Why do I feel so annoyed? Or why do I feel annoyed that I do feel annoyed? This resistance is not nice. So what if I don’t feel nice. Can’t I let it be that way then? Some days are like that. So what.
The part of me that is basing my whole well-being into conditional love is like; you can’t enjoy your life IF you haven’t exercised enough or eaten healthy, don’t you even dare to like yourself IF you’re not perfect. It’s such a cruel voice that still gets me. I let it ruin my days, because I believe it… It’s never really satisfied… And it really freaks out if I am happy without everything being perfect…
Maybe this wants to come out now. I kinda was face to face with this side of me last night before falling asleep. I saw it as a screaming and aggressive child, who was tired and anxious about everything, and what it just really wanted was to me to be strong enough to handle that tantrum. Not to criticise or shame it for being so difficult…
I see hope in integrating this part back to me. It just requires patience, strength and courage. And willingness to see it. And I want to see it. I want to feel it as me again and not as a separate annoying part.
Dear fearful, conditioned part inside, I see you, I feel you and I hear you. You are important to me and I will never forget you. But I will not let you decide over me. I take care of you, not the other way around. I am stepping into my power and I am taking you with me.
And as scary as it might be; welcome to unconditional love.
Everyone has their good and bad sides. We are human, that’s our nature. Nobody is perfect and nobody is the opposite. It seems to me that when we are in a good place, the other side of us is starting to sabotage us. And when we are not in a good place, we feel even worse because we know that some days we aren’t like this, why am I like this now?
When the two sides of us are constantly fighting, it is creating resistance and energy that is stuck. Instead of resisting what we naturally are, if we could just let it be, we would release a lot of energy to our lives. Suddenly we maybe wouldn’t be so low or tired. Suddenly we would find inspiration easier and joy would be more familiar than anxiety. Because everything is eventually about energy… Our energy determines everything in our life. How we see ourselves is also how we see the world. We are huge goggles that we see the world through. And when there is dirt in the goggles we might not know how to let ourselves be happy.
Beatles had it all figured out. Just let it be (happy).
Fridays feel different nowadays. After being a student for six years and living a pretty unroutined lifestyle, the step into working life has brought many changes into my life.
One of them being the friday feeling! I could be lame and not enjoy it because it’s lame to live life for weekends and we should live and love every day like it’s our last and basically shame myself for working in a 9-5 job (because its so last season, according to my inner voices), but I have decided to enjoy the classic friday feeling to the fullest. It feels pretty amazing after a week to wake up to the tickling morning of a Friday, there is just something different.
In my years of studying I would have probably cried my eyes out if I could have seen to the future – me, basically betraying myself, taking the “easy” road, “just” working as an employee. Gosh Maija, you should reach for the stars and just become an entrepreneur, try anything else but not working for someone else! Sure, lets be honest, I am still very familiar with this voice in my head…
But, instead of following that voice, I have decided that I wont let it ruin my experiences. Those voices are immature and making me doubt myself, insecure about my life and ultimately, just a whiny person. There is already enough of whiners out there, so I am just asking, do I want to become one too? I could easily become one if I listened to that mean voice that finds mean and negativity in ANYTHING, but I don’t WANT to. And so, the voices in my head that tell me that it’s lame to work a 9-5 or enjoy a Friday Feeling are getting a bit old.
They are getting a bit old because;
-When I am focusing on living my life now, I am very happy.
-When I stop and reflect back and see where I am now, I am very happy.
-When I realize what I get to do every day, I am very happy.
-When I stop listening to the mean voices inside of my head, I can really realize, that damn, I am working as a teacher and get to see the development and impact on the children every day, the highs and the lows. I am supporting myself economically. I have a job in general. I am happy doing my work and it gives me free time to do my other passions as well. And I realize… I am actually so happy! I am happy when I am focusing on my LIFE, not the voices in my head.
Then, when misery comes into the picture it talks through some self-created expectations, and seeks to make me unhappy by shooting messages through my brain like a sniper; “You are nothing if you dont at least do this this and this”, “What youre now doing is so lame”, “Are you actually enjoying Fridays now, gosh, get a life”. Yes, it is mean. It is so mean! And when I am tired or low, the saddest thing is, I am believing that evil inside of me.
Me believing the Mean Girl Inside me making me insecure and lost and eventually not able to enjoy my life.
On the other hand, when I am not tired and not low, I can see the voice just as it is; a mean girl only trying to upset me and make me change my life forever, because it would actually never be satisfied or happy. I can even have empathy for it and let it continue its journey.
The Friday Feeling is something I choose to cherish. Dear Mean Girl inside of me, it might seem lame to you, but I dont actually care. I have worked hard the whole week, and I am going to enjoy this freeing feeling of having the weekend ahead of me. Dear Mean Girl, I am choosing to enjoy my life instead of letting you tell me how I should live it. I am strong enough to regocnize when you are getting the best out of me, and I have the tools to stop and breath and choose another road.
Me understading that Mean Girl Inside me just wants to make me upset and I might as well not listen to it so I can enjoy my life today because it’s pretty awesome to be alive.
Because Friday Feeling is not just about the Friday Feeling. For me it’s actually a feeling of freedom; not because of the weekend ahead. But because of the empowerment with myself; giving The Mean Girl inside its own medicine; I am nothing special, I am just a regular employee enjoying her 9-5 and fridays and free weekends, and that has the power to make me happy. To the mean girl nothing would be enough anyway, so I might as well start enjoying my life already. Not asking the Mean Girl for permission, but letting it be. That way, I can see; I am already happy.
Life moves all the time. In our minds it might move forward, but what if it just doesn’t have a direction? What if it just moves?
It’s a stressful environment to live in a mindset where we are all the time going “forward”. Or think that we have to go forward. That makes life just a means to an end. What if instead of “moving forward”, life would be just “moving”. No direction needed. The movement is already what is needed. Because since we are made of cells and cells are made of atoms and we know that atoms consist of protons, neutrons and electrons that are all the time vibrating and living and they are happy like that, why are we making life so complicated by thinking we need to move forward? We are already moving! All the time!
Everything in our body is moving all the time and that’s the purpose of the body, the cell, the atom.
Why is it then that our mind makes our life miserable every now and then? By making us believe that we are not enough, we don’t have direction, we need to do something different or we need to change? When our whole existence is already happy just being alive? Or maybe it’s not even happy, but just neutral, doing it’s thing, moving. Not forward with a goal in mind, but just moving. And that’s the whole “goal”. Just moving…
Not moving forward or backward but just making one motion after the other. Because when we really think about it, there is no forward or backward, there is just moving.
Our bodies are wiser than our minds, but we are letting the mind often take over a little bit too much…
Today I am going to stop myself every time I realize I have gotten into the mindset of “moving forward”. I am going to stop and take a breather and remind myself that everything is okay, electrons and protons are circling around the atoms in my body, and I am moving. That gives me peace. Imaging and feeling that the body is alive. Starting from the atoms…
I love writing. Without any rules, boxes or needs, other than my own need to pour it out. It feels freeing to be able to see your own words on paper. Or maybe they are not even your own. Maybe they are just coming through you waiting to be expressed through someone who believes in them. I want to be that believer. I believe in words and in people who write words. They give words a chance to be seen. And a chance for themselves to be seen. And it’s not about the receiver anymore. It’s just about the action itself, being able to accompany words into this world.
Word. World. Maybe all words are small worlds and our world is just made of those millions of words…
I’m leaving for work soon. Another day as a second grade teacher. Yesterday my colleague told the class that he had lost his mother last week and that’s why he had been away for a while. I was touched by the responses from the 7-8-year-olds. As my colleague was telling more about his mother, how she had been suffering from dementia for years and how she was old and now in a better place after all and despite the sadness he was doing okay, one of the pupils raised their hand and said; “It sounds like she lived a happy life.” That comment made my heart stop for a while.
How was she so wise. Just a comment like that connected the whole class in a new way. Another pupil asked how old she was and another wanted to share his story of what he had learned about death and close people passing away. And one of the children said; “My great great great great great grand dad used to live in a boat and he died and now he is still in the bottom of that boat.” He very well might still be. How would we know.
Work as a teacher is these moments at best. To be blown away by the wisdom children so genuenly portrait that makes you remember conversations maybe forever.
Conversations that can later on become word worlds.
It was the end of 2018 when I visited Bali. It’s funny to reflect on it now, two years after… But somehow I’m drawn into that trip right now. Bali seemed a bit blurry to me. It was a time in my life where I couldn’t let go of my inner struggles and actually ENJOY the place. I was stuck in my head and it gave me blurry goggles. Seeing the Bali island in its true glory wasn’t possible.
Instead of feeling bad about not being able to enjoy the trip to the fullest, I have come to peace with it. It was a trip that was ment to be like that for me. I was in my own bubble, wanting to, or actually, NEEDING to control many things. But regardless of the mental absence, I still feel I went through many important lessons during that trip. Be it in my mind or in the physical.
For example, every time I felt anxious or bad, or uncomfortable feelings in general, I let them dominate my life. Those moments could last for hours or even days. I let myself stay very low. And I can understand it now. I didn’t have the skills to rise above those feelings. Maybe that’s why it feels so nice to go through this trip now. Because I have come a long journey from that! Being in those downs, lows, unpleasant feelings, it is impossible to see the bigger picture. And now, two years later, the picture has become clearer.
Due to my description, it would be misleading to leave the text here. Because it was not the only experience I had at Bali; feeling miserable or suffering. I had also great times. But the general energy was low, and I let that be the canvas for my being. Taking unpleasant emotions too seriously led me into believing them. That there was something wrong in me, or in the trip, because I wasn’t just happy all the time.
And that is why I will let this Bali trip always be my teacher. It showed me that like the trip, life is not supposed to feel happy all the time. I experienced and outlived weird growing pains and lows, and it was still (or maybe just because of that) an important and amazing adventure.
After Ho Chi Minh City, our family traveled to Phu Quoc, which is an island that belongs to Vietnam. It is located in front of the cost of Cambodia, and there lives around 100 000 people. It is growing as a tourist island attraction.
We stayed at a hotel resort, where we made some daytrips from. For example, we went snorkling! To get to the place we hopped on a cabel car above the island coast. The island we traveled with the cabel car to was called the Hon Thom island.
They had a pearl farm right under the cable car route; we could see the areas where the shells were collected!
We ate more of the delicious Vietnamese food.
Lotus root chips (also called the”renkon chips”) and coconut ice cream.
Vietnamese rice paper veggierolls with sesame-peanut-sauce and Vietnamese tapas-plate.
And we visited a pepper farm. Phu Quoc is famous for its many pepper farms. Didn’t know that this is how pepper looks like when it’s growing!
Phu Quoc is also an island with some horrible history. They had a war memorial that was a prison museum dedicated to remind of the terrible times during the Vietnam war. It is also called The Coconut Tree prison.
We visited that place and could sense the torturing even after decades of time passed. They had human sized figures displaying the punishment methods they were forced to participate in.
Even though we did see the island a little bit, most of our time passed by at the resort, which is probably how most of the tourists spent their days while traveling to this island… But once we planned to be active, there was many interesting places to see.
It was an island under construction in many ways, and there were lots of new hotels coming together. But in the not so touristic areas of the island you could really tap into the feelings of the laid-back, island lifestyle.
There were many restaurants and cafes which were displaying local artists’ art.
In general, Phu Quoc was a vacation island for a reason. It was relaxing, and the sunsets and the beaches were beautiful.
I traveled to Vietnam in the end of 2018 to visit my family. They had moved to Ho Chi Minh City because of a job situation, and we planned to spend some familytime when my sister and I were able to fly to their new occasional home.
I had no expectations. Other than it’s gonna be warm! And warm it was, and humid!
I got some kind of a picture of the city of Ho Chi Minh (previously known as Saigon), but I got to experience only a fracture of it. The few days I spent in the metropolis (almost 13 million people living there!) left me with a curious attitude towards the historical city, and the country in general.
The first impression: there are scooters everywhere! And so much of them!
The second impression: people seem kind.
The third impression: it’s a city of contrasts: very poor/very fancy.
I got to walk around in couple of parts of the city and it was very versatile. In some corner there was a street food market, in some corner there was a chain hotel.
The city’s feeling was French and Asian. In a way that the buildings were very decorative that reminded of Paris for example, but the traffic with scooters and the humid weather with tropical plants put you right into the Southeast Asian “vibe”.
Ho Chi Minh City radiated appreciation of beauty and also some kind of a humbleness. It must come from the devastating near history with the Vietnam War. Without going too much to that topic, I can only say that it felt like there was a new time developing after tough times. To me that is always beautiful how humanity is able to rise from hard times.
Left photo: Notre Dam Cathedral of Saigon. It’s located in the Paris Square. Represents times when Vietnam was a French colony during 1880-1945 (wonder why it felt so French.. ;D). Right photo: Saigon station. Picture of Ho Tši Minh himself (former president of Vietnam).
The food was very colorful. What I remember best was the Vietnamese crepes, which were filled with all kinds of vegetables and yummy sauces. The fruit were also just from a different planet I was used to having in the cold north.
What I also will never ever forget, is the strenght of Vietnamese coffee. We were in for a treat when our familys’ friend kindly took me and my sister to their coffee place and introduced us to their traditional ways of drinking caffeine. Plainly, with a slow dripper (like in the photo) it was like hard liquor. I think I even got drunk from it (lol).
The other way we tasted it was as ice coffee. That was done by adding condensed milk and ice to the coffee. It was interesting! And much more pleasant for me. The beans most used in Vietnamese coffee is robusta, and that has a unique rosted flavour to it.
As we were in Ho Chi Minh for a short period of time, we wanted to go for an organized tourist trip with my sister to see Vietnam from a different view. We decided to hop on a tour bus one day that took us to a Buddhist temple and to a river tour at Mekong Delta.
This was the part in the Buddhist temple.
This was the part in the are of the Mekong Delta river. We learned that there are several “tribes” living in the river area in very primal circumstances. They make a living from tourism.
After our day trip, we were tired but happy to have seen such different ways of living.
We still had one day left in Ho Chi Minh before other plans, and my family took me to the famous market, Ben Thanh Market. It was full of food and other stuff! My focus was mainly in the colourful fruits and veggies. So pretty!
After seeing some city attractions, taking the tourist tour and visiting the Ben Thanh Market, it was time to pack up my belongies and start the next advernture in the “vacation island” of Vietnam: Phu Quoc.
I was walking to the grocery store. I had my headphones on and I listened to good music. I was in a good mood. Just enjoying the music and the upcoming food haul. I love food shopping!
The next thing I know, two people are approaching me. A man and a woman, and they started talking to me. I am usually quite open to chat with other people, but this time, I didn’t feel like it. I didn’t feel like stopping and I just passed the couple and continued my walk. I smiled and tried to show them the basic “not now, thank you” -gesture (the one useful with face-to-face fundraisers, heh…).
It was a bit weird situation. I sensed some tension from them when I just walked by. I think I was too deep in my world to react quickly enough for them, and since the situation was kinda over after my gesture, I just thought that the best thing to do was to continue walking away.
I still had my headphones on and I kept on walking when I started to hear shouting. I did think that maybe it’s them, shouting, but I didn’t really react.
The shouting continued and I took my headphones off and turned around. There was the woman. She had gotten pretty close to me and she was yelling at me. On the street, full on yelling at me. I was surprised of that aggression but managed to ask her “What is it?”. She yelled back at me some kind of a question.
I told her that “I don’t speak Swedish, I am sorry”. She looked at me sarcastically, and said, “Du ÄR svenskt” (a.k.a. you are swedish). With some sort of pride of apparently looking like a Swede I told her again that “I don’t understand what you are saying”. She continued to yell at me: “Var ligger —-“, (“where is—“), so, she was asking for directions. (I understand Swedish to some degree, but I’m still quite shy with it..:D.)
I told her once again, “I don’t speak Swedish, I am not from here, sorry” and she started to quit. I put my headphones back on and she went away.
The reason I am writing about this is, because, well, it was an interesting situation, and to the contrary of my previous experiences, I felt amazing after this encounter. I’ll explain why.
Five years ago when I had just moved to Helsinki, I had another yelling incident. I was traveling in a tram and I had unconsciously sat on a seat which was for handicaps, elderly, and pregnant women. An older woman started to yell at me because I was sitting in a wrong seat. I got so embarrassed and I told her “I am sorry, my mistake, I am so sorry…”. I felt like the worst person on earth. (Dramatic, not at all.)
When I got home, that incident was still very strongly alive in me and I cried. I felt like I was bad to the bones. For making that kind of a “major” mistake! “You should be ashamed!” It was very difficult for me to experience doing something “wrong”. I took her words as the truth, and even further, to the point where I thought my whole identity was purely just BAD. I felt so shameful.
For me, the reaction from any confrontation has always been an intense feeling of shame. Even with things I haven’t had anything to do with. Because, maybe I did do something…? I have always admired people who are able to defend themselves in an intense situation. People with “thick skin”. Who can just understand that they don’t have to take any sh*it from others because they have boundaries for themselves.
Why I felt so good after this yelling encounter was because I realized that the unnecessary weight of shame or fear of not doing everything like a good girl is now welcome to exit from my life. I am allowed to have my boundaries.
What I also realized from this latest yelling incident was that it was not about me. She had all the rights to be upset with me but she didn’t have the right to yell at me. My part was to realize this and not lower myself to be the one to blame, because I wasn’t the one acting mean. I didn’t have to take that. In this yelling incident, contrary to the others, I could see more clearly. I could see that, hold on. I am not responsible for the other person’s anger. Of course, in this situation I could have been more sharp and stop and help them out, but I didn’t. Does that make me a bad person? Am I obligated to always help? Am I alive to be there for everyone, always? Someone could argue and say, well, yes you are.
But when a person is choosing not to engage with others, are they deserving to be yelled at? Of course not! I realized that we are all responsible for our own emotions. She was angry at me, but was that a reason or a justification to yell at me? No.
We make different kinds of decisions all the time. Maybe they are not always the best ones, or maybe they are! One way or another, we can always learn from them! But while learning, it is not necessary to be yelled at, or to be the person who gets others’ emotions projected onto them.
When that happens, it is our right to understand that you are not responsible for others’ reactions to emotions. You are responsible for doing your best and choosing when to be there for others and when not to. You are not obligated to fulfill random obligations from others. You can, and to some degree, that’s even admirable. But you are not a bad person if you don’t always feel like doing so.
The world keeps giving us situations to practice our boundaries. And I saw this incident as a true life lesson.
So, random person projecting your emotions on me: thank you for teaching me an important insight.
I am not a bad person if I am not always the most helpful person on earth. And it is not a reason to be yelled at, or a reason to feel bad about myself.
I visited Åland a couple years ago for the first time and I fell in love with the place. The small island between Finland and Sweden charmed me with its carefree vibe and rustic beauty. Last year I traveled to Åland again and I was just as delighted.
Me and my boyfriend spent our midsummer biking around the pretty island and sleeping in cute accommodations.
We took a boat (Viking Line) from Stockholm to Mariehamn on a Friday morning. The trip took approximately 7 hours. After arrival we rented our rides for the weekend from a bike rental right opposite to the boat terminal. We strolled to Mariehamn’s cozy city center where we enjoyed ice creams and soon started our biking journey to our first destination.
Our first adventure was to bike 20 kilometers to our first accommodation. It took us only about one and a half hours, which gave us lots of time to enjoy the surroundings of our first home for the night. We stayed in a guesthouse called Amalia. We had cows as our neighbours and fields as our yard.
In general, during our trip, we saw lots of cows, and I discovered that they are really calming animals. And curious. They really want to know what’s going on when you get closer to them! Animals are amazing.
Anyways, in Amalia we had a small room, just with beds. Everything else was shared with other travellers; toilets, showers and the kitchen. In the morning of Saturday we ate a fulfilling breakfast from their breakfast buffet and I found my new favourite drink; pasteurized apple juice, straight from the applegardens of Åland. It’s so good! ❤
After the breakfast, we continued our biking and headed to the harbour of Långnäs. As we approached the destination, we soon understood that during midsummer (and the weekend) the ferry schedules weren’t that vibrant. We had planned to spend the day island hopping and seeing Åland from the coast, but our plan changed as we discovered that we would have to wait the ferries for looong times. This meant that we would reach our second accommodation only quite late in the night. So, we made a choice to stay on the mainland and biked right back where we had just gotten from… 😀 A little detour and some extra kilometers didn’t luckily bother us. It was a beautiful midsummer day and we had a lot of time to bike towards the next accommodation with a new plan.
This turned out to be a nice option, as we stopped at my old favourite little cafe on the way, Brobacka. We had coffees and pastries. Rhubarb pie and Åland’s pancake. I stayed at Brobacka the last time I visited Åland with a friend, and it was so nice to stop by this time again. It is the coziest little B&B!
After our little fika (coffeepause), our route took us to a restaurant called Smakby, and to a medieval castle right next to it; Kastelholm. These are both popular tourist attractions which were so nice to see! And we got to taste probably the best ice cream on earth; Smakby’s home made old vanilla ice cream. Ridiculously amazing. Btw, Smakby is the “dream project” of the famous chef Michael Björklund, and their focus is on quality local produce. I have been wanting to go there for a long time, so this new “detour” we took was clearly a better route Universe had in store for us. 😉
After eating and enjoying the beautiful area of the old castle Kastelholm, we started our last part of biking that day and eventually arrived to our second home for the night, Stalldalen. This was a hotel close to a brewery called Stallhagen, where we went for a dinner that evening. These two were walking distance apart from each other. (But of course we biked there.) We ate good meals in the evening and had a little craft beer tasting as well. And for dessert, another rhubarb pie with vanilla ice cream.
Came Sunday morning and we were spoiled with an amazing breakfast, homemade kombucha included! After the luxury, we hopped on our bikes and started our last day of biking and headed towards a beach which was recommended to us by the owner of the hotel we stayed in.
There we went on our bikes again, and arrived to a beautiful spot in the middle of solitude. We settled on smooth rocks and enjoyed the peaceful place.
We still had around 20km to bike towards Mariehamn, so we decided not to relax for too long. It was time to jump on our rides again. We drove by cute villages and went from biking in the middle of forests to suddenly biking on Mariehamn’s airport streets. (Google maps isn’t always a friend. :D) Finally we found our way back to the city and rewarded ourselves with yet again tasty ice creams before handing the bikes back in and heading to the boat.
We ended up biking around 75 kilometers that weekend. In Åland the biking is quite pleasing because the roads are in good shape and it is not that hilly. Here is our route in total: Mariehamn to Amalia 20km, Amalia (with the detour) to Stalldalen 35km, and Stalldalen to Mariehamn 20km. In summary, we biked, we ate, we biked, we ate, we biked and we ate 😀 ❤
In the boat on our way back to Stockholm, tired but happy, I couldn’t help to think that Åland had a pretty special place in my heart.
Till the next time then, Åland!
Would love to hear your thoughts about Åland if you have any experiences?
I feel like that place is full of magic and it is full of food for the soul. 😉 ❤
