July 23, 2013
by Kiri Weimann
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Are you going for comfortable or AWESOME?

In this post, I will try to explain my view on freedom and life. At least this is the view I have developed the past few years and one that I am now deeply in love with. I will never go back. I will continuously practise getting even better at choosing freedom and creating and mastering my own life. 

Quite often I wonder what makes most people work for others. When you are young and need to make money, it makes sense. When you burn for a cause like human rights, teaching, child safety or other humanitarian or political causes, I get it too. Many jobs like that make sense, but I simply don’t understand why some people spend most of their waking hours on something like promoting a new chocolate bar that some rich dude came up with in order to make more money than he already has.

It is my nature to seek understanding and to some extend I do understand. I have been this young career oriented energy ball that knew only one way – up. I was working my butt off trying to please, trying to create results, trying to fix things and exceed people’s expectations. I would start my day checking emails over breakfast, rushing to meetings, being pulled at from all directions, having to keep my status as first choice on my handball team, staying fit for all the wrong reasons and taking up discussions that could have been avoided.

I thought I was having fun. I thought I was doing what Kiri deep inside wanted to do. I thought it was my nature to always argue and stand my ground trying to change people’s minds. I even got really angry with my close friends when they told me to pick my battles. I took all of them on. All of them.

I think the tendencies get more evident during holiday season. At least in Denmark. There is this change of air in some way. People smile more, have more time to play, more time to help other people out, more time to see their friends, more energy to enjoy life. It seems like people feel free. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if it could be like that every day?

I guess some of you are thinking that I am being unrealistic. I have been called a dreamer many times, but guess what? I feel this freedom every day now. I have made a conscious decision to value health and peace of mind, happiness and fun, honesty, optimism, love, passion, openness and understanding, impact, accomplishment and recognition, spontaneity and freedom, and adventure and creativity. I am allowing myself to feel all this and I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

I guess my point is that it seems like too many people follow the norms of society saying you get a good life if you; get an education, find a job, find a spouse, buy a car, buy a house, get a dog, get 2-3 children, work 9-5 etc. On the way, passion fades away. What happened to adventure? What happened to following your heart? Is this 9-5 job that only allows for happiness and freedom 3-5 weeks a year the only way you will ever be able to make money? Are you going for comfortable or AWESOME?

I know that following your dreams can be pretty scary. I am doing it right now and I keep trusting my instinct, trusting my ideas. And I’ll tell you a little secret. I have not been this happy and calm since I was a little child playing in the woods. I am certain that things will work out. Everything in life is abundant and it will come to you if you trust in it.

My friend posted this article the other day: What dying people regret the most (in Danish). If my post didn’t convince you, this article may do the trick.. Be true to yourself, work less, express your emotions, have fun with your friends and just be happy!

Good luck and happy holidays..

July 3, 2013
by Kiri Weimann
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A place deep inside….

I just had to share this with you. So unbelievably beautiful.

I don’t care what you did, what you think you know, who you think you know, what you have accomplished and how able you are. I care from a deep place inside. Enjoy this!

“It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing.

It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dream, for the adventure of being alive.

It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the centre of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shrivelled and closed from fear of further pain.

I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it, or fade it, or fix it.

I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, remember the limitations of being human.

It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true. I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. If you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul. If you can be faithless and therefore trustworthy.

I want to know if you can see Beauty even when it is not pretty every day. And if you can source your own life from its presence.

I want to know if you can live with failure, yours and mine, and still stand at the edge of the lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, ‘Yes.’

It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone and do what needs to be done to feed the children.

It doesn’t interest me who you know or how you came to be here. I want to know if you will stand in the centre of the fire with me and not shrink back.

It doesn’t interest me where or what or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away.

I want to know if you can be alone with yourself and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.” – Oriah Mountain Dreamer “The Invitation”

June 16, 2013
by Kiri Weimann
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Who do you think harvested your food today?

This post is inspired by my readings of the book ‘Cultivating Chi – A Samurai Physician’s Teachings on the Way of Health’ by Kaibara Ekiken (1630-1714). I only recently realised that there was such a book and that this Way is what my Chinese acupuncturist continually is trying to teach me.

For me, this Way makes a huge difference. I have felt on my own body and mind how my health has improved by following my acupuncturist’s instructions. The main message throughout the book, or the Yojokun, is that of balancing yourself, not overdoing anything, because too much of anything will damage your fundamental health.

The quote I have taken out for this post is a reminder of the blessings in life. The tone of the quote is that of a Grandfather reminding his Grandchildren to be thankful and appreciate that which has been given to them.

“There are five considerations to bear in mind when eating a meal.

The first calls for you to recognize the source of your food. When you were young, you received nourishment from your father; when you grew up, you owed this to your lord. You should think this through and never forget it. If not from your lord or father, you received your nurturing from your brothers and sisters, your relatives, or from others. Even now, you should think of where your food comes from and never forget these blessings. The farmers, artisans, and merchants, who eat through their efforts, should consider the debt they owe to their country.

The second consideration calls for you to acknowledge the sympathy you should have for the hard labor of the farmers and the pains they went through to produce your food. You cannot forget this. You yourself do not till the fields, but live in comfort and ease; yet you receive this nourishment. You should take pleasure in this fact and not just take it for granted. 

The third consideration calls for you to recognize the great good fortune you have in receiving this delicious food even though you may not have particular genious, virtues, or righteous behavior, and have made no great efforts to help your lord or to govern the people.

The fourth consideration calls for you to remember that there are many people in the world much poorer than you. They have nothing more with which to be satisfied than a meal with dregs and rice bran. There are also people who die of hunger. You, however, will eat delicious grains to the very end and will never worry about starvation. Is this not a great blessing?

The fifth consideration calls for you to think about ancient times. In great antiquity people did not possess the five grains but staved off hunger by eating the nuts, fruits, leaves and roots of the grasses and trees. Even after they had the five grains, they did not know how to cook them. Without kettles and pots, they could not boil their food and so chewed the grains raw. Thus, their meal had no taste and damaged their intestines and stomachs.

Today we boil white rice until it is soft and eat it as we please. And we have soups and side dishes both morning and night. More than this, we have wine and amazake to delight our hearts and aid our blood and vitality. 

This being so, at every meal we eat we should repeatedly think over at least the first and second of these five considerations and never forget them. If we do this, those thoughts themselves will give us pleasure day by day. 

These are only my own foolish conjectures. I record them here arbitrarily. In Buddhism, there are Five Views at mealtime, but these are not the same.”

I will let Kaibara Ekiken’s words speak for themselves and leave you with whatever feeling or thought they light in you.

Thank you.

May 27, 2013
by Kiri Weimann
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The joy of losing….

This post is inspired by my life right now. It is inspired by the perspective I have chosen to take and the many positive stories that follow suit.

It may sound a bit high-flying, but I have come to believe that the Universe has a plan for me. I believe that it knows where I am going and why I am here. It knows what I need to learn, what I need to experience, and once I am ready, it gently – or abruptly – pushes me in the right direction.

This post is very much linked to my post ‘You cannot combine the dots going forward’, because lately, I have noticed dots from years back that suddenly appear and make sense. One of these dots is my Indian meditation instrument.

When I was in India in 2008/09 my friend noticed a little shop in the street. It looked dirty and uninteresting to me, but she wanted to go in. In this shop, I found the most beautiful little bowl with a stick in it. I had no idea what it was for, but I liked it a lot and decided to buy it. Along with it, I bought an awesome leather book.

Today, my Indian meditation instrument and my awesome leather book made the kids in my yoga class experience something magical. They found it exciting to listen to the tone from the instrument and they were very curious to know what was in my book. If you had asked me back in 2009 if I was planning to become a yoga teacher, I would have looked at you as if you were going mad.

However, this post is not about yoga or about my path in life. It is about freedom. It is about how not having something sometimes can be better for you than having it.

In China, they have a saying that goes something like this:

A man had a horse. He lost his horse, but became happy and lived a wonderful life.
Another man got a horse. His child fell off the horse’s back and broke his leg.

As my Chinese friend said, they have a long list of signs to explain the saying, but the morale stands out quite strongly, I think. Sometimes losing something can be the best thing that ever happens to you. If you don’t lose it, you may not be able to receive what is coming to you. You may not be able to see the significance of it.

I think about these things quite a lot. Particularly when I experience other people being greedy or cheap. The other day, I was sitting on the train fishing up a coin in my wallet for a homeless person and noticed some guys in suits sitting across from me. They were both holding their iPad in one hand and their designer bag in the other. None of them even lifted their eyes to look into the friendly old man’s eyes.

I wonder if they honestly believe that the coin in their pocket makes them happier. I can assure you that the homeless man sent all his appreciation to me and my co-coin-giver next to me. His eyes lit up. His face and his entire body was shining. He even went back to say thank you several times.

You may not believe in karma, but making that man’s day by noticing him and giving him a small coin makes a huge difference.

You never know, you may need his help sometime.

April 20, 2013
by Kiri Weimann
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Worries grow small….. if you let them wait!

This post is inspired by my mind. It fascinates me time and time again. And by Piet Hein.

I have a poem hanging on my toilet wall. It is written by a famous Danish poet called Piet Hein. I don’t know the exact story about him (maybe I should have listened more carefully in school), but he has written numerous short poems that all are small reminders of how to live a better and more happy life. The one on my wall goes like this;

 

“Bekymringer

trækker

en negativ rente:

De voxer sig små

hvis man kan lade dem vente”

(Worries draw negative interests: They grow small, if you can let them wait)

It has proven right for me so many times. Last time was just earlier this week. I have been trying my best not to worry about some stuff at work = I failed badly and ended up with returning headaches and the worst relapse from my concussion and whiplash I have had to date.

That’s why my mind fascinates me. How can it be so strong in wanting to worry that even when I try, I cannot make it stop? Maybe I didn’t try hard enough, or maybe the things I worried about were so serious that my inner strength wasn’t enough to handle the massive effort of my mind.

However, by the end of it all, Piet Hein proved to be right. Something in the Universe – some call it God, Allah, Buddha and what not – made sure that my worries would end. Something proved to me that if I had been able to stop my mind from worrying, I could have saved myself a lot of pain. And we’re talking about real, physical, horrible, seems-like-it-will-never-end kind of pain.

So… I want you to help me with something. Next time I worry (and let you know about it), remind me that it isn’t worth it. Remind me that my mind is able to build an exaggerated illusion of future events and shed layers of negative light on them – and that reality rarely turns out to be as I imagine. Remind me that life is going on right now. Not tomorrow or next year. I may wonder what life will be like next year, but I will not in my wildest imagination be able to foresee it – luckily.

Not worrying and starting to take action to change the cause of my worries always turn out to be far better options. So tell me to speak my mind and I promise I will.

March 19, 2013
by Kiri Weimann
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Are you asking the right questions?

This post is inspired by my readings of Anthony Robbins’ book Awaken The Giant Within.

What do you think the difference is between people who always seem down and people who always seem happy and alive? Are some of us just born with it? Personally, I am blessed with the ability to ask the right questions, I think. I don’t really ask them aloud, I ask myself – inside. I never thought about it this way before, but when I read Anthony Robbins’ chapters about asking powerful questions, it dawned on me.

I think the difference is to be found in the questions we ask ourselves. When you drop something, or lose something, or miss a train or something – do you ask; why does this always happen to me? How could I be so stupid? Or do you ask; what can I learn from this? How can I make sure this doesn’t happen again? See, the interesting part here, according to Anthony Robbins, is that the brain will do everything it can to answer your question. If you ask your brain why it always happens to you, it will try to find ways to show you that it indeed always happens to you and so on so forth.

I can’t help thinking, sometimes, what would have happened if I hadn’t been able to ask the right questions when I needed it the most. When I went through a long period of post-traumatic stress after a serious concussion a few years ago, I started out asking the wrong questions, I think. Today, I can’t remember the exact questions I asked, but I remember how I managed to turn from deeply depressed to accepting and alive in a very short time. I started asking things like; how can I be happy going through this period in my life? How can I use this experience to make my life better?

I know now that it was one of the best things that have happened in my life and I would go through all of it again. It was tough at times, of course, but it has changed my perspective and made me enjoy the small things in life more.

Next time you’re in a hassle and you start asking yourself how stupid or unlucky you are, ask yourself how you can learn from it instead. Enjoy!

March 6, 2013
by Kiri Weimann
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’You cannot combine the dots going forward’ – Steve Jobs

As my life is transforming and developing this phrase keeps popping up once in a while. When I was younger, I thought that if I chose the right education, the right job or participated in the right activities, I would end up in the right place in the end. But there are so many things in this sentence that just don’t add up.

What is the right education for you?
I know that the ideal and the aim for many people is to finish a degree, become good at one particular thing and spend the rest of life doing this one thing. I bet you have been good at many different things during your life and that you have enjoyed hundreds of different activities. And I bet you would get pretty sick of doing any of them, if you had to do it for the next 40 or 50 years..

I remember when I was 20-ish and needed to figure out which university I should enroll in, which subjects to take. I narrowed it down to three completely different things. Sports, because I love it – basically. Marketing, because I liked the idea of being able to make a business one day and I hated economics – the easy way out. And English, because it was the foreign language I spoke the best – if I could, I would have chosen five different languages and studies them all, but I had to narrow it down to one.

I made a decision then. I found an education where I could combine two of my very different interests. Unfortunately, I had to say goodbye to sports, but I have found ways to include it in my life anyway – ooh and life isn’t over yet, is it? Interestingly, I grew tired of English as a language for study after two years. I found out that it wasn’t marketing as a subject I wanted to study, but only communication. What I am saying is, what I thought was right back then was probably right at the time, but things change and if I hadn’t tried it out, I most likely never would have found out.

What is the right job, then?
Is it a job where you make a lot of money? Or a job where you work really hard and become a Manager one day? I don’t know if there is a right job, as such, for anyone. For me, I know that a great job makes me want to get up every morning, it awakens the butterflies in my stomach and makes me feel really good. Luckily, there are many things that work these wonders – not all my jobs have been right for me, but when I look back I understand that I needed each and everyone of them in order to get to where I am today. Each of them taught me something or pushed me into new territories.

When I look back at my dots, they are all there for a reason. I have been struggling sometimes and felt that life was horrible, but all these feelings pushed me in new directions and into new decisions.

There are good and bad decisions, but the good thing is, either way you always learn from them. For instance, this week I learned to remember to check the weather forecast – it might not be hot even though you’re going to a beach resort…….

February 7, 2013
by Kiri Weimann
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My refuge in hectic Saigon – L’Usine

Place: L’Usine et la Caféteria de l’Usine
Where: 151/1 Dong Khoi Street, 1. floor, D.1, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

One of my absolute favorite places when I lived in Vietnam was L’Usine. L’Usine is a combination of a fashion and accessories shop and a modern western style coffee shop. The shop sells Vietnamese design, men’s and women’s clothing, jewelry and applied arts.

I bought one of my favorite necklaces in this shop and they wrapped it and gave me a recyclable bag that I still use when carrying small things on a summer day. Their coffee reaches western standard and it is clear from the clientele that it appeals to expats who need a dose of familiarity in the hectic Vietnamese city.

L’Usine was the place I went to when I needed a break or needed to focus in a quite environment while writing something important or complicated. The staff is wonderful. Always smiling and welcoming and they serve fabulous cake, sandwiches, juice and coffee. You should visit if you happen to stop by Ho Chi Minh City..

 

January 24, 2013
by Kiri Weimann
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“When men turn 30, they become a flower. When women turn 30, they become tofu…..”

Girls, don’t cry… In the old days in China (and in many cases today) couples married before 30 and this saying follows tradition. After marriage, men had a blast! The wife cooked food for him, he was taken care of and could show that he was a real man earning money to support his family. However, the wife stopped trying to look hot for the guys, she did a lot of work inside the house and started looking a bit like tofu…

Luckily this old saying is outdated!          Well.. At least I decided it is!