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As you begin to speak, WAIT. Ask yourself:
Why
Am
I
Talking?
Be honest with yourself. If you have no reason or motivation to talk, just listen.
That’s right. Just listen.
Kindly,
Neva.
Good listeners are like trampolines.
“They are someone you can bounce ideas off — and rather than absorbing your ideas and energy, they amplify, energize, and clarify your thinking. They make you feel better not merely by passively absorbing, but by actively supporting. This lets you gain energy and height, just like someone jumping on a trampoline.”
A wonderful analogy by Jack Zenger and Joseph Folkman.
Kindly,
Neva.
Curious to learn more about how to strengthen your listening skills? You might want to check out the following pieces:
“… as long as we are alive and kicking, we can be improving ourselves. No matter our age, if we always have a project to which we can apply ourselves, then we will wake up every day with an objective, something productive to get done. This allows us to go to bed at night in the peaceful knowledge that we have done some good, gained some achievement, however small.” — Nick Offerman
Find your projects. No matter how long you have to look, or where, find them. The search will be worth your time, I promise.
Get excited about them. Whatever your projects may be, allow yourself to feel the joy they bring you in their pursuit.
The way they sparkle your creativity. The endless curiosity and millions of questions they lead to. The reason why they keep you up late at night, growing. How much contentment they bring you when you return to them after a day or two or three.
Find your projects. And own them. Fully. With all your heart. They are nobody’s—but, truly, yours.
Kindly,
Neva.
Here are some inspiring conversations and readings that talk about the beauty of pursuing your own projects and how they can help enrich your life:
For more reading and listening recommendations, you’re welcome to sign up for my newsletter which I send out every Sunday to other fellow thinkers and bookworms.
“Remember, too, that all who succeed in life get off to a bad start, and pass through many heartbreaking struggles before they 'arrive'. The turning point in the lives of those who succeed usually comes at some moment of crisis, through which they are introduced to their 'other selves'." — Napoleon Hill
This is a quote from Napoleon Hill's book, Think And Grow Rich, that I have been reading over the past few days. It’s a piece of work has been recommended in various blogs and podcasts over and over again.
Don’t get turned off by its cheesy title, though!
The book has some valuable advice for anybody who wants to go beyond their current potential and commit to growth, in whatever form that may be. Hence, the 'warning' in the introduction: Be ready, this book will change your life.
In essence, it's a book about how to be successful at getting what you want. And for Hill, success always starts with a strong desire (and a little bit of faith that the universe will always have our backs).
But there are other key elements that will increase our chances to succeed, too.
Like assembling a group of “Master Minds” that will complement our own knowledge and skills. Having a definite plan in place on how to get where we want to be (and keep adjusting it when it’s not working). Acquiring good leadership skills. Staying committed and never (ever!) quit.
Perhaps most importantly, be ready to seize the opportunities in the moments when they show up.
As it happens, opportunities (to grow) usually arrive at seemingly inappropriate or difficult times. Too often, we keep convincing ourselves that we are not ready, that we don’t have the knowledge or good-enough skills, that we don’t know the right people.
Sometimes, because of this self-conviction, we’re not able to recognize the opportunities at all!
And so they pass by, innocently and quietly, all these great opportunities that could help us break free, or lift us up to live the dreams that seem completely unimaginable in our trapped worlds.
The timing, though, will never be “just right,” Hill writes. In fact, this is one thing that so many of us get wrong all the time. We should start by simply trusting that we will figure it out along the way.
“Start where you stand, and work with whatever tools you may have at your command, and better tools will be found as you go along.” — Napoleon Hill
Start where you stand. There is no better timing nor place than that.
Kindly,
Neva.
A tiny thought, caught in the interview with John Maxwell on Shane Parrish’s podcast, The Knowledge Project, the other day:
“Sometimes I need to find myself, so I can know where I’m going.” — John Maxwell
At the age of 40, an accomplished leader John Maxwell decided to devote his life to writing books on four key themes that he believed all successful people have in common:
At the core of each of them, according to Maxwell, are self-awareness and self-realization. The greatest leaders are the ones who accept the reality of who they are, he says. The first step to become a good leader, then, is to learn how to lead yourself.
It is only once you’ve figured out how to lead yourself, once you’re no longer craving for followers, or are needy for being in alignment with others, that the true magic of leadership (its compound value, if you will) can happen.
Once you've mastered that one, it is no longer about you. It's about other people. And you begin to guide other individuals to become great leaders (of) themselves, too.
Kindly,
Neva.
Without doubt much of our success in life happens due to pure luck or randomness of events. (Side note: Nassim Thaleb wrote an excellent book on this very topic!) However, there might be a few components of your life that may actually work toward increasing your odds to succeed.
In their book, The Unfair Advantage: How You Already Have What It Takes to Succeed, the two successful (and lucky) entrepreneurs Ash Ali and Hasan Kubba list the following:
While there is little mention of risk that Ali and Kubba talk about, their focus is on ways to leverage your chances for success.
In other words, you are probably better off with having all of these ticked off than if you don't — when (and if) those rare opportunities do arise. What is more, unfair advantage grows and multiplies itself over time.
At this point, most of you are probably wondering the same as me: So what happens if you don’t?
Surround yourself with those who do, the authors say. Instead of searching for people with same skills, qualities, or resources, pair up with those who complement your unfair advantage with theirs.
If, by chance, it doesn’t break you... it can only make you stronger. Fair enough.
Kindly,
Neva.
A heart-warming idea I've learned from a good friend on how to lift yourself up on the days that seem less sunny and bright.
He came up with a rather unique challenge to try out daily: How can I make three people smile today?
It may sound simple and silly, yet it can be so very powerful. It is so often that we forget that we’re not here just for us. We are here for others, too!
Sometimes (on those sunny and bright days, no pun intended), I'd like to think that this is the only reason why we're here in the first place. Which reminds me of this beautiful quote by Matt Haig:
“She laughs. It is the simplest, purest joy on earth, I realize, to make someone you care about laugh.” — Matt Haig
Kindly,
Neva.
I’ve been a fan of Nassim Nicholas Taleb’s work for a long time. He is not only a great thinker, but also an excellent writer who has a quite unique skill of translating complex ideas and concepts into easy-to-grasp language.
He also doesn’t spare the reader with his endless cynicism, his specific kind of humor, and his great passion for classical art and literature—no matter which direction his writing wanders.
Fooled by Randomness, one of Taleb’s most well-known books, is a great reminder that randomness (luck) plays a much greater role in people’s success stories than we realize or are willing to admit.
“When things go our way we reject the lack of certainty.” — Nassim Taleb
I try to remind myself of this every time the browser on my phone recommends me to read those “inspiring” articles about how a 25-year old guy became a millionaire in a single year by only working 10 hours a week, or how a once-struggling solo mom of four now runs a multi-billion dollar company selling baby food.
The problem, Taleb writes, is that we get completely blinded by how much randomness there is to things happening the way they do (on either spectrum, good and bad).
Sure, there is hard work and talent and all that. But so much of what we consider as “success” is to pure randomness of events, decisions, circumstances. As he would say:
“No matter how sophisticated our choices, how good we are at dominating the odds, randomness will have the last word.” — Nassim Taleb
So here’s to acceptance of life as it comes, with all its risks and opportunities!
Kindly,
Neva.
“Between life and death there is a library, and within that library, the shelves go on forever. Every book provides a chance to try another life you could have lived. To see how things would be if you had made other choices… Would you have done anything different, if you had the chance to undo your regrets?” — Matt Haig
This how Matt Haig opens his beautiful novel, The Midnight Library.
It’s a story about a young woman named Nora who struggles to find a way out of depression. One day, she decides to swallow a bunch of pills to, once and for all, put her miserable life to an end. However, instead of dying immediately, she ends up in a special kind of library; a place that allows her to travel in time and relive her life a hundred times over, choosing to do things differently each time.
In her continuous search for a life worth living, she eventually realizes that, no matter what kind of life she wants to lead or what decisions she makes along the way, life’s hurt and pain and disappointment and fear will always be a part of it.
But so will joy and beauty and wonder and love...
“Every second of every day we are entering a new universe. And we spend so much time wishing our lives were different, comparing ourselves to other people and to other versions of ourselves, when really most lives contain degrees of good and degrees of bad.” — Matt Haig
Just as Nora rans out of her options and is about to leave this world forever, it suddenly strikes her: she wants to live, after all!
Haig wrote this touching story after having struggled with depression and anxiety himself for many years, which is probably why the words he uses really hit home.
I would strongly recommend this book to anyone for has been on either side: those who have experienced being stuck in a dark tunnel themselves as well as those who know somebody else who has.
Here are a few other memorable lines from The Midnight Library that Iove:
On acceptance
"Maybe that's what all lives were, though. Maybe even the most seemingly perfectly intense or worthwhile lives ultimately felt the same. Acres of disappointment and monotony and hurts and rivalries but with flashes of wonder and beauty. Maybe that was the only meaning that mattered. To be the world, witnessing itself."
On uncertainty
“It’s hard to predict, isn’t it? — The things that will make us happy.”
On being stuck
"When you stay too long in a place, you forget just how big an expanse the world is. You get no sense of the length of those longitudes and latitudes. Just as, she supposed, it is hard to have a sense of the vastness inside any one person. But once you sense that vastness, once something reveals it, hope emerges, whether you want it to or not, and it clings to you as stubbornly as lichen clings to rock."
On life’s beauty
"Of course, we can't visit every place or meet every person or do every job, yet most of what we'd feel in any life is still available. We don't have to play every game to know what winning feels like. We don't have to hear every piece of music in the world to understand music. We don't have to have tried every variety of grape from every vineyard to know the pleasure of wine. Love and laughter and fear and pain are universal currencies. We just have to close our eyes and savour the taste of the drink in front of us and listen to the song as it plays. We are as completely and utterly alive as we are in any other life and have access to the same emotional spectrum."
On making choices
"“I think it’s easy to imagine there are easier paths,” she said, realising something for the first time. “But maybe there are no easy paths. They are just paths.”"
On love
"Why want another universe if this one has dogs?"
Kindly,
Neva
How do you measure your life?
I hope it’s in beautiful sunsets and paintings that leave you in awe.
I hope it's in giggles about silly things that others don't find funny at all.
I hope it’s in smell of the flowers that your friend sends over when you’re having a bad day.
I hope it’s in books that inspire you and in movies that break your heart.
I hope it’s in deepness of conversations with strangers on the road.
I hope it’s in warmth of the hugs you receive from people you love as well as the hugs you give away.
I hope it’s in tears running down your face while listening to your favorite song.
I hope it’s in breakfasts with your family and in cuddles on the coach with your dearest person.
I hope it’s in pinky clouds your eyes catch on your morning run.
I hope it’s in pride working on all your projects that most likely won't bring you any money.
I hope it’s in sparks in your eyes when you see a small puppy in the streets or hold a baby in your arms, so very tiny.
I hope it’s in feeling of belonging when somebody checks in with you when you’ve been sick.
I hope it’s in kindness with which you show up every day, no matter how other people treat you.
I hope it’s in gratitude that, if there is any way life can be measured, your life can be measured... in all of the above.
Kindly,
Neva.
It occurred to me, some weeks ago, when I was biking home after a morning spent at a coffee shop writing, how hard we are sometimes on ourselves for not knowing in the past what we know today.
“Didn’t you see it coming?” we would sometimes get asked by other people when we share a story of mistrust. Or, “Were there any red flags? How come you did not see them?”
As if betrayal that one may experience in a relationship with somebody else (be it partner, friend, colleague, etc.) was something normal, something we should have expected. As if we’re the ones to blame that the other person misused our trust because, well, we did not think about this scenario in the first place.
We all do that. Without even realizing it, we put a blame on the person who got hurt. When we are the ones hurting, we naturally blame ourselves.
But could we really know? Could we really see it coming?
As if blaming ourselves or those in hurt wasn’t quite enough, we then go ever further. We start searching for reasons why somebody acted this or that way. Like this would somehow justify their actions or magically ease our pain.
It's not how it works...
I listened to Najwa Zebian, the author of the book Welcome Home, addressing this very issue. She had a fair point (and I’m paraphrasing here):
Aren’t trust, honesty, and commitment the very foundations why we enter relationships to begin with? Aren’t those the very reasons why we have decided to spend our time with this or that person, start a joint business, perhaps even build a life with them? Aren’t those core values just a projection of who we are and how we want to show up in a relationship?
So why, she asks, do we blame ourselves for not knowing any other way—but to trust and be honest and committed?
It's interesting how as soon we stop taking responsibility for other people’s actions and remain true to our core values and beliefs, suddenly, everything shifts. As Zebian would say, we finally arrive home.
So perhaps, for once, we should stop blaming ourselves or the ones who got hurt (however unintentionally!) for "not seeing it” or “not expecting it." For that would only mean abandoning ourselves; our own truth about who we are and how we want to show up—both for ourselves and others.
Kindly,
Neva.
Here's a simple review of a simple book on simplicity. L'art de la Simplicité by Dominique Loreau. Written "for anyone in search for a simple and better life.”
With her straight-forward language and neatly tight sentences, the French author does a wonderful job of capturing the very essence of the old Japanese wisdom of keeping things minimal and simple.
And yes, Loreau also happens to be living in the Land of the Rising Sun herself.
To finally realize that you’re making your life way too complicated (and that it is simply not worth it).
How with a few simple tricks you can turn your life into a Grace Kelly movie.
That you should approach discipline as a benefit to your body, mind, and spirit—and not as endless suffering or hardship.
That the best skin treatment is happiness. Hmm.
You’ll probably want to travel to Japan right away.
Also, it's one of those rare cheesy self-help books you might actually want to buy and keep on your nightstand. If only to get reminded that life can, indeed, be quite simple.
Kindly,
Neva.
Elizabeth Gilbert, a prolific storyteller and public figure, once famously said: “I have watched so many other people murder their creativity by demanding that their art pays the bills.”
This is perhaps not a statement that you would expect to hear from the author behind the-bestselling-book-turned-into-a-freaking-Julia-Roberts-movie, Eat, Pray, Love.
Hence, she is probably one of the very few people on this planet who actually can afford to pay her bills selling her books.
However, as she writes in her latest piece, Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear, it wasn't always like that. Up until her enormous success with Eat, Pray, Love, she always kept a job (or two or three) in order to support herself as well as her vocation: writing.
Why? Because she realized rather early on that there is an important distinction between the meaning of the words hobby, job, career, and vocation.
Here's how Gilbert breaks it down for us:
Hobby
What you do purely for pleasure. The stakes (making money, getting famous, etc.) don't matter. A nice thing to have.
Job
What pays your bills. Doesn't have to bring you joy or pleasure. Also the only thing you have to have as a responsible human being, living in a material world, who doesn't want to be a burden to anybody.
Career
A job that you are passionate about and are willing to put extra time and effort into. You don't need to have a career, however. If you don't love your career, you should just go get a job.
Vocation
A calling or a divine invitation. The voice of the universe saying: "I want you to create this thing." The highest possible pursuit you can do. It cannot be taken away from you and doesn't require any outcome. You may or may not have it.
Thanks, Liz.
Kindly,
Neva.
Once upon a time, in a small grey town about 3 hours north from Paris, a smart young boy was studying to become a lawyer. However, due to unforeseen circumstances, he never pursued his career in legal matters.
He had only turned 20 when he got very, very sick. Forced to stay bedridden for months, he felt like he had lost all meaning in his life. He felt helpless and depressed. But then one day, a small miracle happened that changed his life forever...
Concerned about her son’s health and eager to find ways to help him on his path to recovery, his mother brought him a box of paints. From that very moment, the young man had never stop painting—and would later became known as one of the most talented artists of the early 20th century.
His name was Henri Matisse.
I’ve been fortunate to experience his genius at the exhibition dedicated to one of his greatest masterpieces, The Red Studio, that is currently on display at Copenhagen’s Statens Museum for Kunst.
Matisse’s work is truly exceptional. Alongside 1000+ paintings that he produced until his death at the age of 84, Matisse was also known for his sculptures, paper cuts, as well as his architecture and interior design. However, his legacy goes far beyond his artworks as such.
When you look at his paintings, you get a feeling that he knew something about life many other people wouldn’t necessarily be able to see, yet to comprehend. It is this wisdom about life, I believe, that makes his work so extraordinary.
Matisse’s life was far from picturesque. While he did enjoy a somewhat glamorous status as an artist, especially in his later years, his life was actually quite tough, marked by various health issues, financial struggles and public scrutiny, as well as by the war outbreak in Europe around that time. Some even say that he had battled with depression throughout his lifetime.
Matisse’s paintings, though, resemble anything but misery and sadness. Instead, his artwork looks colourful, bright and happy. Almost as he was trying to remind us that, “Hey, look, there is life out there despite of it all. And do you see that little flower over there? Isn’t that just worth celebrating?”
Whether it was a small pot of cyclamen, the light coming through the window in his studio, or flowery patterns on a piece of fabric, Matisse indeed had a special eye for noticing the beauty in small things.
And while one could say that this might had been his way to escape from the harsh reality of life, it also indicates his great appreciation for nature and other wonders of being alive.
The little things in life, indeed!
Even as a very young artist, Matisse understood that if he wanted to create something exceptional and innovative, he would need to follow his own path, even if that would mean going against the conventional thinking and challenging the status quo.
He once famously said:
“It has bothered me all my life that I do not paint like everybody else.”
Regardless, self-doubt did not turn him away from doing his own thing, sometimes even in provocation to prove his inner critic (as well as other endless critics out there) wrong.
There is an anecdote about the portrait of his wife Amélie, also known as The Green Line, that Matisse was working on back in 1905 and how it came to be. After receiving another harsh criticism with respect to his artistic expression and his unconventional use of colors, he famously went back to his studio and added the green stripe to Amélie’s face.
It should be noted that this very painting is considered today as one of the great masterpieces within 20th century portraiture!
Over and over again, Matisse decided to choose courage over fear. And this is what had eventually made him: Matisse.
Kindly,
Neva
The challenge continues... Here are the two things that I have learned after having practiced ashtanga yoga for a month:
If you’re one of those people who can get irritated easily when things don’t work out the way you think they should, then ashtanga can be a great opportunity to practice how to be more patient (with yourself).
When I first joined the classes, I thought it would be the perfection of asanas, more than anything, that I would need to learn to be patient with. But the truth is, even just learning the primary series sequence by heart takes patience.
And so it happens that after one month of not even getting through all the seating asanas (yet alone all the inversions), I would sometimes still mix up the order in which one moves from one pose to the next.
But you know what? It’s okay. It just takes, well, patience.
Discipline is a big one for me, since being more disciplined about my regular yoga practice was one of the reasons why I’ve decided to join Mysore in the first place.
I’ve always been an early bird, therefore, waking up early in the mornings was never a big issue for me. But getting up at 5:30 am every second day to bike to the studio in the pitch darkness while it’s cold and pouring rain outside? A completely different story.
Somehow, I did manage to show up at the shala 3 times per week during my first month of practice, which I count as a tiny first step to become more self-disciplined. (Note that according to the traditional practice, one should practice ashtanga first thing in the morning, 6 times per week! It takes about 90 minutes on average to complete the primary series, or more if you’re doing the advanced series. So still a long way there.)
It was not always easy, but the feeling when I did show up at the studio and begin my practice was so much worth it. Not to mention the feeling you get when you finally lay down in shavasana, the final pose. Precious.
Kindly,
Neva.
These days, I’m learning patience and self-kindness. Yet again. I feel like there are certain seasons in our lives that last particularly long. Sometimes it happens that we think we have already outlived them, but then another cloudy day comes and we get reminded that, despite the many steps we have already taken forward, we are still on our healing path.
When those moments come, what we need is to be a little more patient and kind to ourselves, especially in terms of what we choose to think about ourselves and how we choose to talk to ourselves.
There is a beautiful Chinese proverb that is worth remembering in this context. This is how it goes:
Be careful of your thoughts, for your thoughts become your words.
Be careful of your words, for your words become your actions.
Be careful of your actions, for your actions become your habits.
Be careful of your habits, for your habits become your character.
Be careful of your character, for your character becomes your destiny.
Kindly,
Neva.
Somewhat randomly, I’ve been going through the pages of the book that I (also somewhat randomly) found at a local library called Kierkegaard and the Problem of Self-Love written by John Lippitt. (Note: Søren Kierkegaard is one of the most famous Danish philosophers of all times, so hence, where my curiosity came from.)
I have stumbled upon this conversation by Robert M. Adams (another philosopher) about self-love being intertwined with the good for community:
“Self-love can be positively rather than negatively related to community. Fully accepting my own membership in a good community involves accepting my own good as a project, both as a common project of the community and as part of the common good. At the same time my good is a project that a good community regards, and expects me to regard, as mine to care about in a special way (though not necessarily more than about the good of others or in insolation from the good of others). Being willing to be special to myself in this way is appropriately responsive to my place in communities (not to mention my place in the universe). This is relatively unalienated and unselfish way of taking my own good as a project. Are you tempted to feel guilty (as some people do) about ever pursuing your own good when it competes at all with the good of others? Then ask yourself whether you really think a society that did not have your good too as part of a common project would be an excellent society.” — Robert A. Adams
It's a provocative idea since we usually don't think about self-love in relation to others. More often than not, we tend to believe that self-love is a selfish, or rather self-centered, act that doesn't have to do anything with people around us, let alone has a possibly positive impact on them.
Adams' perspective can help ease the expectations we put on ourselves in that regard; for instance, it can make us feel less guilty when we do engage in the practice of self-love.
Because, let's admit it, we all feel a sense of guilt when we do something loving and kind just for ourselves from time to time. As if there were only two options: we can choose ourselves (and are therefore very selfish) or we can choose others (and are therefore generous and selfless, like we were "supposed" to be). An either-or option, with no room in between.
So yes, there is certainly some comfort in knowing that there is another side to this...
While thinking of self-love as a community project (in a larger societal context, at least) can sound a bit extreme, I do believe it can be a wonderful way to embrace the idea of self-love as doing something good for others at a more local level—that is, in our own little circles of people who we cherish and love.
"Healing myself, I've come to learn, is the greatest gift that I can offer my children, friends, and family," I read some months ago. These were the words shared by a Japanese yoga and meditation teacher, Mae Yoshikawa, who unexpectedly lost her husband in an accident. She is now a single mom to two small boys, making her living from running what became a hugely popular yoga studio in the middle of Tokyo.
I love this example because it illustrates that self-love (in a form of healing, self-care, or else) is so much more than just showing up for yourself. It is showing up for yourself, so that you can be of greater service to the people around you.
And perhaps, in that sense, it truly is just that—a gift.
Kindly,
Neva.
It’s only January and I may have already found my favorite book of 2023 (and I’m not even half-through the story!).
Truth to be told, A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara has been sitting on my bookshelf for years now. Somehow I managed to forget about it, and it was only when I was moving out of my old apartment that I placed it back at the top of my “want-to-read-soon” pile.
It’s a thick book, with more than 720 pages of the most brilliant writing, and probably one of the best bitter-sweet fiction stories I have ever read. I will probably share more impressions once I’m done reading it. For now, I would like to write down this little nugget (one of many!) by Yanagihara that touched my heart and reminded me of the concept of kintsugi introduced in one of my previous blogs:
“Things get broken, and sometimes they get repaired, and in most cases, you realize that no matter what gets damaged, life rearranges itself to compensate for your loss, sometimes wonderfully.” — Hanya Yanagiha
Kindly,
Neva.
I received this gentle reminder from my mom on one of the days last week, and it was just what I needed to hear as I’m going through some big and challenging transitions in my life.
“Don’t rush who you’re becoming.”
We’re sometimes so focused on where we want to get or who we want to become, that we forget to take some pride and joy in the process of getting there.
We beat ourselves up because we are not where our friends and peers are.
We get angry and disappointed with ourselves because we haven’t achieved this or that, or for the past mistakes that can’t be undone.
We rush into making decisions like headless chicken without giving ourselves proper time for reflection, if only so we could thick all the boxes of what a happy and successful life “should” look like.
But how about, for once, we don’t rush into anything?
How about we, perhaps for the very first time, allow ourselves to be proud of the person (you) who is leading this path in the first place?
And how about we give some grace to the person (also you) who wakes up every morning and keeps on trying, putting one foot in front of the other, to become a better version of themselves?
Let's not rush.
Kindly,
Neva
It’s a funny thing, isn’t it, how January usually marks that time of the year when so many of us wish to establish some new habits in our lives, or to pursue the goals we have been postponing for months, or even years.
It’s an arbitrary time, of course. We typically get so caught up in our everyday acting and thinking that it is only when we notice that the calendar hanging on the kitchen wall has no more days to be crossed out for the year that we become conscious of time. Our time.
Out of sudden, as if somebody would take us by our shoulders and shake us up, we realize that yet another year has gone by without accomplishing this or that, or, perhaps, not being where we wanted to be—when we engaged that same thought exactly one year ago!
As much as I enjoy spending the early January days reflecting on what’s already in the books and writing down some resolutions for the coming year, I have started to be more conscious of time-framing my goals, desires, aspirations.
A lot can happen in one year. If 2022 has taught me anything is that a person and her priorities can change significantly in a year’s time, too.
Ever since I’ve read Katherine May’s Wintering (on how we ought to be more kind to ourselves when we are going through difficult times) and listened to one of Tim Ferris’s podcasts (on how he goes about scheduling his own time, breaking it down into manageable chunks of focused, seasonal work), I have started to think more in seasons.
For me, thinking in seasons is about being attentive and mindful of where in our lives we are right now, what our needs are, and how those needs can be met, given the situation we're in.
More specifically, thinking in seasons invites us to reflect about, and then make plans, based on the following questions:
What I love about this framework is that is a much more forgiving, accurate, and accepting way of approaching life. It reminds me that life is in a constant flux of seasons: some good, some bad, and some somewhere in between.
Perhaps knowing that the current season we're in will eventually transition into the next one, and then into the next, can also give us some reassurance. That no matter what will happen, or how well we are going to lead our life in the next months (or years) to come, a new season will come.
And we will begin—again.
So here is my invitation to you, dear readers, to think about 2023 in seasons, too. I'd be curious to hear how it all works out for you.
Kindly,
Neva.
Kintsugi is a form of Japanese art where broken pottery pieces are put back together with gold. Instead of being hidden, repaired cracks and damages are highlighted and celebrated in all their imperfect beauty. I have learned about this concept only recently, but it is such a great metaphor for life.
Failure, brokenness, loss… All these experiences can bring much disappointment, sadness, and regret into our lives. Yet, so often, especially when we get caught in negative thinking, we tend to forget that they bring much growth and wisdom and beauty with them, too.
Loving, the Kintsugi philosophy teaches us about acceptance. That the many downs that we encounter in our lives are just part of our journey on this planet. Rather than trying to ignore them or run away from them, the only way is to face them when and as they come.
Kintsugi also teaches us about resilience. That while we can never change what happened in the past, there are ways we can come out of difficult situations stronger, perhaps even manage to create something beautiful out of them. If only we are willing to pick those broken pieces up from the floor first.
Kindly,
Neva.
There is this wonderful piece of wisdom that I have been reading over and over again lately, shared by the famous Indian spiritual teacher Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj:
“Instead of searching for what you do not have, find out what it is that you have never lost.”
It reminds me of one of my darkest days in the last few years, when I was sitting on my yoga mat with my eyes closed and tears falling down my face, unable to perform any asanas, but nonetheless pressing my palms firmly against my chest as I was taking long deep breaths. In and out. In and out.
And I remember feeling and thinking exactly this way: that despite all the losses—of the past, the present, the future—that were crippling me in every possible way, I was somehow still there, breathing. With heart full of love waiting to be spread among those who care enough to see it and are brave enough to receive it.
There is great power in finding what it is that you have never lost. You may not always find it in the places you thought you would. But as soon as you find it, claim it a little bit more.
For nothing and nobody can take that away from you.
Kindly,
Neva.
He used to teach at my school. I never took his classes, but I remember a friend of mine who studied Cultural Studies told me that he was a great professor. Most of us knew him because of his work; the many books and poems he wrote, the intellect he shared with readers of the main national newspaper I used to work for back in the days when I aspired to become a journalist... His death shook us all.
In her daring and heart-breaking memoir, his wife Erika Johnson Debeljak discusses the difficulties of coping with a sudden death a beloved person as the whole world is watching. She delves into what it means to lose parts of your identity when your entire life was built in tandem with that person, and why grieving in public makes things so much harder.
Her book, Devica, kraljica, vdova, prasica, is not solely a memoir. It's a provocative analysis of widowhood—a topic that we usually don’t like to talk about. Partially, she observes, because we think we understand and know it all. Partially, because we don’t like to believe that it could happen to us. It a great taboo, too, I would say.
She calls out on the ways we treat people who are grieving, especially in those delicate situations, and why it is important that we start sharing our own stories of loss more:
"When you write, when you talk, you have the power over your destiny. If you are silent, you are alone in your suffering. It is important that you talk, also because pain is being stigmatized in our society. But people who are suffering are not sick. They do not need to be cut out from the society. They are part of it, too." — Erika Johnson Debeljak
("Kadar pišeš, kadar govoriš, imaš moč nad svojo usodo. Če si tiho, si sam v svojem trpljenju. Pomembno je, da govoriš, tudi ker je bolečina stigmatizirana v naši družbi. A ljudje, ki trpijo, niso bolni. Ni jih treba ločiti od družbe. Tudi oni so njen del." — Erika Johnson Debeljak)
Beautifully said.
Kindly,
Neva.
Feeling completely out of sync with my regular yoga practice (and daily routine as such), I have decided to challenge myself this year by trying out the traditional Ashtanga practice.
I set a simple goal for myself: to engage in Mysore practice 3 times a week for the next 6 months and see what happens to my mind and body. Like an experiment of some sort.
When I arrived to the studio at 6:30 am this morning, I felt excited but also a bit nervous as I didn’t know what to expect. At the same time, I was ready to embrace the uncertainty and let the teacher guide me through the first parts of the sequence.
Feeling so out of shape, I felt almost embarrassed to tell her that I have been practicing yoga on and off for more than a decade and that in the summer of 2021 (so not that long time ago), I completed a 200-hour yoga teacher training.
In a way, I wanted to turn a blank page, to forget all that I have been taught so far and what I have been teaching others since my YTT graduation—and start from scratch.
In Zen Buddhism, there is a concept called shoshin (originating from Japan) that stands for “a beginner’s mind”. According to Wikipedia, it “refers to having an attitude of openness, eagerness, and lack of preconceptions when studying, even at an advanced level, just as a beginner would.”
I love this concept because so very often our ego gets in the way when we are starting out with something new, let alone when we return to doing something that we’ve already gained some experience in or have some previous knowledge of.
So much so that it sometimes prohibits us from further learning and advancing.
At other times, we get to build what we perceive as our "truth" on very shaky grounds.
For me, approaching Ashtanga practice with a beginner’s mind means going back to the foundations and trying to (re)build my strength from there. Funnily enough, it feels almost cathartic as I can see so many parallels with other areas of my life right now.
As for my first practice today, I did not get to even half of the asanas of the primary series. But I was nevertheless proud of myself that I have started—as a complete beginner would.
As I headed for my first walk through the streets of Copenhagen this morning, after having spent 6 months traveling the world and visiting my family in Slovenia, I was welcomed by the sun.
Not the clear-skies-kind-of-sun, but the Scandinavian-kind-of-sun that somehow manages to peek through the dense grey clouds hovering above the city pretty much most of the year.
I could have complained (like I used to so many times before, after coming back from a sunnier place). But instead, I decided to be grateful for the little sunshine the day has brought, for being able to witness this beautiful place in its wintery light, yet another season.
As I was putting one foot in front of the other, I thought of the following saying:
"Sometimes you have to travel far to find your way home."
I certainly know that this has been the case for me; not only recently but throughout my life. With the exception that this time around, going away seemed like the only option I had left to get out of the very dark tunnel I was in.
However, it’s really not about finding a perfect place to live or work, and whether you’re going to settle down here or somewhere else. It is about finding home within you, that inner peace that guides you everywhere you go.
Because no matter where you wander, or with whom, or for how long, you are eventually always, always brought home.
This morning, I decided to cherish that little place in me... and just be grateful for finding my way. Home.
Kindly,
Neva.
A tiny thought, provoked by my previous writing...
Not everything happens for a reason. Sometimes, bad things happen… just because. It’s life being unfair and unforgiving. Bad luck, perhaps. But no particular reason or higher meaning to it.
Nothing can prepare us for dark times, either. Reoccurring loss, sudden health issues, sickness or death of a loved one… It’s not like our previous experiences make these things any less painful. We still grieve, as much as we love.
The only thing that is within our hands is to make sure we’re taking good care of ourselves, continuously. To take all the time and space that we need to rest and get better. To surround ourselves with people who truly love and support us, and who are willing to show up.
And most importantly, to never stop asking for help.
Kindly,
Neva.
I spent the last couple of days at the seaside with my mom. There is this special place that we try to visit every year, just the two of us, and spend some quality time together as a mother and a daughter, as two old friends, sharing the moments of joys and happiness as we climb the old twisted streets, discussing our fears and doubts and insecurities over a glass of wine, making plans about the brighter future and encouraging each other to take the first steps into the unknown. And a million of things more.
I love to visit special places like that, as they remind me of how very precious life is, and even more so, how precious it is to have people in our lives who truly love and support us—even in the times when they themselves might be going through a tough time.
They understand that our personal pain and struggles do not have anything to do with our love for them. They understand that shared moments with the people we love, regardless of how much sadness is weighting us down sometimes (individually or jointly), is all there is to life.
There is this beautiful quote from one of my favourite series, After Life, that was running through my head this morning, as my mom and I returned from our trip:
“Life is precious because you can’t watch it again. I mean, you can believe in an afterlife if that makes you feel better. Doesn’t mean it’s true.” — Ricky Gervais
Kindly,
Neva.
An airport pick during my layover at the Schiphol International Airport in Amsterdam. The book, The Power of Choice: How to Hack Your Happiness by Kelly Weekers, caught my attention by the fact that it was written by a well-known Dutch author and entrepreneur who also happens to be a psychologist.
In all honesty, this half autobiography, half self-help guide did not make a particular impression on me, given that a lot of the author’s realizations I have already learned from established experts, researchers and authors elsewhere (or learned on my own).
Nevertheless, it got me thinking about my own decisions in life (and maybe that’s the whole point of the book and Weekers' personal story is just an added bonus?).
There is no sophisticated decision making model or secret recipe that the author proposes to the readers. Which I quite like. Her advice is as simple as: "Choose what makes you happy."
Now, this sounds lovely. But as Kate Bowler, the bestselling author of Everything Happens For A Reason And Other Lies I've Loved, said in her beautiful, heart-wreaking interview (a must listen!):
“Life is not always a series of choices.” — Kate Bowler
There are times when things happen for no particular reason. There are times when life gets really difficult and tragic and unfair. There are times when certain circumstances or situations make us pretty damn unhappy, and we have no ability to escape nor to change them to be happier.
This reminded me of Viktor Frankl and his work on life’s meaning (which Kelly Weekers also cites). He says that one can find meaning in three ways: through love, through work, and through suffering. It’s our outlook on the situation that counts and gives us the power to choose.
So perhaps, it's not about making a choice to be happy. It’s about choosing how we frame those (shitty) circumstances we have no control over. Accept them. Go above and beyond them.
Then, whenever we do have the ability to choose, aim for that happiness. Make that choice.
Kindly.
Neva
Here is one post for the love of book swapping!
I've found Bryan Magee's Confession Of A Philosopher: A Journey Through Western Philosophy at a hostel in Bogota (and swapped it for Gabriel García Márquez's Love In The Time Of Cholera that I bought in the bookstore in Cartagena).
I'm not sure I would ever picked this book if not for the fact that it was the only one there in English. But it happened to be a nice and interesting read on my 7.5-hour bus ride from Bogota to Armenia (and onto Salento).
Magee walks us through his personal journey to becoming a philosophy student, professor and writer, discovering the work of some of the most famous philosophers of our time and the different schools of thoughts along the way.
There is one passage in the book that I found so very relevant as I'm starting to reflect on my 3-month trip to Latin America and the significance we put on different periods of (or moments in) our life.
“…the present moment is as temporary as every previous now, and will soon be no more than another moment in the general past. All human beings - past, present and future - find their lives embedded at some arbitrary point in the middle of a rich, complex and unceasing historical flow that is ever-changing and goes on after their death. No point in it is privileged as against any other, and none either more or less real than any other.” —Bryan Magee
I guess it is only after, when that present moment is gone or when we compare it agains other moments, that we put meaning or specific value to it.
However, in the most fundamental way, none is better or more important or more real than the other. They are all just moments that we are passing through.
Such an important thought to consider when we feel like we're losing the grounds or get caught in overthinking.
Kindly,
Neva.
Some pain will never go away. As long as we live, we love. As long as we love, we care. That is just how it goes.
If anything, we learn to build our life around it, little by little, so that it doesn't feel as heavy anymore.
If we're lucky, then maybe, someday, we will also learn to appreciate how that pain helped us grow and get us to where we are today.
Because whether we are willing to admit it or not, we learn most about ourselves—our fears, values, insecurities, doubts, needs, desires, courage, strength—when we're in pain.
Kindly,
Neva.
Writing has always been something I've enjoyed. I guess this is why I chose journalism as my first profession, and the reason why I kept writing throughout my career as an academic and a communication consultant, and later as a product manager (doing lots of copy work).
When my mental health issues got into the way, I turned to writing as a way to process things. Keeping a journal every day, I soon learned, was the single most powerful therapeutic method to make sense of the situation I was going through. It was also a way to get to know more about myself, my values, fears, aspirations, boundaries. I have not stopped writing since.
Yet, something changed in my relationship to writing after I visited Andalusia on my first solo vacation earlier this year. As if a secret door has opened up inside of me, one that has been locked for a very long time. As soon as I arrived to Sevilla, I felt this urge to just write, write, write. But not just anything. I wanted to write a story about friendship. You know, that kind of friendship that withstands all the ups and downs in life, all the big transitions and personal growth that we go through, individually and sometimes jointly.
I also figured that if I wanted to become a fiction writer one day, I needed to learn how to write. Or rather, become much, much better at it.
One evening during my trip, I randomly walked into an old bookstore in Lisbon (the place that I visited thereafter). And there it was, this thick book, starring back at me from the top of the shelf, inviting me to do just that. A practical guide on fiction writing! A sign from the universe?
I bought the book and spent the rest of my trip reading it, analyzing the examples and highlighting the passages that I found important and that I wanted to keep in mind as I sat down in the mornings to work on my chapters.
I soon came to realize that writing fiction is much harder than I thought and that it requires a lot of practice. (So much appreciation for all my favorite and less favorite authors out there!)
But so does reading. To be able to catch the dynamic interplay between words and sentences, the build-up of characters, the complexity of dialogues, the atmosphere that gets created with small little details in the descriptions, etc. means that you need to learn to become a pretty damn good reader, too.
I guess that up until now I have never really thought about this very aspect. But it explains why Zadie Smith talks about her desk being “covered with open novels” as she immerses herself in her own writing:
“I read lines to swim in a certain sensibility, to strike a particular note, to encourage rigor when I’m too sentimental, to bring verbal ease when I’m syntactically uptight. I think of reading like a balanced diet; if your sentences are baggy, too baroque, cut back on fatty Foster Wallace, say, and pick up Kafka, as roughage. If your aesthetic has become so refined it is stopping you from placing a single black mark on white paper, stop worrying so much about what Nabokov would say; pick up Dostoyevsky, patron saint of substance over style.” — Zadie Smith
I like Zadie’s approach. I think it would be foolish to believe that reading other people’s work while working on your next short story or novel, or poem doesn’t help to improve your writing. Or maybe worse, that it distracts you and lets you loose your “voice.” If anything, I believe it can be a great source of motivation that pushes you to work even harder on finessing your work.
Writing and reading always go hand in hand. In order to become better at writing, you certainly need to practice (and eventually master) both.
As far as my own writing process goes, I’m not sure whether my story will ever get finished, yet alone published. But that’s not the point.
What I get to appreciate at this moment is the playfulness that comes with choosing the right-fitting words, the images and songs that run through my head as I think about a specific scene in the story, the emotions that come up as I’m writing about a difficult period in one of the main characters' life, and whether I’ve managed to make it sound at least a tiny bit relatable to a potential reader.
I have also become a more attentive reader, more mindful of what the author is trying to say or explain. Sometimes I even try to imagine what she or he must have gone through in “real life” to be able to make this or that observation, or to translate that experience so elegantly to a complete stranger like me.
I also find it so liberating that, for once, I don’t need to worry about the outcome. Rather, I’m just enjoying this creative process while learning along the way, both as a reader and as a writer.
Kindly,
Neva.
Morning time is my forever favorite part of the day. And so breakfasts, too, are usually the meals that I enjoy having the most. Perhaps not so much because of the food itself, but because of the feelings of appreciation and peace that take over me during this precious time of the day.
This Saturday morning I decided to break my typical hostel routine and went for a breakfast at Plaza De Mercado La América, a nearby local market in Laureles, Medellín. I wanted to try out the famous morning dish in Colombia: arepa de chócolo (corn patties with fresh cheese and butter).
Mercado La América is a typical Colombian indoor food market where you can buy pretty much all the food that one can grow in this beautiful country: from fresh meat cuts and coffee beans to a great variety of fruit (many of which I am still unfamiliar with). There are small restaurants, too, selling empanadas, obleas, pan de bono, bandeja paisa, buñuelos and other regional specialities.
I was lucky to arrive this early. At a few minutes past 8 am, the market was calm and quiet, waiting for the weekend hustle and bustle to begin. A cleaning lady in the corner was just finishing up mopping the floor, while at one of the fruit stands, there still seemed to be more sellers than customers.
I bought a couple of plátanos maduros (ripe plantains) before heading to a cosy little place right in the middle of the market, called Restaurante El Buen Sabor (which means "Restaurant of The Good Taste" in English, what a lovely name!). There, three middle-aged women were already in full swing cooking the dishes of the day, turning arepas on an open fire, warming up milk, and generally just getting ready for their first customers to arrive.
A sweet, home-like smell was coming from the half-open pots. It reminded me of the chicken soup that my Nona used to make for us. I could almost see her in front of the stove, slightly stressed out and in her sweaty cotton T-shirt, mixing her boiling soup with a big spoon, which she then passed to me so that I could give it a taste, too, and offer my thoughts on whether the soup was salty enough.
I was among the first people to sit down at the long metal table overlooking the restaurant's open kitchen. With my broken, hardly existent Spanish, I managed (after a couple of tries) to order an arepa and a cup of plain dark coffee. It was hard to believe that a simple dish like this could taste so good. Delicious!
Soon more local customers started to stop by, and I couldn't help but to notice that everybody was ordering the same thing: arepas, scrambled eggs with onions, tomatoes and meat, along with some kind of soup—which, funnily enough, I later realized were actually big mugs of chocolate milk!
I took out my journal to capture some of these impressions in writing and smiled to myself in gratitude for having to witness this scene, right there in the middle of the market surrounded by local residents on a random Saturday morning.
"The sweetness of the smell," I wrote down. "This is what I want to remember from this place. The smell that also brings up other fond memories."
Kindly,
Neva.
It took me a whole month to finish Yuval Noah Harari's Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind. I sneaked in the time to read it on my long rides with buses, at the airports while waiting on my next flights, in coffee shops where I couldn't connect to WiFi, in my bed at hostels when I was unable to sleep.
I just couldn't wait to finish it! Not because I did not like the book, but because after spending so many weeks on the road it became too heavy to carry it from one place to another. So after making it through the last few pages this morning, I am happily leaving it on the bookshelf in the hostel that I am currently staying at in Medellín, Colombia, for the next lucky traveller to pick it up.
It's an excellent, provocative book. Definitely one that will make you think a lot about the world that we live in today (e.g., Did the invention of emails do us more harm than good? Is trying to find meaning in life just a form of self-delusion?), but also challenge your current perceptions and views of the human history (e.g., The agricultural revolution might be the "biggest fraud" in history, or "belief in free market is as naive as belief in Santa Claus").
It is a comprehensive read, too. Harari walks us through all the defining periods in the human history and covers pretty much all the controversial topics you can think of. From religion to science to politics to technology to war to economy to happiness... You name it!
Another wonderful thing about this book: it will make you laugh. A lot. Harari is an excellent writer. Every now and then, while presenting one interesting fact/story/argument after another, he will surprise you with random funny comments like this one:
"Mouths, for example, appeared because the earliest multicellular organisms needed a way to take nutrients into their bodies. We still use our mouths for that purpose, but we also use them to kiss, speak and, if we are Rambo, to pull the pins out of hand grenades." — Yuval Noah Harari
What a great way to engage your readers while discussing disputed and complex topics as a "boring" historian!
A highly recommended read, even if it will make you angry and wanting to shout at times.
Kindly,
Neva.
There is this funny thing about traveling: we feel so privileged and humbled to get to experience the world away from our homes that we sometimes put this weird pressure on ourselves that we need to get excited about or fall in love with every single place we visit.
Frankly, I did not like Santiago de Chile nor Valparaíso as much I had hoped. Maybe it had to do with the coldness of the hostels that I was staying at, or the fact that most of the restaurants and shops were closed due to a 3-day long public holiday which turned them into ghost towns. Or maybe, I simply did not like these two places.
Ha! Why is this so hard to accept sometimes?
Nonetheless, I did find some little gems to enjoy. Like hiking the dunes in Viña del Mar, which made me feel like I'm in the middle of a desert somewhere in Tunisia. Or enjoying the colorful blossom on Santa Lucía Hill in Santiago, definitely making my day on a cloudy morning. Or having a lunch at a small fish restaurant Tre Pesces in Valparaíso's hippy neighborhood Concepción (to be fair, the only one open!).
So perhaps it is not so much about needing to love it all, but about finding such gems (big or small) and remembering them as they grew to our hearts, in one way or another.
Kindly,
Neva.
It was a cold, brisk morning when I left Valparaíso, Chile, on a double-decker bus earlier this week. It was only a few minutes past 8 am but the streets were already busy with people heading to work.
Caught in a traffic jam, I was looking down on the street vendors getting ready for their day to start, unfolding carpets and old sheets to display the things they were selling, from second-hand clothing and old teddy bears to small kitchen appliances, like electric kettles and toasters.
It made me think whether they come to the same street every day? Is there a certain agreement they have among each other as to where to place their shops? Who do they sell all these products to? Can they sell anything at all? And, are they happy?
I guess it is so easy for us to make judgements about other people and whether they are living a happy life, based on the work they do or how they make their living. But who are we to judge?
It is a privilege to consider such questions, I find myself thinking sometimes, as it often means that we have a choice to choose our own path. If not that, then we at least are aware of the endless opportunities out there.
But what if happiness simply means to live in the present moment and to go about your day, not having to worry about the very pursuit of happiness? What if happiness simply equals being grateful for the life that we are living right now, notwithstanding our struggles?
Kindly,
Neva.
Winter came early for me this year. And so did spring.
It’s only mid August, a time when I usually start to look forward to the first days of fall. But it’s different here, in the southern hemisphere. It’s the other way around.
It seems like Buenos Aires is just waking up from the colder months. Some people are still wearing long coats and stroll around the streets wrapped up in knitted scarves. Others hang out in their long sleeved shirts and loose light jackets, like they cannot wait another minute for warmer days to finally kick in.
The sunlight is dim and low, and while it gets warm in the afternoons, mornings and evenings are still crisp. You know, the kind of crisp where you have to put your hands in your pockets and lift your shoulders closer to your ears, like a turtle, if only to trick your body to feel a bit warmer.
I love these kinds of transitions, when one season turns into another. For it’s not just about the weather, really. Transitions signal that something is going to change, that something new is about to begin. Oftentimes, with little indication of what and how and when.
Transitions cause this strange feeling in your stomach that is so hard to describe certain nervousness, combined with a sense of cosiness and calm and excitement at the same time. Just like the first day of school.
Transitions can feel turbulent and confusing and unsettling, too. But there is nothing scary about them, nothing much really, once you learn to let go and welcome the unknown.
In fact, that's the whole beauty of transitions, no matter where (in life) you are. The abundance of all these mixed feelings and sensations about what is yet to come.
Kindly,
Neva.
I've been reading about the Stoic philosophy for quite some years now. There are many great principles that the Stoics propose to live by in order to improve the quality of our life.
One of my favorite ones is the dichotomy of control. The idea is rather simple: focus on the things you can control and let go of things you can't control. As Epictetus would say:
“Some things are within our power, while others are not. Within our power are opinion, motivation, desire, aversion, and, in a word, whatever is of our own doing; not within our power are our body, our property, reputation, office, and, in a word, whatever is not of our own doing.” — Epictetus
In other words, the things that are within our control are the things that we can take responsibility for. The things we can impact. The things we can choose to change, as long as we are willing to (put effort into it). Because we have our own agency to change.
And yet, how we choose to respond to the difficult circumstances or situations we have found ourselves in is probably the most challenging thing there is.
What I have learned over the years of trying to follow this principle is to focus on the upside of things: that difficult situations are also the most rewarding opportunities for us to grow. The wonderful occasions to find a deeper meaning in life, no matter how difficult it may seem at times.
It's something that Viktor E. Frankl brought forward in his eye-opening book, Man's Search for Meaning.
“Everything can be taken from a man but one thing: the last of the human freedoms—to choose one’s attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one’s own way.” — Viktor E. Frankl
Kindly,
Neva.
Some hard truths about love (or what we so often get wrong about love). Sometimes...
... we learn most about love when we get rejected.
... love requires a lot of courage.
... we only start to appreciate somebody when they're no longer there.
... love is not so much about receiving as it is about giving.
... love is not enough to keep somebody in our life.
... letting go is love, too.
Kindly,
Neva.
Two beautiful questions you can ask when you really want to get to know people and what they value:
What are you most excited about in your life right now?
What are you most grateful for right now?
Love these.
Kindly,
Neva.
There are times when it is really easy to get caught in overthinking and overanalyzing every single word that people say, or every single action they take. We all do that. We make assumptions about what others may think or mean, taking it at face value. We create our own realities about why somebody is behaving a certain way, even if they don't know the reason. We...
This week, as I caught myself in one of those spirals, I got reminded of The Four Agreements by Miguel Ruiz that come so handy to avoid such traps. The Four Agreements are:
All are very applicable and relevant, of course, but the second and the third remain to be my favorites.
Kindly,
Neva
Grief lasts much longer than we're willing to admit. We live in a culture where it's expected that we get over it (better sooner than later!), where we are supposed to be moving on instead of, well, allowing ourselves to grieve when we need to.
But if grief equals love... how can we stop grieving when we still love?
The lovely words by Dr. Lucy Kalanithi (the wife of a deceased neurosurgeon and writer, Dr. Paul Kalanithi) come to mind as I continue to explore this question. Reflecting on her husband's death, she writes:
"It never occurred to me that you could love someone the same way after he was gone, that I would continue to feel such love and gratitude alongside the terrible sorrow, the grief so heavy that at times I shiver and moan under the weight of it. " — Dr. Lucy Kalanithi
As long as we love, our grief remains. Sometimes it does become a bit smaller over time. At other times, we just manage to build our life around it, so that it seems smaller.
In either ways, we carry on...
"Be the things you loved most about the people who are gone," I read somewhere the other day. And I thought to myself: What a beautiful way to live—and grieve!
Kindly,
Neva.
A tiny, random thought.
It is not true that only good things happen to good people. Sometimes it's bad things, too. But when bad things happen to good people, it's because they carry the most valuable lessons for them. The lessons that only good people are able to comprehend, appreciate, and learn from.
Kindly,
Neva.
Winnie-the-Pooh is one of my absolute favorite children book characters. First created in back 1924 by A. A. Milne and E. H. Shepard, the kind-hearted and innocent stories about a teddy bear named Pooh who loves honey way too much to worry about his growing belly, and his adventures with his best companions Christopher Robin, Eeyore, Piglet, Owl, Rabbit, and Tigger are an absolute masterpiece with so much wisdom on life and everyday happiness!
So much so that Benjamin Hoff decided to use the work of Winnie-the-Pooh to explain the classic principles of taoism. (If you decide to read his analysis, you will have another reason to love Winnie-the-Pooh, I promise!)
It is difficult to point to just one particular idea in his book, The Tao Of Pooh, that would make you stop and think, for there are so many. But there is one that stood out to me in particular, which concerns the power of letting go. I assume it's because letting go of control is something that I'm struggling with in my own life.
Here is Hoff's observation:
"In order to take control of our lives and accomplish something of lasting value, sooner or later we need to learn to Believe. We don't need to shift our responsibilities onto the shoulders of some deified Spiritual Superman, or sit around and wait for Fate to come knocking at the door. We simply need to believe in the power that's within us, and use it. When we do that, and stop imitating others and competing against them, things begin to work for us." — Benjamin Hoff
I find these words quite inspiring and empowering. Hope you do, too.
Kindly,
Neva.
There is so much change happening in my life at the moment that I find it hard to comprehend. Whether big or small, change can be scary and overwhelming and unsettling. And yet it is the only way forward when we feel like we've been stuck for a very long time.
I don't believe that we can ever be fully ready to make a change. Or rather, we can never prepare for the consequences that the change will bring. We just learn to accept them. Live with them. And keep walking. Because there is no other choice, really.
But I do believe that we all know when change is needed and when it would be good for us to make that push out of our comfort zone. Sometimes we're just not willing to admit it. And the longer we stay in denial, the harder it becomes to cut the strings in search for something new, better, happier.
In his famous book, The Heart of Yoga: Developing a Personal Practice, T. K. V. Desikachar shares this lovely observation of what drives us to change:
"Something very personal and essential has to happen to us at the right time, and it has to touch us so deeply that we suddenly really want to pause, consider, and change the course of our actions. After that happens we simply go forward step by step. The quality of our action begins to change."
Understanding that after changing our course of action all we need to do is to keep moving forward makes any kind of change seem a little less scary, if you ask me.
Because, when you think about it, change is almost always for the better. It's just a matter of where on the continuum of change you stop and look back on your journey thus far.
So go for it. Stop. Reflect. Then make that change that you know is needed in your life. Everything else will unfold, just as it should.
Kindly,
Neva.
My grandmother, Nona, was one of the dearest people in my life. When she passed away some years ago, I had just started to pursue my doctoral degree overseas. I still vividly remember the very moment when my mom called me over phone to share the news. I could tell from the sound of my mom’s voice and urgency of the call that something was wrong.
As an international student with relatively low income and little savings left, I couldn’t afford to fly home to be present at my grandmother’s funeral. It was the most difficult time for me during my entire time living abroad, especially as I knew how much my Nona would have loved for me to be there, if only to hold my mom’s hand and wipe her tears off as we were saying goodbye to the most loving person we have ever known.
Nona was my greatest teacher of what it means to love somebody without expecting anything in return. When I was little, raffaello—the famous coconut almond balls produced by the Italian chocolate giant Ferrero—were my favorite sweets. They used to run this magical commercial with a ballerina, all dressed in white and full of grace, receiving raffaello from her own mother as to congratulate her for an amazing dance performance. It might have been due to these adorable pictures of a dancing ballerina running in my head (I used to practice ballet back then), or simply due to their amazing taste, why I used to love these coconut almond balls so much. Well, I still do!
My dear Nona, as she usually did, found a homemade recipe to make these little treats for me on every single birthday I can remember counting. She made them even when she could hardly move her fingers due to harsh rheumatoid arthritis that attacked her joints in her last years alive, before she was brought to a nursing home and eventually passed away. I still get tears in my eyes, and a big knot in my throat, whenever I think of her and all the love she put in making those coconut almonds balls for me, year after year.
Last fall I went back to my grandma’s original recipe and adjusted it slightly to make use of all the delicious ingredients I could find my kitchen at the time. Of course, messing up with the recipe didn’t turn to be such a good idea. The base was way too dry to be able to make small compact balls with an almond inside each. I ended up throwing most of it out—while licking my fingers and enjoying the delicious taste, nonetheless.
But I’ve decided that I will give it another try soon. And then another. And another. Until the day comes when I have kids and grandkids of my own, making those coconut almonds balls for them with as much love as I possibly can.
Thank you, Nona. ♥️
PS: This is an old post from my very first blog. I've decided to repost it here, since this story means a lot to me and tells everything about what it means to love somebody. It's also Nona's birthday today and I miss her so very much!
Isn't it a bit crazy that sometimes being authentic can seem like the boldest thing a person can do? Think about it for a second. You finally decide to stay true to yourself and follow your own path... but then you get this strange feeling that somebody is going to find you out.
As Camille Maurine and Lorin Roche note in Meditation Secrets for Women: Discovering Your Passion, Pleasure, and Inner Peace:
"It can feel forbidden, like rebellion or even theft, as if you have to steal back your own power."
So what can you do to overcome this feeling?
Maurine and Roche would argue that being authentic also means giving back to the community we're part of. We all have our own role to play in the society, and that role comes with certain responsibilities of each of us. Perhaps one of them is simply to show up exactly the way we are.
Kindly,
Neva.
If doing meaningful work requires having a purpose—that is, the change or impact are we trying to make in somebody else's life, not just our own—, then the question we might ask ourselves is what else is there that, on a more practical level, can help us to do the work.
For Ryan Holiday, one of the biggest problems is when we try to do the work out of passion. Drawing on the Stoic philosophy, he argues that, more often than not, passion "masks a weakness."
When we're driven by passion we often hide behind telling the world all the details about the work we're going to do. We get attached to the very idea of us wanting to do the work—so much so that the actual work almost never gets done.
In his book, Ego Is The Enemy, Holiday writes that instead of passion we should be driven by reason. Reason gives us the direction where we want to go. It also calls for three things: clarity, deliberateness, methodological determination.
Without these, little meaningful work can be accomplished, if any.
Kindly,
Neva.
"But then, that's what grief is: a yearning for that one last moment of contact that would settle everything." — Katherine May
I have been thinking about grief a lot lately. Partly because of the project that I'm currently working on, but also due to the many personal losses I have experienced over the past few years. It made me wonder whether we are ever able to move on fully after losing somebody or something we care about so deeply.
A good friend of mine shared this beautiful TED talk with me last summer where a writer and podcaster Nora McInerny talks about her "hard-earned wisdom about life and death." McInerny's main argument is that we need to rethink the way we approach grief. Coping with grief, she says, is not about moving on. It's about moving forward.
I love this so much. And the more I'm learning from my own experience with grief, the more I'm starting to believe that it is true. That there are some losses in life that we will perhaps never be able to completely leave behind. But also that with time things will eventually become a tiny bit easier. As long as we keep moving forward.
To me, moving forward also means accepting the fact that grief is there to teach us something. It is there to teach us to appreciate life, including all the wonderful people and moments in it, to its fullest.
The heart-breaking story of Tony Johnson in Ricky Gervais's series After Life portrays this very well. (Note: If you haven't watched it, make sure you do. It is brilliantly sad and funny. And it will definitely make you cry.) Here is one of Tony's realizations about life on his continuous journey of grieving his wife's death:
"One day you'll eat your last meal, smell your last flower, hug your friend for the very last time. You might not know it's the last time, so that's why you should do everything you love with passion, you know? Treasure the few years you've got because that's all there is." — Ricky Gervais
Kindly,
Neva.
A small passage from Pure Colour, written by Sheila Heti. On thinking, hearing, living. Here she goes, beautifully:
"She felt so alone in those days. Not that she minded. It is only when you get older that everyone makes you feel bad about being alone, or implies that spending time with other people is somehow better, because it proves you to be likeable. But being unlikeable wasn't the reason she was alone. She was alone so she could hear herself thinking. She was alone so she could hear herself living." — Sheila Heti
Kindly,
Neva.
Over the past few months I've been struggling to keep up with my daily work routine. I've always been good at meeting deadlines, breaking things down, making continuous progress... until the pandemic and health issues and several losses came knocking at my door, disturbing and eventually messing up with my workflow completely.
At first, I was being harsh on myself for not being able to keep up with my work. Later, I realized that sometimes fulfilling your most basic needs (sleep, eat, repeat) and literally taking it day by day is the only way to keep me sane.
As I'm slowly getting back on my feet, I love to pick up literature that would give me a greater sense of meaning and motivation for the work that I do or wish to do in the future.
Seth Godin's The Practice: Shipping Creative Work is a brilliant book for people who are not afraid to pursue their dreams but maybe just don't know where to start or how to get there. It's also for people (like me) who need somebody to kick their ass from time to time, so that they actually keep doing the work.
I've picked it up pretty much randomly, at this fancy- and artsy-looking bookstore in Vienna, when I had some extra time to kill in between my flights. Such a great investment. I cannot even begin to tell how many sentences I have marked throughout the book. Sticky notes everywhere!
Here's one of my favorite quotes:
"Your work is too important to be left to how you feel today." — Seth Godin
I try to remind myself of this little piece of advice every time I feel like I'm getting a bit stuck or need some extra motivation to continue my work.
Kindly,
Neva.
Last week I finally finished The Celestine Prophecy by James Redfield. It was one of those books that I wanted to read for a very long time, but I just didn't get a proper chance to do it. My mom thought I should read it, too, so she bought it for me in secrecy and stuffed it into my suitcase during my last visit home. I had only discovered it once I got back to Copenhagen (love you, mom!).
It's definitely one of those works that I believe you understand and internalize differently depending on the phase of your life you're in while reading it, just like Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince or Paulo Coelho's The Alchemist.
I have to admin, though, that I was struggling to get through the second half of the book. Perhaps I wasn't focused enough, or perhaps it just went a little bit too far for me with all the energy stuff.
However, I did like the idea of people carrying messages for each other, and of allowing every encounter to be an opportunity for us to learn something from one another. Here's a passage that talks about this:
"Whenever people cross our paths, there is always a message for us. Chance encounters do not exist. But how we respond to these encounters determines whether we’re able to receive the message. If we have a conversation with someone who crosses our path and we do not see a message pertaining to our current questions, it does not mean there was no message. It only means we missed it for some reason.” — James Redfield
The key, then, is to remain open and be ready to receive. Only then can we truly learn and grow.
Kindly,
Neva
One of the pieces of literature that I've recently read is When Breath Becomes Air by Dr. Paul Kalanithi. A wonderful, touching book that has left a big mark on me and has changed my view on the work of medical doctors forever.
If you're uncomfortable to read about difficult topics, such as cancer and death, I can be perceived as a heavy read. To me, it is a testament to life.
A reminder of how fragile and short our life is, how blinded we are by the belief that we're going to be on this Earth forever, how nobody (really nobody!) is safe from deadly diseases and heavy sickness.
A gentle reminder that death, however unsettling, is a part of life, too.
“I began to realize that coming in such close contact with my own mortality had changed both nothing and everything. Before my cancer was diagnosed, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. After the diagnosis, I knew that someday I would die, but I didn’t know when. But now I knew it acutely. The problem wasn’t really a scientific one. The fact of death is unsettling. Yet there is no other way to live.” — Dr. Paul Kalanithi
What I find so touching about Dr. Kalanithi's story is the decision that he and his wife made to conceive a child despite his diagnosis. They both understood, as he wrote, that "life wasn't about avoiding suffering". They chose life. They chose life, in spite of death.
Their tender conversations about life and love and the new meaning they found in their relationship after realizing their time was limited will make you cry. But then also to pause and wonder:
“What makes human life meaningful?” — Dr. Paul Kalanithi
Kindly,
Neva.
Something magical happens when you go for a walk. No matter what mood you're in or how bad your day has been, a true magic happens as soon as you make those first few steps.
Your entire body suddenly feels a bit lighter and less tense. You begin to think more clearly, as if all your troubles have somehow become a tiny bit smaller. Your vision become sharper, and so does your hearing and smell.
Your heart opens and softens up, as you begin to notice the little things: The leaves, still in their greenest colors, falling off the trees. The flowers in full blossom and their honey-like aroma as you pass by. The tired but happy-looking parents, pushing prams with their sleeping miracle babies. The fresh air gently touching your skin.
Indeed, something magical happens when you go for a walk.
Kindly,
Neva.
It was one of those evenings in early July when I was on my daily walk while listening to podcasts. I don't remember who said it or in which conversation it popped up, but I do remember writing these words down immediately.
It was just what I needed to hear in that very moment, after another tough week and feeling impatient with myself for not having the energy to carry on with my big plans.
"Focus on the little things, and the big things will take care of themselves."
It's funny, isn't it, how sometimes some tiny wisdoms like these reveal to us just at the right time.
Focus on the little things.
This is how I'll aim to approach my life this summer.
Kindly,
Neva.