Finally sharing the beautiful story of Laura and her connection to her body and Mother Earth. Can't wait for you to read this! Lot's of love! xx
It’s spring. I smell it. I see it. I feel it. I am walking through the woods and listening to the bird's first sounds and genuinely inhaling the long lost sun that finally came back after the winter. My mind feels light again and I feel the fresh air activating my bones. Moving my body and working out makes me feel more connected and in balance with my inner spirit. In my childhood I discovered how good it felt to be running around outside with my younger brother and friends, feeling the wind and the sun on my skin.
Spending time in nature and solitude is one of the things - I believe- that can really help people and give us some space from ourselves and from everything that makes being a human very hard. Nature can give us that space to just exist and be. It doesn't ask anything of us and still we ask everything of it. The same goes for our bodies. Our body offers us a warm home and a shell for our soul, our existence. When growing older we forget to listen to it and it seems much harder to just follow our intuition. I think the secret to happiness and gratitude is really keeping our inner child alive while getting older. When I am outside I feel not much has changed. I feel like a little girl again and remember how much I loved being outside and just running through the woods. Those simple things always made me happy. No matter what happened I would go horseback riding and that pretty much solved all my problems. So even now, being an adult, I try to be outside as much as I can because I know how beneficial sunlight and fresh air is for my mind. That's the reason why I just started long runs again after a very inconsistent period of going running during winter. Spring gives me a lot of energy and motivation. Luckily I am really ambitious and stick to my workout plans no matter if it rains or not, but during summer and spring it’s so easy to go outside. Nature is optimistic again and I feel more positive and energetic myself. Our brain is like a garden. We have to take care of it, so that flowers can grow. They need rain, but a lot of sun too. The spring sun burns away the doubts and clouds of winter which limit the growth of everything living. Snow buries everything in winter and let animals sleep. Humans aren’t necessarily taking a winter nap, but sometimes it feels like the brain is as gray as the sky and our bodies are on low battery mode.
I am sad sometimes- which is normal. I do admit I cannot really recall being sad
as a kid. It just never happened. I was never sad for more than 5 minutes, which, I think, is because I didn’t have so much pressure on my shoulders, I didn’t overthink the future and lived in the moment. Being in nature makes me live in the moment. I don't worry if something will work out or not and just exist for a second. I do what I did as a kid. I also realized that overthinking doesn't really get you anywhere, you may be occupied, but don’t move forward or backwards. What a waste of time. So just don't do it. I know it is easier said than done, but try to feel deeply and exist now and don’t live in the future that is so very unpredictable- just like the weather. Appreciate the warm sun rays and listen to the wind. Focus on nature and your emotions will settle.
We are just like the sea. We have ups and downs, highs and lows- just like the sea has it’s low tide and high tide. We have the power to give life and bury it. We need water to exist, but we also drown in it. The ocean is the yin. The water moves constantly, but it’s motion is downward and inward. The mountains are the yang side, but that's where the stillness is. Mountains and water form such an ideal yang-yin pair. Maybe that also helps you with decision making or balancing your emotions. If you need strength to move yourself mentally or physically, seek for the yang, if you need to move slower or stop to breathe, seek for the yin. Our mind is connected to the earth, the weather, our surroundings and the people that surround us. There will always be something or someone, that is more yin and another thing or person, that is more yang. Knowing that can help you navigate.
When I am feeling good mentally I do more sports and feel good physically. When I don't feel good mentally I will do sports to feel good physically and that will make me feel good mentally. The sport is my yin and music and art is my yang. I couldn’t live with just one. I need to express myself with art and music and share my message, but I can only be creative if I move my body. I am lucky and grateful I have found a way to balance myself. Maybe your yin and yang are totally different from mine, that's okay. It's a very individual thing. If you haven't found your yin and yang, keep looking, keep moving and trying out. Just remember everything in nature operates on the concept of balance.
Even though you are very balanced, it's normal to have bad days. Even in summer, when everything is great you can be sad, if you want to. Remember feelings are just visitors, they come and go like the waves of the sea. I still think, even though I sometimes wish for 365 days of sun, some gray days are necessary to appreciate the sunny ones. Humans simply cannot be happy all the time. I think it's not possible and wouldn't be healthy, because how would you know it's sunny, when you have never seen a gray sky?
Without winter we wouldn’t appreciate the summer and it’s good to know the other side of the golden medal.
Sometimes you appreciate a good and sunny period in life more when you have survived a dark period and worked yourself up again to the light. You won't take it for granted if you worked for it and if it wasn’t just given to you. Remember when you first bought the blue top that you wanted for months to wear to that party, with your own money that you earned through waitressing in the restaurant down the street? It felt really good, right? You probably took great care of the top and still have it. Do you remember the first party top for your best friend's birthday your mum bought for you? Maybe you do, maybe you don’t? You definitely will value and appreciate the one bought with your own money more because you worked for it. It’s simple. Something given to you is more easy to forget or be taken for granted than something that you worked for.
You also do all the shadow work: you journal, work out and read those books. You do the work to feel good internally and because you ‘do’ something you will appreciate your sunny state of mind more.
The sunniest place to get tanned is a place where you will see a lot of women and men showing their bodies. ’Women are always thinking of what our appearance is signaling, especially to other women.’ said Emily Ratjakowski in Harper’z Bazaar.
Instagram made it easy to compare faces and bodies, so comparison might also be on your mind while you are thinking about how to get in shape for the summer. What we forget is that we might not even compare ourselves to somebody's experience, but to their energy and their confidence in their bodies.
I recall a story about body comparison from last summer. My mum and I were spending an afternoon at the beach, where I watched a group of three girls and two boys coming to the beach. They were laying 6 meters away from us. The girls were conventionally attractive. I decided to go for a little swim. When I walked into the water one of the boys was saying something to me. I sort of ignored it because I was on a mission to enjoy my swim and just didn’t care. I had a feeling that what he said was something about my body. After my 3 lanes of swimming I walked out of the water and heard the girls talking about me. I am not sure about the exact words, but I think it was a comment about my little bikini and my body shape. I didn’t want to give them too much attention, but I know it made me really angry hearing them gossiping because ‘my body’ is simply none of their business. They themselves had nice bodies that fit most beauty standards so I didn’t understand why they would care about mine.
I was so mad, but my mum calmed me down and told me that it’s not my body that they envy, it's my confidence in it. Looking back, I am proud to say I was confident in my body and felt at ease with it because I can be pretty hard on myself. I realized that I glow differently when I like my body. The same goes for other people too. We're all beautiful in our own way. Everyone has their own insecurities and struggles to be someone they're not. My advice here is to be more kind to yourself, so here is my little message to myself...
Dear body,
Please forgive me even if I don’t deserve forgiveness. I hurt you with my rough thoughts about you because I couldn’t accept you as you are. I admit I felt more hate than love with the constant question as to why the universe decided to give you to me. I know it’s not fair to ask you to forgive after all the bad thoughts, misinterpretations and judgments about you, but please, be nicer than me.
You are the sun of my universe and hold my existence in this human experience. You’re not defined by your appearance, but everything you offer my soul as protection. Just like flowers without the sun I would be nothing without you.
Your arms hold beloved ones tight and offer a warm hug on cold days.
Your legs move me and help me stand firm. You offer me a home no matter where I go. You let love be felt and make it happen. Now, I’m working on loving you, accepting you as you are. I hope you will forgive me even if it’s not today or tomorrow.
Love, Laura xxx
Confidence is something internal and every day can be different. I am grateful for my healthy body and have respect for what a woman’s body is capable of. I don’t see its shape so much anymore. Still there are days where I am not happy with my appearance, but then I remember the greatness of every human body. Self-appreciation is often mistaken for vanity; I consider vanity to be someone considering themselves much better than others, whereas self-appreciation is not something in comparison to others. Self-appreciation is recognising all your qualities, it is accepting your "flaws" and maybe starting to like them.
Now I want to share some principles on ‘how to make it easier to love yourself’ which I discuss more on my Podcast “20 with no brain”.
The first step to love yourself is to abandon criticism. We are our harshest critics. Remember thoughts become things, so start talking with yourself in kind ways. Choose nurturing thoughts.
Second is that you have to stop scaring yourself with frightening thoughts. I have observed that people create overwhelming circumstances out of a small situation. Your mind is such a good movie director and sometimes creates horror movies. Try to pull back if you recognize you get lost in your thoughts or overinterpret a situation. Life is a movement and a roller coaster, things happen, don't get stuck. I still have to work on internalizing patience. You have to think of yourself and your mind as a garden with flowers. A good example of the power of patience is when you cultivate a garden. At first, you find barren soil. Then you turn it over, sow, and even though it looks like nothing is happening. Later on great things are happening. You don’t become a butterfly overnight. You have to take care of yourself and trust the timing of your life, be patient with yourself.
Life makes sense backwards. If you ask human beings if they have good self-esteem, people answer, of course I do. In reality, when you are critical of yourself, there is no good self-esteem, neither when you feel envy, insecurity, resentment, jealousy or anger. You are out of balance and that makes you unable to completely love yourself. If you ask people “would you allow a garbage bag to be thrown in your living room?” they immediately respond, no! The question is then, "why do you put garbage in your brain?”. You do it when you feed negative thoughts, pain, guilt, resentment, envy, insensitivity, anxiety, hatred, bitterness, laziness, stress, anger, rage, criticism, etc. We are human, it is true and lovely imperfect. We can learn to love ourselves little by little. Enter the hall of praise. When I feel overwhelmed, sad or criticized by others I like to go back to my closest friends and turn internal. I try to go to the hall of praise and give myself a bath of popularity. I remember what I already achieved and how strong I am. People might think that's weird, but what's weird is not doing it. Why not recognize how good we are? Critics can be very helpful, but don't internalize everything. Think about the credibility of the person telling you to change. Have they achieved what you are dreaming of? How did they achieve it? Not every opinion matters.
Pick your role models wisely. What helps me figure out people and sort out critics is becoming aware of my breathing. Meditating is not a big deal. Everyone can meditate for at least two minutes a day. You could close your eyes and breathe consciously. Let your mind relax. Mediation helps listening to that inner intuition, your inner child. Without being aware, sometimes we override what our sixth sense tells us. We all have it. It's just a matter of learning to listen to it.
Don't do to others what you wouldn't want them to do to you. Sometimes we want others to be fair, kind, loving, generous and understanding with us, but we are not aware that we have sowed in others. We want others to change, but we cannot change anyone. We can only change ourselves.
A lot of our mindset is also dependent on our eating habits and our eating habits affect our bodies of course. Try to balance the food. Sometimes, in our eagerness to do everything, we dedicate little time to eat at the recommended time. It is important to look for nutritious food. Have you observed how you eat? What thoughts do you have when you eat? In restaurants I observe people who are more concerned about their cell phones than about respecting that sacred space. Others always eat on the go and don't even think about what they are eating. So be mindful with what you do. Well, I hope this article helped you to remember how to take care of yourself, water your garden and connect to your inner child. I wish you a sunny day! xx Laura
by Laura Bittner
photography by Denise Schrauder
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