A preacher and a terminator

Now I don't want to be labeled as Annika the 'loco' preaching blogger, but just need to add some thought on the 3D mantra I posted about yesterday.
I overheard this conversation today between two women;

"I don't know if I will keep this personal trainer I have been working with... Just don't seem to be loosing weight, and my back hurts... Oh and my knee has started to hurt too..."
The other woman wearing pink sighed and turned took a sip of her coffee and asked;
"So you are telling me you are giving up?"
"Yeah", the woman in yellow looked pretty fed up but the woman in pink shook her head.
"So you are telling me that your personal trainer told you to eat that donut for breakfast?"
"No, but.."
"And you are telling me that your sore muscles in you back is causing you to sit on the couch eating potato chips?" Before the yellow woman could come with an excuse the pink woman continued,
"And I bet that your aching knee is the reason why you don't ever go walking with me on the lunch break? So please stop with the excuses already!" The yellow woman turned her sour grimace away from the pink woman's concerned gazing.

WOW. That woman in pink WAS a real friend and wouldn't let her friend BS herself anymore. This society today is a society full of enablers, people letting people feel sorry for themselves, because who likes someone feeling bad? We are kind if we are comforting, but no, that is wrong. Being a woman who once lived four years with a crack head (yet another post topic one day), I know how easy it is to enable. It makes life easier for you when you take the enabler way.
Some people who have heard about my Determination, Dedication and Discipline mantra think that it sounds a little bit too hard core and militant. That is the very reason it worked! No more pussy footing around, that was exactly what I needed to get responsible and my ass in gear at that time. I had been living in a world of chaos and needed some solid structure.

The world needs more people like the woman in pink, it might have seemed a bit harsh, and maybe it was, but sometimes I wish I could be more ballsy like that and I bet her friend got the message this time!
Time to call the terminator on the preaching? I think so, just sometimes people need a good healthy kick in the ass!

Basking in tremendously simple pleasure

Yet another weekend is coming to its end.
I am not complaining since I have the luxury of deciding my own hours working. That just takes a lot of discipline, but I have plenty of that. After taking responsibility over my health and deciding for once and all to get it sorted I made up a mantra. While loosing my 120 something pounds I would say that mantra over and over in my head.
I called it the 3 D plan (maybe I should copyright this, haha!). Determination, Discipline and Dedication. That easy, or that hard, however you choose to look at it! I actually read those three words in a Navy magazine and just applied it to my weight loss and health goals. Of course the plan was more then a mantra but wont go into that now!

Anyway! This is not a post about my incredible weight loss (yeah I'm still damn proud!) but I wanted to tell you about my weekend here in the sometimes sunny Spain.
Started of a rainy Saturday with joining some friends for a birthday party for a one year old. Of course there were more adults there then kids, enjoying the beer and some scrumptious Jamaican cooking. OK, I don't know a lot about kids but what one year old has a bunch of friends anyway? Just a good reason to party I guess, fine with me!

Then me and the husband went book shopping! One of my favorite things in the world is to wander around in a book store, book stores excite me tremendously (love that word)! I didn't even buy anything this time, was just happy as can be strolling the aisles judging books by their front covers and reading the back cover of the ones that appealed to me.

Later in the evening husband and I visited our great Swedish friends and had taco dinner at their home. We were supposed to stream this Swedish music festival, Melodifestivalen (the winner goes to the European song contest, I will explain all this in a later post), but the darn servers were too busy! We had a fabulous time youtoub'ing it though and accompanied it with chocolates and Cava!




Today was incredible since we actually had fabulously hot sun for like four hours! I mean I was sweating out there and loving it! We made the most of it and took a drive to Chipiona and spent hours walking around this picturesque beach town and basking in the simple pleasure.







I have a suspicion that this upcoming week will be a very exciting one, the feel of spring is in the air and I am smiling!

Let go weekend!

I don't usually post on Fridays and Saturdays but y'all know I just can't stay away! Just a quickie within the same theme as yesterdays.

Be careful so that all your "shoulds" and "have to's" don't get so engraved into your daily life that you might be mistaking them for desires.

This weekend, why don't we try (I sure will) to let go a little of all that we "have to" do. Try to spend your time doing as little of that as possible. Skip folding the laundry, rest if you are feeling tiered and maybe its time to let go of that "obligatory" friendship you have been holding on to only by habit.


A friend posted this on facebook today which rings very true in this sense;

"Some think it's holding on that makes one strong; sometimes it's letting go..."

Have a brilliant weekend everyone!

Embracing adventure (I ♥ Chania)

I often miss Greece. Even just the act of uploading these photos break my little heart... All those memories!

For you who don't already know, I used to live on the island of Crete, in the town of Chania (or Hania or Xania or however you choose to spell it). 1996 I came there on vacation for the first time, and just fell, head over heals (think it was wedges), in love with the town. Ever since then I kept going back as if this place was the home I had been born into. I felt alive there.

In Sweden, sure I was living and well (my family rocks - don't get me wrong) but never felt as if I was meant to stay there. Crete was the island that made me bloom, made me flourish in life and all it had to offer, it is where I grew up.
I worked briefly in a hotel, selling boat tickets, as a waitress but in the end the bartender occupation got its hooks in me, and I adored it!



Since my bartender days in Chania, I have still not found a place where I feel is as much as my home as there. Sometimes I feel like I found what I was always looking for but foolishly left it behind. But is this true?

I just read an article in yoga journal (March 2010 by J. Kramer and D. Alstad), called "wishful thinking". And it sure got me thinking. What is it that we all are searching for? A home? Happiness? All we want really is to feel good, that is what drives us.

But as the article says, what we actually are seeking is a product of desire; an expectation already planted in our minds. The moments I miss Greece and think that I cannot possibly feel such satisfaction again, are what they are; memories. The only thing we can seek that way, in fact, is sadly the known. And of course when I am feeling down or like life isn't going my way Greece will pop up inside my head. My brain automatically places Greece as the place where everything will be alright. After all that is where I as a 'new' adult first learned the importance of living my dreams. Its a big part of what made me 'me today'.


OK, this is getting a bit long, but all I am saying is maybe we (I) need to stop searching for that, stop looking back. Like I said, the only thing we search for is what we already know. And I know today that it is not about where you are that makes the magic, it is always you that is the creator. Pleasure leads to desire and desire leads - sometimes - to fear/confusion or suffering (a form of change).
But most important remember this, it is also ONLY trough suffering - change - that one gets to experience the fantastic adventures of the unknown! (And it also happens to fuel the evolutionary growth!)
But Chania, you know, one day I will be back!

A limping and moaning zombie

Woe is me, woe is me... I thought yesterdays kettlebell workout was lacking some sort of zing, and now I know why. Woke up today feeling like a half eaten, slime stuffed zombie (get the picture?). And not one of those fast running, growling zombies from the more recent horror movies, no Sir; a slow, limping, moaning one and I even think I was in black and white.... And then I got worse.

So, since I am feeling sorry for myself and not motivated for anything but sleep, I decided to post this strange short story (or long poem) I wrote awhile back.


RIDDLE ME THIS
I will not say hello. For you have been unconsciously expecting me. I have flown into your core to tell you. Feel me caress your spine. It is me. This is your last chance. Travel through your wisdom. Listen to me very carefully now. As sensitive and pure as it has always been told, that is how I will tell you. Absorb my every word as if they were your destruction. Feel my presence. Enjoy the pain of what is you;

I am what you want. I am what you need most desperately. The problem is that you do not know this yet. Your mind is shadowing someone else right now. You have wrapped your whole being around that body. That fantasy. The fantasy of what you think you want. Find me! Yes, this is very disturbing and very inconvenient. I do realize that. Your mind feels like a storage room for something nuclear. How does one settle? Where are you going? What do I destroy?

Love? No no no… You are getting it all wrong. This has nothing to do with love. Such a petty and ridiculous emotion. Damaging your heart for a mortal soul. Foolish. You should have something better to do than that. Lust? That’s more like it. Your speed is admirable. As a silky white moon surrounded by the dark and heavy sky, you seek serenity. I will not give you that! Ouch. What’s the difference? Come to me and you will see. I can show you theses things my dear…

Ah, your shadow around the other is fading. Pleasure? Why should I pleasure you? You are so naive to think such things. Distance us through closeness, such stupidity! Pulsating and throbbing. Shivering and death. A passage through the solutions. Lovely. But you will fall onto your knees in sheer pain. Now remove yourself from that other. Come with me, totally. Do not linger! Do not show me your pain. I have no patience for such things. Why are you crying my dear? Fantasy is such a terrible waist of time. You should know better by now. See, your shadow belongs to me again. We might succeed. Or not.

Sorrow is such a disgusting emotion. It is driven by fear and regret. I must teach you. Why such resistance? Can you not handle this reality? Too many questions. You are so weak. Go ahead! Stagger around wimpling and whining. Is that your choice? For without what I am you will slowly disintegrate. You are nothing! I pity you. There, there, calm down my dear. You have not failed. I will not torture you with more riddles my friend. You accept me? That will just not do! You need to keep me! I must have all of you!

I sense that your attraction for me is growing with your every breath. Show me courage! Break the path! Take me! For I am yours now. Do you not understand? Analyze your mind. What I just told you is only the beginning. Pay attention! I will now give you the answer to what I am:
I am your story.

And thank you so much to Agy from Agy talks for giving me another sunshine award!!! Unfortunately I don't follow more then like 15 blogs so it will be hard to spread the love more then I did with the last award. This is serious guys, it means that I must suffer from a bad case of blog reading deficiency; I need to find more cool blogs. So the mission begins...

The horror of a habitual life

This little world of blogging, how fortunate that I stumbled upon you. I had no idea what I was getting myself into when I started this blog about a month ago. My first blog experience was of high remembrance and very scary. It must have been about three years ago when my friend told me to check out this blog she was following. She said that it made her laugh and I did come to understand why. She was not laughing with the blogger but at how foolish the blogger was behaving. Don't ask me the name of the blog, really don't remember, but it was some blond Swedish bimbo basically taking pictures of herself drunk. The rest of the content is a blank, I must have, in a state of trauma, hidden it in some dark place within my memory. Oh the horror, I was now scarred!


So anyway, after seeing that I quickly decided that the blog world was no world where I wanted to linger. That is until one night. I was bored, my school books had not arrived from Sweden so I couldn't start studying. I basically just hung around all day and then one night while streaming some crappy TV-show I just decided to do it. Thank God for the delay in the school, or else I might never have experienced writing this blog, and what is most horrific would have been that I would have missed out on reading all these spectacular blogs that actually are out there! It is so motivating to read what all of these (you) funky, cool and oh so intelligent people have to say. When reading these life stories I often get reminded how great people can be and inspire me to be great as well.


Talking about inspirational blogs, a few days ago I started thinking about something Brooke and Mango were doing in their amazing blogs. They have both made a list of 101 things that they will complete within 1001 days. When I read some of what was on the lists it was like a big fat wake up call! Why not? Why wait around? Just write a list of things I want to do, eat, try, buy and so on and just freaking do it! So yeah, I will.

I have been so blessed with my life and I have already done so many crazy, wonderful and glittering things. But there is still SO much that I want to do! Since I started writing on my list (I am at number 35 so far) I have already realized what an unconscious effect it has on my life. Just the other day I went to the grocery store, I bypassed most of the food I regularly buy and went for all these goodies that I in the past had neglected (like a butternut squash!). It was then I realized I was stuck in a habitual kind of life and had been postponing my needed to try new things.

I just adore how I now walk around with a more open mind, finding things that I have yet not tried, remembering things I always wanted to try and reaching inside me to find what I have always wanted to do.

Gracias!

Can you guys believe it? The queen of random awesomeness Johana, from The Mercurial Wife just gave me my first blog award!!! Dudes, I am so gonna celebrate this! It is called the sunshine award and is given to bloggers whose contagious positivity and creativity inspire others in this blog world.
Thanks a million!
And here it is:



The rules are as follows:

* Put the logo on the blog within your post.
* Pass the awards on to 12 bloggers
* Link the nominees within your post.
* Let the nominees know they have received the award by commenting on their blog.
* Share the love and link to the person from whom you received this award.

Now for the hard part... To decide on 12 sunshiny lovelies... But here goes;

1. Jodi from Passport in my pocket
2. Meika from Waiting on the muse
3.Tracy from Tracy Reifkind's Transforming thought, body and food
4. Brooke from The republic of Brooke
5. Beth from Shut up and run!
6. Mango from Traveling mango
7. Brandi from Run bundles, run!
8. The newlywed from Love is...
9. Diana from Diana's blog-my road to the RKC
10. Sadie from Sadie's page
11. Greta from Big bottom blogger
12. Mary from Fit this, girl!

Make sure to check these ladies out, they all rock on so many levels, just like Johana!

Wow, this took waaay longer then I thought to figure out. Hey gimme a break, I am like a newborn just starting to crawl in this blog world! So unfortunately the post I was going to write will just have to wait till tomorrow. Wouldn't want to post something crappy and ruin my newly glorifying reputation now do I?!