Category: Health

Show me your goals and I’ll know your dreams. Show me your standards and I’ll know your success. That sounds serious, ooooh, standards, do I really need them?? Well up to you. If you want results in your life – set your standards. What you will repeatedly do. Today I treasure my morning jog and the weekend run into the bush. 10 years ago I was the one looking at the joggers with disbelief. Then a colleague challenged a group of us to sign up for a 21K run. Never having jogged before, I needed a plan. Started with 1 minute of walking, 1 minute jogging, 1 minute of walking… Around the block. After a few months, I decided to not do the 21K, signed up for the 5K instead – and I have never stopped jogging since! Thank you colleague! In which one area of your life are you ready to set a new standard, start a new ritual? Knowing that a little change today, carried out sustainably, will result in a fantastic change over a year, 5 years, 10 years and become one of your loved rituals. Choose a tiny one to start off with, please make it … More Show me your standards (my what??!!) »

One of our daughters is at a Steiner school with lovely kids, teachers and parents, and as we were helping out with props and sewing today for the upcoming musical, I found myself out of my league during the lunch break. Homemade lentil soups, salads and talk about foods I don’t even know the existence of, and there I was with my (alufoil wrapped – oh noooooo) sandwich with cheese and vacuum packed ham, drinking water out of a reused PET bottle. Hahaaaaaa – they may not even have noticed, but I suddenly got another benchmark for living a life with healthy food. A year ago, I would have had been even further out of league – but luckily, I found “Hellofresh” last year, and our (eating) life has never been the same since. Beautiful fresh ingredients in exact amounts, recipe steps to follow and therefore a fully risk free dive into cooking healthy, awesome looking, culturally diverse dinners with the family. The kids take turns on the cooking team, chopping away all the exotic vegetables we couldn’t have recognised if it wasn’t for the pictures on the recipes – and those not on the cooking roster automatically clean up … More Who says carrots are not a meal?? »

Hmm… this may not be a perfect fit for a Valentine’s Day post – or maybe it is exactly that!! Because to create a great life for yourself and those around you, you need to learn to live selfishly. My mum lives to serve others. I admire that. But it works best when you back yourself at the same time. My mum does – not a lot of women do. They give and give… but you sense that it’s because they do NOT know how to put themselves first. Here’s a cliché (but clichés are around because they hold a truth and therefore have been told many times!): When flying, remember how the crew tell you to put on your OWN oxygen mask before helping children or others around you. Yep. That’s exactly it. You can help others to a whole different level when you make sure your needs are met first – then it flows, overflows, and with happiness and content as wrapping, instead of bitterness, apologies or defeat. Put yourself first. Just once a week. There are so many ways of doing it (with no animals or humans being harmed…). For inspiration: check out my first blogs from … More Living Selfishly (yes, that’s OK!) »

After people spending a manic December buying all sorts of stuff for each other, come 27th December, and it’s like an old-fashioned tape recorder rewinding – or a movie in reverse. People driving, walking BACK to these same shops, returning, swapping…. Has anyone made the calculation of how much time we would save as a nation, if we made a law to only be allowed to give experiences as gifts next Christmas? Just like they in Denmark had “car free Sundays” to make people change behaviour (during the oil crisis in the 70s), moving towards something more sustainable – in every meaning of the word. And today (for many reasons), half of Copenhagen’s population take the bicycle to work/uni. Back to Christmas. So a Christmas free of physical presents. How much stress would we avoid? How much wrapping paper? How many liters of petrol? How many family arguments? And now add the hassle of returning, swapping, keeping-it-but-not-using-it-and-having-to-pretend-you-use-it-everytime-she-visits? How much emotional pressure would we release? So next year: Give picnics. Give laughter. Give bike rides. Give kisses. Give joy. Give bush walks. Give hugs. And the stuff that you REALLY want and need… My husband answered “peace on Earth” every time … More Can this be returned? Please?!! »

…is to take myself less seriously!! What a great gift! My husband has been trying to give that exact gift to me ever since we met again as adults. But do you know how it goes when you get something you don’t want? Imagine the face – polite, stiff smile… but everyone can see that this gift is NOT what you had in mind. I grew up in a family where we actually got things from our wish list. Why ask for a list, if you are going to buy other stuff YOU think they want? Then don’t ask for a wish list. Well, as a consequence, in my family, we wrote lovely, long wish lists for birthdays and Christmas – and indeed got something from the list every time. How is that for teaching your kids to wish for what you really want? Anyway, I got side tracked here. The decades of receiving a gift I had NOT wished for. Humour. Even worse: being nudged to laugh of myself!! So I politely returned it. Didn’t even unwrap it. And then, suddenly, now, mid-life, what do I find myself wanting? To laugh more, especially of myself. To ask fewer questions … More What I REALLY want for Christmas… »