How meditation improved my relationships & more.

In all friendships, in all relationships I have, (check previous posts @designyourlifeforresults to learn more) I have understood that these only exist, because there is a true, genuine and deep connection I have with the people I surround myself with.
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This deep connection exists, because I have connected deeply with myself. Over the last 5 years and continuously every single day. One of my favourite tools? Meditation. Everyday, everywhere.
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If you are brave enough to do so, i.e. to look deeper into who you are, what you desire and where you are heading, it makes building & maintaining connections so much easier, worthwhile, fun and loving.
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I honestly cannot be bothered anymore to entertain superficial connections and relationships. It is my lifetime, so now I only surround myself with positive, loving and growing people that have a vision and mission to rise up to.
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This is certainly only ONE RESULT I got out from my daily meditation practice.

Tell me, are you meditating regularly?

If you do, what is your Top 1 result? If not, what keeps you from getting started? In my opinion, there is nothing to lose, only a lot to win.

Love, yours Nina ❣️
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PS: Want to get started on your meditation practice and need guidance? Looking to surround yourself with like-minded souls? I invite you to join my Facebook group ‘DIVE DEEP – Design your life for results’ with weekly activities, currently on Sundays. There was a Facebook Live this evening and I spoke in detail about my experience with meditation,  how I got started, how to set yourself up and which essential oil I use and how for my meditation. It is powerful for you to get you results, so come, like & follow my page: https://www.facebook.com/designyourlifeforresults/ . It is all for free, too.

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Release your energy

Today, I captured my thoughts in a video which you also find on my YouTube channel.

Watch this video here.

It’s all about self-love, tuning into your body, observing your thoughts, connecting with yourself and diving deeper to who you really are. Release energy to have space for all new and beautiful things to come into your life!

By coming closer to who you really are, you will be able to activate your full potential and to design the life that you are destined to live.

Life is beautiful.

Yours, Nina

 

Feel your body

The central thought for this article is self-love. Awake to the knowing that a successful body gives you energy and lightness.

Be aware and know that your body is there for your wellbeing. Treat your body accordingly. See your body as your friend, your best friend.

• Observe how you talk to your body. Would you talk like this, if it was your best friend’s body?
• Observe how you look at your body. Would you look at it like this, if it was your best friend’s body?
• Observe how you feel in your body. Would you like it, if your best friend felt like this in her* body?

*Solely for the ease of writing, I will refer to she/her without any discrimination.

I know not only from myself, but also from family and friends and even acquaintances how hard we are on ourselves when it comes to our body, be it height, weight or size. However, when our best friend complains about being too small, too tall, too thin or too big, we immediately tell that person how beautiful she is just the way she is.

Sounds familiar? Doesn’t that feel strange to you? Don’t you feel disconnected when reading this?

Now, I want you to feel amazing in your body. I want you to look in the mirror thinking ‘Wow’. I want you to look down on yourself thinking ‘Wow’. I want you to walk through life feeling connected with yourself, because you think ‘Wow’, because you love yourself. Self-love is not only key, it is the base to your wellbeing.

In order to feel your body, it is essential to tune into it. Feel, observe, and perceive any tensions that you might hold. Consciously or not. Be aware, be present, be curious. And especially, be kind to yourself. Do not fight your body, befriend it.

Do you want to befriend your body? Do you want to get guidance from me on how to tune into your body and feel your body? Then get my eBook FEEL UNDERSTAND HEAL #1 on Amazon. Just click here to receive guidance and practical exercises from me on how to get started with connecting and feeling your body. Also, attend my workshop FEEL UNDERSTAND HEAL #3 in Munich to go deeper in your personal growth journey and to take your body consciousness to the next level. Click here to save one of the last spots.

If you have any questions, leave me a pink note!

Yours, Nina

 

Reconnect

I’ve heard the words ‘Connect’, ‘Disconnected’ and ‘Reconnect’ a lot lately. Maybe this is because so many people feel disconnected from themselves and want to reconnect with their body, mind, and spirit, or I’ve noticed it increasingly since it has become one of my favourite topics. I truly believe that if we lost connection with ourselves that we can get it back, we can build the connection with ourselves again. We can reconnect.

Reconnect on different levels

In my opinion, this needs to happen on different levels, physically, mentally and spiritually. Reconnecting with yourself means first of all to become aware, of your body, mind and soul. Ask yourself what is going on here? Where are my pain points physically? Where is my mind going? What keeps my mind busy? Is your soul telling you something? Do you sometimes feel restless? Why? When do you feel most disconnected with yourself? When do you most feel the urge to connect with yourself?

Notice and sit with it

Become aware, notice and sit with it to start with. You don’t have to take any action right away. I know it’s difficult, but it’s better not to fight it, because that would mean you are fighting life, and that in return would mean that you are fighting yourself.

So, start with bringing more awareness into your being. De-automize your being and your actions, whatever you do, do it less automatically, more consciously. Bring more awareness into your life.

Maybe you wonder now, what this is all about and how this should help you reconnect?

Awareness

I know from experience that bringing more awareness to my being, to my body, mind and soul is the first and only step required to commence the reconnection process.

How do you think you can connect with your beautiful life, if you don’t start connecting with yourself? How can you see, feel, smell and taste all the beautiful things in our world, if you cannot even see or feel yourself? Awareness and appreciation are your entry to reconnect with yourself.  Use your 5 senses consciously to bring more awareness into your life, they’ve been given to us with reason, so use them and enjoy them.

Feel Understand Heal

Once you feel & understand, you can heal. Once you start your individual reconnection process, you can come closer to your true self. Once you start the journey becoming the real you, you’ll feel lighter and happier. Of course, there will be difficult moments, of course, you won’t feel light 24/7, but again I know from my own inner journey how amazingly rewarding it is to start this process. To walk the liberating path of personal development.

A liberating feeling

It is liberating. ‘Cause every day feels lighter, with less bullshit, instead with more awareness and gratitude, especially for the small things in our life. Because I also noticed one more thing, it is not really the big things that make up our lives, it is the small things.

And if we manage to appreciate the small things, if we manage to appreciate ourselves, we can reconnect with ourselves, we can let go of bullshit and instead embrace all the beautiful new things flowing (or flooding!) into our lives.

Become yourself

The closer you get to yourself, the more you become yourself, the lighter you will feel and the happier you will be. Because you are truly you. Isn’t that a wonderful outlook?

You can be happy only if you become yourself

If you feel disconnected, if you sometimes wonder who you are, if you truly want to start your reconnection journey, but don’t know where to start, then I cannot imagine anything more beautiful than supporting you on your journey and taking that first step.

I have been on this journey (still am, it’s an ongoing process) and whilst it was tough at times, I am deeply grateful to have (had) people by my side supporting me.

If you resonate with this blog post, then check out my 3-hour workshop FEEL UNDERSTAND HEAL that I will be holding in Munich on Tuesday, 22nd May. I’m so excited about this journey and it gets better every day (with some exceptions haha).

Love to life, love to you and love to myself.

Yours, Nina

 

 

 

Happiness

Happiness, what a big, yet unspecific word, isn’t it?

What does happiness mean? What does it mean for you? That’s what I wondered when I was out for a walk. On a sunny, warm and absolutely beautiful day. I just came back and here I am writing this blog post.

There’s however way more to happiness than a sunny day, at least this is what I think. Because we mustn’t make our happiness dependant on external factors. Instead we really should find happiness within us. External factors, such as a sunny day, can then even intensify our happiness, however a rainy day won’t have any impact on us, as we are happy from the inside out. The same applies to other peoples’ behaviours. When you are happy, no one will be able to get you out of this zone. Sure, it might make you sad or angry at times, nevertheless your inner state of happiness won’t change.

Find happiness within you.

I’ve almost always been what I would have called happy. What I experienced though in the last couple of years and really strongly since Dec ’17 is that there are different levels of happiness. Now, I’m not saying you should generally question your level of happiness, but I noticed for myself that my happiness increased dramatically over that period of time.

In order to write this article, I reflected more intensively and wondered why this is. And the one thing that kept coming back to me was I reconnected with myself.

Reconnect with yourself.

So, maybe your level of happiness is worth a second thought?

Now that I’ve reconnected with myself, I just feel so aligned, so full of energy, so authentic, so me, so Nina! It’s such a beautiful feeling, hard to describe, but it feels like flying, like being a breeze in the wind, light like a feather.

I want to dance and jump (hence the pic!). I smile and people are smiling back at me. I want to hug the entire world. That’s what happiness feels like to me.

For me, being connected with myself means living aligned with my true self. Living according to my values and by my own terms. Being authentic. Being myself.

Live aligned with your true self.

How do I know?

I’ve gone through the process of feeling disconnected with myself. From realising that I want a change in life, over questioning and reflecting the status quo of my life, to defining what I actually want from my life (personally and professionally). It’s still an ongoing process of reflection, trial & error and growth, but I managed to get back to me and to reconnect with myself.

I just know that you can do that, too.

Yes, it might be out of your comfort zone, it might be daunting and a bit of work, but if you’ve only had 1 second reading this, thinking, oh my…, then there’s something inside you that wants to be heard, looked at and changed to the positive. Trust me.

The connection with yourself, your true self and your beautiful soul will lead you on a journey to happiness. It is a journey that starts from inside, it is your inner journey.

Being on your inner journey and reconnecting with yourself will lead you the way to happiness.

Yours, Nina

PS: Please comment below or get in touch with me directly if you want to share your feelings, thoughts and current level of happiness. I cannot imagine anything more beautiful to guide you to your full happiness. Love love love for you.

 

Beach, Buggy, Brazil

As the year 2017 is coming to an end, I had a look back at all the beautiful moments I have been lucky enough to experience. One of these moments or experiences was my holiday in Brazil in October 2017. It has only been two months and yet, it feels like a long time ago. Hence, this is a good time to relive my travels through Brazil and today I write about my 1st stop, which was Jericoacoara. Jeri (as everyone calls it) is a small fishing village located around 300km west of Fortaleza. I flew into Fortaleza airport around 5.30pm and luckily my friend had already organised a driver to take us to Jeri directly. We were torn between going directly which was another 4.5 drive to Jeri or staying one night in Fortaleza. We decided to head to Jeri straight away despite being extremely tired. Luckily, our driver was already waiting for us outside the airport. He, the driver, was Portuguese, and his partner was a lovely Brazilian woman (Danielle). Together we drove close to 5 hours to the kitesurfing mecca in Ceará, Brazil. Before you leave the airport, ensure to take enough money out of the cash machine, as there aren’t any in Jeri.

The roads seemed fine at first, but as we drove out of town, the roads got bumpy. Talking about bumps, they love street bumps in order to avoid speeding. My friend and me were fully knackered, so we would wake up with each and every bump, but directly fall back asleep again. If you organise a driver, I highly recommend to get a 4×4 wheel. We booked via the Facebook group ‘Car Share Jericoacoara’ and there through Danielle Freitas. You won’t understand the need of a 4×4 until you arrive into Jeri, an idyllic place full of sand.

We eventually arrived at our lovely Pousada Vila Bela Vista around midnight and were simply grateful to have a full week ahead of us. Just so you know, most travellers are deciding to stay for longer than they had originally planned. Just because it is lovely.

The next morning, I woke up at 7.30am and my friend and me headed for breakfast in the beautiful garden of the pousada. Oh, how I love being served breakfast. The coffee was strong and really good. The reviews on booking.com did not over-promise. We decided to use the first day as jet lag compensation, sunbathing and relaxing day. Already on our first evening, we get in touch with a German guy (who happened to be a friend of a friend…such a small world) and we had dinner all together. We mentioned we are interested in kitesurfing and so an hour later we had the owner Marko of a kite surf station joining us for dinner. We ate at Serafim by the way and I can definitely recommend the tuna there. After clarifying details regarding the school, the spot, transport and prices, we decided for Marko and his team from Blu Kiteschool Jericoacoara. 1st session planned for the next day, pick up at 10am at our pousada.

Wow, I was so excited and a bit nervous, as I haven’t been kitesurfing for 4 years (apart from once in September in Austria). But I hoped it would be just like ice-skating or cycling that I would not forget. We headed to the beautiful beach of Prea with a cool sand buggy. Already the drive to the kite surf station was so much fun and so enjoyable, that I simply felt happy, free and alive.

My kite surf instructor was from South Africa, patient, fun and motivating. We revised a few things regarding safety, but then I just grabbed my board and said I wanted to surf, which I did and the first water start worked. Yes! I was so happy and pleased. My instructor gave me suggestions on how to improve my techniques and I was quickly able to do upwind even more. The next days we continued working on my techniques including transitions. I really enjoyed kitesurfing again despite the muscle ache after the first two days. I was out in the sea for 2-3 hours for each session and I just loved the breeze (haha which you need for kiting), the sun, the water, the physical activity, the atmosphere at the kite surf station and all the lovely people I met. Each person interesting, kind and talkative. This is the perfect example of how a passion connects people. Beautiful.

Passion connects people.

One afternoon, Marko took pics of everyone kitesurfing and he got some great shots of me. I’m still waiting for him to send them to me, hence the image featured is still at the station. But it perfectly shows my happiness feeling despite my similarities with Calimero.

I also headed to a yoga class one evening. I couldn’t find anything on the internet really, but our reception gave me the number of a yoga teacher named Maria. You can contact her on Whats App +34 610 68 10 41. She taught at another hotel called Pousada do Renata, which was approximately an 8min walk from our pousada. I was so much looking forward to my yoga practice. And I was not disappointed. Maria was from Galicia, she was very sweet and did great corrections. All in all, a challenging and great Vinyasa Flow class for approx. 12 USD (90 minutes).

Tipps where to go:

If you go to Jeri, ensure to have sundowner at ClubVentos just by the beach. They have a great offer on ice cool beers, enjoy.

Also, I recommend you to go to Hotel Hurricane to see the sunset from the rooftop terrace. Be there for 5pm, as otherwise they won’t let you up anymore. On Fridays, there is a great live band playing and the atmosphere is just amazing. Loved it up there.

Did I already mention that I’m addicted to Acai bowls? If not, now you know it. We went to SOS Acai many times and it is simply awesome, as you can choose your toppings and then the bowl is weighed at the cash desk. This place only opens at 4pm… to avoid disappointment. For me, it was the perfect energy snack after a day of kitesurfing.

If you fancy Sushi, look no further than Kaze. Go to the one next to the Hurricane hotel, as again they have a cool rooftop. I think I notice a pattern of rooftop love, whilst writing this.

Another place I really liked was EAT, a burger bar all outdoors. The burgers were fab, ideally try the trial of 3 small burgers, in case you are indecisive just like I am with food.

I wish I could go back right now. Jeri is really an idyllic place to stay in, great food, nice bars and restaurants, a fab place for kitesurfing (we had wind every day), lovely hotels with hammocks to relax in, and the best of all, you just need flip flops (or your bare feet) to get around.

If you have any questions regarding Jeri, get in touch with me through a Pink Note. Otherwise just explore and enjoy!

Yours, Nina