self-love

Being yourself is not easy. Why?

Being yourself is not easy, because sometimes we‘re brought up to be someone else, someone, who has to be ‘this or that’. How often did you hear from your parents that you look like your grandfather or that you took on artistic skills after your father who liked to draw in his free time?

If looks and skills are passed on through generations, do you think that emotional problems, relationship patterns, money blockages are not? Then, let me surprise you 😉

  1. Sometimes it all comes from our family tree. Maybe some of our ancestors couldn’t pursue their passion. Maybe others told them “you won’t make a good teacher” or “You won’t be a good artist” plus “you cannot make money on art”. So they gave up their dreams of being themselves for the sake of peace of mind and social acceptance.

Maybe our parents couldn’t be themselves, because they were brought up by their parents according to some unwritten but verbally expressed rules? The behavioral patterns easily get transmitted through our genetics.

  1. Then comes the programming neatly covered under “schooling”. They tell us to go to school, study hard, be a good boy or a good girl. Go to church, believe in God, God will take care of you in the afterlife, fear the devil… They all tell us what to do. Until we reach the age of 18, we are fully programmed. Programmed to be someone. A firefighter, a teacher, a politician, a lawyer, and an IT software developer…

So you go the university, still study hard and land a good job. Congratulations! You’re a lawyer (banker, engineer or whoever) and you’re fully programmed to exist in the society and work like a sheep for the next 40 years.

Wait a moment. Was this what you wanted? Ask yourself a question: did I consciously choose that way? It is important that we feel good at our careers, in our relationships and with ourselves when we look at ourselves in the mirror.

How do you know if you are yourself?

  • You accept yourself fully, including your flaws;
  • You accept your path, the career that you CONSCIOUSLY chose;
  • You take no opinion of others on yourself;
  • You love yourself the way you are.

Look in the mirror. Who do you see there? The product of your parents/society expectations or yourself? 😊

“Being yourself in a world which constantly tries you to be someone else, is the biggest achievement”.

No day is more important than today

Rainy autumn day. Monica sat down on the couch after coming back from work. A pack of Lays Chips of fromage taste was lying near on the coffee table.

The power of the present

She said to herself: “Well, I worked hard today in a job which I don’t like. I deserved these chips.”

A voice in her head asked the same question as yesterday evening: “Monica, what about using this time to build up your own business that you’ve been dreaming of for so long?”

Monica did not reply and ignored the voice. She forwarded her hand to reach for the chips, switched her computer on and started to watch a movie.

No stress. No effort. Just distraction. Imagine it is you who eats these chips and watches a movie. Would you regret it later on?

Regret is one of the basic human emotions. Sometimes we regret small things – that we worried too much, that we didn’t take the number form the girl we liked or that we simply, just like Monica, postponed our dreams and ate chips to cover our feelings up.

It’s normal. Life is not a test from mathematics. We cannot fully prepare for life. We come to our thirties or forties and wonder: “What the hell am I doing in this job?”. Then, still, we sit and watch a different movie every evening and eat chips to console our feeling of being “too late for changes”.

Usually, when I ask people why they don’t do what they dream of, they answer: “it’s not worth it, I am already 35” or “It’s too late. So much time has passed by”.

Yes. It is sad that you lost so much time. You made stupid mistakes. You ate chips and watched movies every single night. This time will not come back.

Looking form this perspective, we can say that today is everything we’ve got. You can either eat your chips and complain about how much time has already passed by or take care that you will lose no more of it.

BE CONSCIOUS OF THE PRESENT MOMENT.

Your future exists only in your imagination and not in a material world. Plus, by the way, you create your future today, at this very moment. This moment is everything you’ve got. When you think about the past where are you? In the present. The same, when you think about the future. Eckhart Tolle speaks about it in his fascinating book “The power of the present”.

MAKE SMALL STEPS TOWARDS YOUR DREAM EVERY SINGLE DAY.

Exchange chips & movie evening into taking action towards your plans. Reorganize your desk. Get rid of stuff you no longer need. Go for a walk. Sign up for a drawing class. Change your job.

Your future depends on what you are doing today. It is not too late to change your profession or learn something new.

At least, when you do it now, you’ll say after years: “Good that I started in October 2019”, instead of saying “Pity, I didn’t start it earlier” when you’ll be 50.

Plantation of Creativity Team

What would you tell to your 10-year-old self?

That might have been 20, 30 or 50 years ago. You grow up fast, forgetting how it was when you were a kid. You don’t go to the playgroung anymore and instead you stress yourself out how to pay the morgage you had taken for your home.

Your body grows but, unfortunately, you cannot tell the same about your psyche. The mind does not change. It sits within our brain like Buddha, forever meditating, digesting all our experiences and creating new ones.    Sometimes we lock inside our mind our traumas from the childhood. Some of them we overcome on our way to adulthood and some are still there. They come out usually during the happiest and most loving moments in our lives. It is then, when we finally get our dream job or find a loving partner, we ask ourselves:   – am I worth earning this money? – what if he/she will cheat on me? – do I deserve him/her? – why am I in constant fear that when all is good something will break for sure?   Such emotions and thoughts stem from the fact that as kids we experienced the whole spectrum of feelings and circumstances. Some of them blocked our feelings of “I am good enough” and “I believe I am a good and magical person”. It doesn’t matter here if it were our parents, school colleagues, teachers and the rest of the system.   Imagine you meet your 10-year old self. Before the majority of your experiences (good and bad) shape you. What would you tell yourself? Would you feed your inner-child with more positive thought and more love?   What would I tell to my 10-year-old self?

1. Life is a game Aleksandra. It’s neither a Moroccan bazaar nor an ascetic cave. If you wanna play good learn the rules of the game called Life.

2. Love yourself because you are beautiful the way you are. Don’t listen to your colleagues making fun of your body. Let yourself be.

3. Be grateful for everything you have and the family who surrounds you. These persons might depart any moment and it’s important to love them the way you love yourself. Show them your affection and love. Even if they don’t show it to you.

4. Play, swing and have fun in the playground. The time for books and learning will come later.

5. Each failure is a next step towards your success. Those who don’t make mistakes never grow and never learn. So take your bike again, fall again and learn how to ride!

Don’t give up so fast. Find your magic cone.

Do you know these happy people, always smiling and satisfied with their lives? When you pass them by you think they must have won a lottery or received a pay rise.

The truth is, a happy and contented person who has an enjoyable and beautiful life had to first sail through thunderstorms, get lost in the Amazon jungle and be bitten by poisonous spiders. It didn’t all come easy. In order to become a happy unicorn living a life full of magic you need the courage and motivation to go out there to a sometimes dark forest and search for your pine cone.

A pine cone? What for? You might ask. A pine cone can be a metaphor for whatever you would like to have or achieve in your life. A happy relationship, a loving family, your dream job, being financially free or being one of the best actors in the la la land.

Usually we don’t appreciate the number of attempts we need to take to see the change in our lives. The majority of people try once or twice and when they see that it didn’t work out – they give up and close themselves in the caves of their hearts, where their dreams fade to grey like in a song by Visage.

Angela once told me over a cup of coffee: “You know, I got burned in love so many times that now I don’t give a sh** anymore. I won’t try to find my dream partner, I stop it. Maybe he will find me“.

Right… How many times did you tell yourself the very un-magical word “maybe”? If all you can commit to is “maybe”, then you are not ready to depart for a search and discovery of your pine cone… Putting your happiness in hands of other people is like playing Mario game. Do you remember it? You move on with a click of a joystick, defeat enemies, achieve goals and advance to a further round. But not in real life. Clicking is not living. If you don’t try in real life you are living your dreams only in your head. The more you try, the bigger the possibility of success in finding your partner, dream job or your magic cone in a forest.

Let me tell you a fable about a unicorn who decided to enter a black forest in search of a magic pine cone.

It was a cold and rainy evening. Some snow was still lying on the streets and the rain drops were tentatively falling down from the sky. After the unicorn came back from work it was already 6:30 p.m. and it was dark outside. She had an idea to make hand-made Christmas decorations.  So she decided to climb up a mountain, which was near the place she lived, and go to the forest in search of magic pine cones for her Christmas decor. There she was at the top of the mountain standing by an entrance to the forest and a vast residential area with a nice view over Zurich city.

The unicorn looked around and saw that it was pitch black. How would she spot any cones there? It was like searching in the dark… She had her iPhone with her to shed some light onto a path, but it was a mere dot in the darkness of the night.  At that moment, she could’ve easily given up, coming up with thousands of excuses. “It is too dark to spot the cones“, “Some animals will eat me or harm me“, “I am afraid“, “It is dangerous for unicorns to go out alone at night, especially in a forest“, “I will not find any pine trees on my path“…

She told herself: “Unicorn, if you don’t go now, you will have to go another evening. The conditions will be the same. Moist, dark and snowy. Go for it now. Don’t wait for a better time, because the time is now. Take the chance. See that you’ve made it that far to enter the black forest“.

So she did. She was walking through the dark forest looking around to distinguish the contours of any pine tree, under which she could find some cones. But there were none. She needed to step away from the path and go nearer to the bushes. Full of fear and tired of walking and still searching she said a mantra in her thoughts: “Dear God and the universe, please help me to find my magic pine cones“.

Then, she said to herself “I will find them! I just need to search deeper and try unknown paths to widen my search“. She strolled through unknown parts of the dark forest and after a long and persistent search she stumbled across two very high and big pine trees. She looked down and directed some light onto the mossy ground. “There they are!!! I found my pine cones!”. Filled with joy and happiness she gathered the cones to her orange bag and set on a journey back home. The realisation that she found the magic cones in a dark forest made her feel that everything’s possible*.

The three magic ingredients were:

  • trust
  • persistence
  • patience

This is what made her find her unique cone. And for that night she was a unicone. A being aware of her super powers and potential to fulfil all her dreams.

The unicorn trusted she would find what she was looking for. With persistence and patience for going towards her goal of finding cones she actually made it.

Before you give up on your dream of finding the right partner or starting your business remind yourself the story of a magic unicorn and magic pine cones. There’s a little magic unicorn inside of you that will help you to go through the dark forest to find your magic cone.

Trust. Persistence. Patience.

With best wishes of finding your magic cone,

Plantation of Creativity Team

*the story is based on true events 

Do you judge people by their looks? Three reasons you should.

“Don’t judge a book by its cover”. This saying is quite well ingrained in our brain. However, we do exactly the opposite, as we are steered by our biology. We judge men who pass us by on the street, we judge if the pineapple is ripe enough by looking at its colour and skin. Every day we analyse thousands of things, which lighten up our brain just like the lightening on the stormy sky. But with one small exception – we hear no thunder. 

When you see a woman the first thing you do is you analyse (yes, big thanks to our subconscious brain) her looks and physical potential.

That’s how our ancestors (the cave men) where judging if a woman was able to give them healthy offspring. We, women, also judge men. Though physical looks is a little less important for us. What matters for women is whether the man they choose is able to protect them and their children. To take care of them. To be the real man who is not afraid of taking decisions.

We can cheat ourselves, but we cannot cheat biology.

1. WHEN YOU JUDGE LOOKS – YOU JUDGE CHARACTER

Physical appearance is important. It’s something more than just a neat face and a nice ass. Good looks is character, because nice asses and faces do not fall from the sky, nor they are given by a magic long-haired fairy.

The truth is that to look good you need to put some effort into it. A beautiful body, sexy ass and slim belly are not genetically passed on. At least, not in 80% of the cases. You simply need to work for it and this is the place where your character comes in and opens the doors. Will you have enough stamina and motivation to go through?

Marc was recently training a girl who was working in banking at Paradeplatz. He noticed that after the training she ate a bowl of a healthy salad, immediately followed by three chocolate bars. He saw it and simply uttered: “Once you pop, you can’t stop. Life is a no dolce vita baby. Either you go for the schoggi bars and cheat yourself that “you wanna be beautiful” or you get down to a plank and work these bars off“.

Character is the key to your looks.

2. IN HEALTHY BODY HEALTHY SPIRIT

Let’s discuss another example. This time of Maria, a good-looking woman in her forties working for a cryptocurrency company. “How would I feel arriving at work knowing I didn’t shower, didn’t eat my healthy breakfast and put the clothes I really dislike? Awful. I do it for myself to stay healthy and also to the people I love like my husband and daughter. Well, everybody enjoys being in the company of a good-looking and well cared-for women. Here in Switzerland, we call it “gut gepflegt”. We once were looking for office assistant and the manager employed one woman. On her first day she came to the office and she looked like taken straight from bed. Hair flying in all directions, no make up, no neat clothing. When I see such people I know they don’t take good care of themselves. Maybe lack of self-love is the issue…“

A healthy and good-looking body is a sign of your good mental health. If you’re a couch potato everybody will be able to see it without having asked you. Your body and your attitude to it will show it.

3. SELF-LOVE AS A TOOL ENABLING LOVING OTHER PEOPLE

Have you ever wondered why you have your body? It serves you so well, it keeps you moving, it digests all the fast things which you sometimes feed it. Yet you fail to look after it. Your avatar is the cosmic suit for your soul. The way you look and the way you treat it shows how much you love yourself.

Yes, loving yourself. Do you remember the biblical commandment “Love your neighbour like yourself“? Hm. Loving yourself was put on the 1st position. Only then, you can love other people.

Taking care of your body and looks is an act of self-love. Stop for a moment and think: how much time per day you think about other people and how to please them? Then, compare how much time you devote to taking care of yourself. What was the last time you went to the SPA or to the gym?

The hard truth is that you don’t look like the best version of yourself, because you don’t love and accept yourself. If you did, you would know that you are a unicorn, not a sheep, and you deserve to be treated like one.

Heads up unicorns! Look in the mirror and say to yourself: “Yes, I am a unicorn. And I love myself”.

First step done. Congratulations! Now it’s time to hit the gym and burn the chocolate bars of the cage circling your looks.

Plantation of Creativity Team