therapy | Tagged , | 2 Comments

The School of Life Career Crisis cards #purpose #meaning #happiness

Posted on March 4, 2017 by nomadoftheuniverse

For me happiness has many levels. I am happy where I am, but I also want to grow. Overcoming my internal blocks and realising my purpose in life, doing what I was born to do, placed on this Earth to do is my next level. It took a while to accept that writing may be my purpose that I need to explore and my blog is a big part of it. This card from TSOL series is a brilliant reminder why it’s important to acknowledge, accept and action on what we call career anxiety:

img_9539

Posted in purpose, quotes | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

‘Hello, my name is Doris’ is not what you think it is. Must see for love addicts #happiness

Posted on February 25, 2017 by nomadoftheuniverse

img_9978

What attracted me to this movie was Max Greenfield the idea, I thought it would be a bubbly romcom about a delusional, yet adorable, old lady with lots of laughs and aww moments. A bit like Happy Go Lucky or Frankie & Grace. Yep, I do love stories about older folks finding love. Psychoanalyse me! 🙂

I did not realise this would be – spoiler alert – a movie about love addiction. A romcom drama. A tragic comedy. I cringed through it and could only watch with frequent breaks… because I used to be Doris. Continue reading →

Posted in addiction, video & film | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

How to live a good life #happiness

Posted on February 18, 2017 by nomadoftheuniverse

I’ve been recently exploring the idea of realising life purpose or calling in work that we do. Almost by accident I stumbled into this book by Jonathan Fields. It’s not about living your purpose as such but it has amazing quotes, for example:

What if you don’t so much have a passion or purpose as much as you pursue something, or a bunch of things, with passion and a sense of purpose.

It’s okay if no single spark ever rises to the level of all-consuming ‘mad passion’ or ‘life purpose’. More important is just the feeling of being sparked.

img_9912

Posted in purpose, quotes | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

What stands in the way becomes the way #happiness

Posted on February 4, 2017 by nomadoftheuniverse

I thought I’d share this post about the book that Linkedin VP of talent apparently gives to his colleagues – it contains great book recommendation as well as motivational one liners like the one in the headline or How you do anything is how you do everything. 

‘What stands in the way becomes the way’ is particularly a strong reframing, re-energising mantra/ formula. I applied it when dealing with a challenging situation at work and it does work – it reframes your thinking and rather than let you slump and give up energises you for achieving the end goal. Are you preventing me from achieving my goal? You say it’s impossible? Well, I am not giving up, buddy, and it’s happening either way!

It reminds me of Mark Manson’s book that I wrote about before and his idea that ‘Happiness ≠ no problems’ but rather ‘Happiness = better problems’. You need obstacles to be happy.

‘How you do anything is how you do everything’ is another powerful phrase – and a good reminder for slackers like me. Rather than spend time complaining about how your situation is so awful and looking for alternatives, maybe focus on what you are doing instead and give it 100%?

Posted in quotes | Tagged , , , , , | 7 Comments

How to be happy in marriage – appreciate the context and adjust your expectations

Posted on January 28, 2017 by nomadoftheuniverse

I am a big fan of Alain de Botton. He manages to poetically capture the essence of modern life struggles, throws a life ring of information and proposes reframing exercises to shed light on the big existential questions we seem to be stuck at.

In his deceptively titled book ‘How to think more about sex’ he gives a perfect bird’s eye view on what constitutes a successful marriage – the subject which you know interests me greatly. He nails it completely in these 4 and a bit pages (hope you can forgive my page photographing skills!)
img_9751

Continue reading →

Posted in quotes | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

My understanding of happiness so far

Posted on January 21, 2017 by nomadoftheuniverse

img_9742-1
When I think how to summarise everything I learned about happiness so far, ultimately the above is what it boils down to for me. I hope to expand on this in later posts.

Posted in happiness | Tagged | 2 Comments

Happy New Year!

Posted on January 14, 2017 by nomadoftheuniverse

img_9633

Posted in quotes | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How to remain calm with people. It has to do with self love #happiness

Posted on January 7, 2017 by nomadoftheuniverse

I have taken a long time to learn to deal with ‘negative’ people. It took a while to understand that often the problem is not in others but in me. Alain de Botton sums it up beautifully. When dealing with ‘negative’ or annoying people, are you sure ‘negativity’ is there altogether or do you perceive it to be there? Are you sure it’s not self hatred that frames your perception of being attacked and leads to overreaction? I will treat this video as a short course on conflict management and cross it off my development plan 🙂

Posted in video & film | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

The book that will be my default present this year #happiness

Posted on December 31, 2016 by nomadoftheuniverse

img_9616
I have noticed this book several times before and bought it recently after it appeared on one of the happiness blogs I read and I realised I follow the author on Twitter – serendipity it is.

Reviews promised a kick up my butt and this is exactly what this book delivers – it slaps you on the face, pours a bucket of ice water over you, then tells you everything you knew about happiness is wrong (while being firmly rooted in concepts like Buddhism). I like it. I think this book is one of the most honest and view changing books on self development I’ve read.

I gave it to a friend as a present and plan to make it a default present to give in 2017. As you grapple with yearly reviews and goal setting for 2017, this book might just change your outlook. Have you read it already? What did you think? Highly recommend.

Posted in how to | Tagged , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

When in a difficult situation, accept it as if you chose it #happiness

Posted on December 17, 2016 by nomadoftheuniverse

I moved house. On moving as an exercise in mindfulness later, what this meant however was that a) I got thrust out of my oh so comfortable routine, b) I suddenly had an even longer to do list and even less time to do it all. STRESSFUL, right?

When you are out of your comfort zone, facing uncertainty and under stress, life can suddenly seem daunting and bleak. Everything is a problem and everything is a drag. My commute is longer and more fragmented, it’s dark outside most of the time and you wonder how you ended up in this mess and what the hell to do next. Full on victim mode.

Whenever I am dealing with a difficult situation and when I go into the victim mode, I remind myself this:

ACCEPT IT AS IF YOU CHOSE IT 

Transcend through acceptance, through overcoming resistance. Difficult situation? Which difficult situation? And back to the lightness of being… Thank you, Eckhart Tolle.

Posted in quotes | Tagged , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Overcoming fear with rejection therapy

Posted on December 10, 2016 by nomadoftheuniverse

This guy is amazing and what he did is awesome. We can all benefit from rejection therapy, or even from just being aware of what we think and feel when we are rejected or think we will be. Perhaps being aware of the fear of rejection and choosing not to act by default in response is what it takes to get unstuck and take that all important next step on the journey to fulfilling your life calling.

PS (from the future me, added in 2026): the future you will discover that like fear of death, fear of rejection is a strong unconscious drive for many of life’s important decisions. The love addiction you are suffering from is largely stemming from fear of rejection, hence you opting for the (safe) fantasies instead. Rejection is at the core of your childhood trauma and the reason why you lack self-love. So yeah, rejection is going to be a big theme in your life.

Posted in anger, fear, kleshas, video & film | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment