The perfect Friday…

There’s no better way to celebrate the weekend. Period. Just saying…

Starting out with some TLC

This morning I was still tired after 10+ hours of work yesterday and the prospect of another 10 or more today. I am extremely focused on not letting stress rear it’s ugly head, but these days it seems that it is lurking just below the surface. To get through the day I instantly knew that I needed some self-love and something which would calm of down just a bit – enter: dry-brushing.

Dry-brushing is a way to get the circulation going, and to me it grants a sense of ‘being in the moment’ which I desperately need. Grab a body brush or – as in my case – a massage pad and simply stroke yourself from toe to head. Long, relaxing strokes leading towards the heart at all times. I start with the legs, then arms, stomach, back and chest. Lighting a candle can also help on the stress-situation…

To calm me even more, I recited to myself: you’ve been doing a great job, you gave everything you could and everything’s going to be all right. I can only do as much, and I know that I am my own worst critic. It is ok to say “this is what the timeline allowed me to do”…

Now I’m off for a long day, where I want to remember taking breaks and deep breaths!

Yoga lovin’

All of a sudden I can feel my triceps again… The reason? Flow yoga-ing ’till I dropped (or 60 minutes which is the equivalent when you haven’t been to flow yoga for months). A-m-a-z-i-n-g! Sweaty face, trembling arms, hair flowing in all directions and and feet that tell the tale of a recent half-marathon – I loved it.
When I came home today all that was on my mind was “Why haven’t I been able to drag my butt to a yoga class for the past months? This is great!” Yoga really is the perfect thing to compliment my running, and my knee (which is injured) didn’t hurt one bit during class – yay!

Now I’m sitting on the sofa with no energy in my arms whatsoever and a pleasant feeling of self-loving 🙂

If only I looked that cool when doing side planks. Something tells me I don’t…. [Source]

Evening ritual of tea and a book awaits (re-reading this little gem).

Every second is precious

On December 24th I went to church with my family in my hometown as we do every Christmas. The priest is the same every year, the one who also held my confirmation and our wedding. This year he talked about how the catastrophes all over the world can make one reflect on, and appreciate, ones life more. Appreciate that we are able to pull our cold feet up on the sofa and under a blanket, while watching millions of people freezing and starving on the news. That we are able to run, walk and play while the person next to you in the bus is sitting in a wheelchair. And his speech touched me. This isn’t to say that we need other people to be miserable in order to feel good, but it was his way of saying that: You never know when your own world is going to change. You don’t know if you’ll be here tomorrow and you most certainly have no clue of what your life will look like in five years. We make all these plans all the time – hell, I’m one of those people who spend insane amounts of time planning my life – but who knows if they’re ever going to become possible or come true?

One sentence he said that just got to me, even though I’ve heard it a thousand times before, is “Every second is precious”. He repeated it a couple of times and somehow his integrity and honesty (he’s the most kind and giving person I’ve ever met) just made it sink in a bit deeper. Try to stop what you’re doing right now  and ask yourself: If I had only 1 year to live, would I be doing what I’m doing right now? Or would I rather spend time talking to my husband/playing with the kids/baking a pie for the family next door/reading a book? I know that this is an exercise you’ve probably been presented to hundreds of times before, but do you ever really use it? I don’t. Most of my days fly by in a haze while running from home to work, from one meeting to another, from work to the supermarket… If you see a pattern in things you want to do, why not just do it? I seriously believe that we would all live better lives if we remembered that we are going to die someday, on a regular basis.

So here’s to living by the rule that each second is precious and unique! I’ll do my best to stick to it…

My Zen Moment

December was hectic to say the least. Filled with work, family and over-crowded weekends which made me want to sit at home under a blanket and just be myself. It was good fun, but not the relaxing month I had anticipated and needed (don’t know why I always do this though, December is hardly ever truly relaxing). And then came January where we are looking forward to another 4 weekends in a row with arrangements, birthdays and family.

But I try to look at things differently now. Dwell on the little things, the moments of zen and relaxation that makes me remember who I am and what I love. This weekend’s greatest moment of zen has so far been waking up this morning to an apartment which was completely quiet. All I could hear were the birds chirping away outside – rare scenario when you live in Copenhagen! I looked around our bedroom and could suddenly feel the stillness creep under my skin and my muscles relax. No thoughts, just happiness. We’ve had guests Friday night and all afternoon yesterday, so waking up to an empty calendar and a quiet home was all I needed. Do you recognize this feeling of being pleasantly surprised and engulfed by silence and a feeling of contentment?

My morning has been filled with more quietness and beautiful things

The rest of the day will be filled with glorious nothingness accompanied by tea, the husband and reading. Running would have been great, but acquired a knee injury when I ran a half marathon on the 31st – you win some, you loose some…

A great Sunday to all of you 🙂

Today I’m proud of myself because…

… I went running at 7.15 – and loved it!

How to make working from home even better…

… Christmas candle and a nice hot cup of tea. Increases the cozy-factor and how you feel inside, thus making you more efficient 🙂
I always believed that I’m more efficient when sitting in a nice place surrounded by things that make me feel safe and creative.

What did you do to improve your workday today?

In sickness and in health…

I’m sick yet again. I’ve been struggling with illness ever since my last post which is more than 2 weeks and I’m sick of it (haha). Today I finally broke down and went to the doctors who gave me antibiotics for a mycoplasma infection – no wonder I’m not getting better if I have a nasty bacterial infection…

I’ve been scolding my body so much for the past weeks. “Why won’t you get better! Come on, get your act together. You’re not that sick, you can go to work/to the supermarket/to a family gathering/bake 500 Christmas cookies/run 10K.” No acceptance whatsoever of me actually being sick.
Now I’m lying here on the couch while once again attempting to work a bit throughout the day, and I came to think of the term “In sickness and in health”. I said yes to loving my husband in sickness and in health and if he’s sick I don’t think he’s weak in any way. I snuggle him, take care of him and just want him to relax as much as possible. But when it’s myself I just can’t seem to be gentle. This is one of the things I wish most in the world: to become more gentle and accepting towards myself.

Becoming more gentle and accepting is something I’ve been working on for years now, but perhaps I’m still not taking it seriously enough because there’s no doubt that I’m not there yet. I’m not where I want to be and I’m still too harsh on myself in a million of situations. How did you learn to be more gentle and accepting?

Women are crazy…

Just found a link to this video which reminded me how an effing obscene amount of time women spend trying to improve themselves, present company (unfortunately) included. And then I saw this and it just underlined it:

And then I started thinking some more about feeling that you are not good enough. Not necessarily beauty-wise but in general.

An example: I’m sick today. I have a fever, a crazy sore throat and the energy equivalent to that of someone who just ran 100 miles (i.e. nothing at all). But I still feel like if I take the day completely off work, I’m not good enough. I’m not a good employee if I’m not working a couple of hours from my bed… My husband thinks I’m crazy, tells me that if I’m sick, well then I’m sick and I should stay in bed without working. He’s probably right. So why is it I still feel like I do? No matter how sick I am, I still feel like I’m somehow “cheating” – it’s insane…

So here’s to respecting yourself. To not beating yourself up about your looks and calling yourself fat if you are actually within the range of normal weight. To not working when you are sick but respecting your body’s signals. To saying “no” when you mean “no”. To being true to yourself.

Marathon Start Up 2011 in 14 hours!

In 14 hours the start goes for my 15 K run at Nike Marathon Start Up 2011 – I’m excited! The course seems a little dull (3x the same 5K) but I think it’s going to be great none the less. It’s going to be a grey morning and hopefully no rain which is perfect in my opinion 🙂

Today I’ve been relaxing with some baking, knitting and reading, but I must say that meeting a lot of runners on a walk this morning made me want to strap on my shoes and go for a run today as well. But seeing as my legs have been immensely heavy this week during all of my runs, I think it was a good idea to give them another day of rest (haven’t been out since Thursday). And my time has been well spent, baking cinnamon/orange breakfast muffins and starting on a new knitted blanket for the cold winter months.

I’m crossing my fingers for a great run tomorrow. If everything goes well I am contemplating signing up for a half marathon on the morning of December 31st – what a great way to end the year, right? And a half marathon is something I really want under my belt in 2011, so I guess the 31st is my last chance. It is also a great motivation for running in the dark months so I’m reeeally close to signing up…

Anything you want to accomplish for 2011 which you haven’t gotten round to yet?