Home sweet home

I felt like I had witnessed the arriving of spring in Switzerland in the two weeks that I spent there. When I arrived it was the deepest of winter, lakes frozen over, powdery, snowy paradise... and when I left: Snowdrops everywhere, sunshine, all the buds ready for some inaudible signal to start exploding with flowers and the meadows soggy and muddy from the melting snow.
I had assumed that similar things had happened in the South, but of course this is the South and everything is a little bit better here...
Here it's short sleeves and breakfast in the sun, sunglasses and the feeling like I should have left my tights at home. ^^

Oh, and tourists! ;o)

Hope you are having the wonderfullest of weeks. I can't wait to get more creative again after all this social time I've had now. I've got big plans... and I'm going to tell you all about them, of course. At least you guys listen to me. That's why I love you. ^^
Kisses

Fairyland

At the moment, I am sure that my life is a fairytale. Everything is coming together like in a dream. A good one... You know how sometimes life feels like your swimming against a stream?
Well, right now, life feels like floating on gentle, warm waters, feeling completely immersed and at peace, joyful, full of trust... things are not perfect, but from my perspective, I feel the soft water and I'm looking up into the blue blue sky and I know: Life is good.

We're traveling back to Montpellier tomorrow and my parents are coming, too. They're staying until Thursday, so Wednesday will be spent city-watching and there might be some good food involved. ^^
On facebook the other day I mentioned another change that will affect you guys too and don't worry, I'll spill the beans this week, it won't be long now! ;o)

See you soon! <3

The universe is with you

If you have a bright thought today, send it my way, I will use them all to create the big magic that is going to happen this afternoon, as I step into the ritual circle to change my life. 

Awakening the dreamer

Always, but more clearly so in the times of transitions, I awe at how things come together in life. Coming home from a shaking ritual of goodbye to the old ways, I somehow find my way on the web to the pages of the Pachamama Alliance.
Within an hour of letting past things go, I am presented with new perspective, hopes and inspiration. May they bless you, too!



Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream, 15 minute trailer from Vivian Dittmar on Vimeo.

A short reminder for awesomeness

Live juicy. Stamp out conformity. Stay in bed all day. Dream of gypsy wagons. Find snails making love. Develop an astounding appetite for books. Drink sunsets. Draaaaw out your feelings. Amaze yourself. Be ridiculous. Stop worrying…now! If not now? Then when? Make "yes!" your favourite word. Marry yourself. Dry your clothes in the sun. Eat mangoes naked. Keep toys in the bathtub. Spin yourself dizzy. Hang upside down. Follow a child. Celebrate an old person. Send a love letter to yourself. Be advanced. Try endearing. Invent new ways to love. Transfrom negatives. Delight someone.Wear pajamas to a drive in movie. Allow yourself to feel rich without money. Be who you truly are and the money will follow. Believe in everything. You are always on your way to a miracle.

Thanks, Alexa! <3

A short update

Heya everyone,
blogger just published an empty post whilst I was away... really weird!
I've been out meeting people all weekend and until yesterday - so many great moments and hours and hours of good discussions!
Now I'm at home, taking the three days until Saturday to prepare for my initiation ritual.
Mainly I'm trying to keep open for more inspiration or insights that might happen, but whilst I'm doing that I'm just taking it easy, drinking a lot of tea, meditating, taking walks and going with the flow. At the moment I just feel unusually tired and I'm actually quite glad about it, it seems to be a sign that my mind and body are able to let go.
Since I'm trying to keep my screentime during those days to a minimum, I'm just typing this and might return to my Sudoku (I'm afraid I might be addicted...) afterwards.
I hope you're having a great week!
Sending love to everyone!

Self portrait Thursday - week 7 of 2012!

Hooray, the first self portrait of 2012! I really just forgot to do them once I couldn't upload pictures and then continued to... shame on me! That's going to be different from now on. So here it is:

I'm not actually sure... I think I just wanted to draw stars... I'm jumping from light to light... you could say that the stars are the ideas or projects or goals I'm working on.
Or probably the many many people I'm meeting at the moment - every day of my two weeks in Switzerland is full with coffee and dinner dates - that's a good thing about living abroad. When you are home, everyone actually takes the time to come see you.
I hope your day held some shining star-moments for you, too!
Good night ;o)

How I've been living sugarfree for nine months

It's been almost nine months now since I started a sugarfree diet in May 2011, and I thought it was about time I updated you about what's cookin' chez yaga. 

You can read my first summary after a month of going without refined sugar here.
I also wrote a more general article and guide about going sugarfree here. 

6months sugar free. Talk about smug.

 
How the decision to go sugarfree has affected my life so far
Looking back now on these days in May last year, I smile and I'm a bit tempted to give myself a pat on the back. Going sugarfree has definitely been one of the best and most lifechanging decisions I made in my life.

• As I said in my last post, I feel phisycally lighter and more energetic. I did not lose a lot of weight, but I feel I have gained flexibility and body consciousness.
• My mind feels clearer and more balanced.
• It is easier for me to handle mood swings and depressive phases, although they still occur. 
• My PMS has definitely changed character. I am still sensitive, whiny and complicated in the days before my period, but this is nothing compared to the instable, aggressive, self-destructive mess I got myself in before the switch to a sugarfree diet.
• I have almost eliminated foodcravings from my life. I used to have cravings and think about eating maybe 80% of my waking time before the switch. Now I am much less emotionally attached to food. I mostly eat when I'm hungry and if i have cravings I am more able to identify the root of them and react accordingly.
• I am able to make much more conscious and healthy food choices. My diet has improved when I met Trev and he reintroduced me to cooking actual meals and the idea of a nutritionally balanced diet (I used to live from readymeals, sandwiches and pizza delivery before that), but it again got a bazillion times better since last spring. 
• This has to do with the fact that I am now able to read my body's language of reactions when it comes to food. I learned what foods nourish my body and give me energy. I have begun to get a feeling for a balanced diet. I get immediate feedback from my body if I eat low-quality food or food that my body can't handle well (like dairy - veganism will be a topic of my next diet post).
• Oh and I almost forgot: I have not had a single migrane attack since last spring. 

When I look at this list I totally feel like it was so worth the effort!

What my diet looks like now
In the course of learning to listen to my body's likes and dislikes of certain foods and the fact that we lived with a couple of vegan and dairy intolerant people, as well as my ongoing research about food production has led me to the conclusion that a vegan lifestyle is what I'm aiming for.
Thus, if ever possible, my diet avoids milk products and eggs (I don't have a problem with honey) as well as meat and sugar.

Slowly, I am also beginning to experiment with reintroducing some kinds of sugared food into my diet. I'm eating white bread, for example, and in the rare occasion of ordering fries, I will eat the ketchup. I am not quite sure yet if and how exactly this will affect me. I still feel like I'm lightyears away from the state of being able to have an occasional cookie and then leave the rest of the package in the cupboard untouched. 

Problem's I've had during this period
I definitely don't want to tell you that I have gone through these nine months without eating even a morsel of sweetened food, cravings or binging. Oh yes, all of this happened.
Once, for example, we had chinese takeout and I ordered sweet and sour and after I had eaten every last bite of it Trev said: "You know that they definitely put sugar in that sauce, don't you?" I was devastated. It seemed obvious, then, how could I have not thought about it? And I had eaten it all... I felt very bad. ^^

Well, it happens. It also happens that I have occasional days - mostly linked with my period or a stressful situation - when I feel like I'm back at square one again. I'm pacing back and forth in front of the fridge, wishing something sweet would appear in there by magic to soothe my horrible, horrible cravings. I'm eating all kinds of weird food like mustard on toast, pure tomato sauce and handfuls of almonds trying to find the one thing that will make the feeling that I had to eat something stop, and it just doesn't help.
Christmas has also been a though time, and I admit I've had an occasional cookie, although I was surprised at how well I held up (I had planned on giving myself an 'out-of-jail-free' card for that time but felt I didn't need it in the end).
So yeah, it wasn't nine months of totally sugar free.
It just happens, it's part of the game.

It also totally happened that I caved in about two weeks ago and begged Trev to bring me some choccolate cake because I had been dreaming about choccolate cake for two nights in a row and I just really, really needed a choccolate cake date.

AND it is totally true that I ate at least five lindor choccolate balls today. And a big spoonful of cheese potatoes.
Jap.

I don't regret these episodes, though. They teach me a lot. First of all, it's ok to let go sometimes. Sometimes it's not my body that needs food, it's my soul. And whilst it should learn to thrive from other things than food, every once in a while I feel like my soul and I should totally go for a choccolate-honeymoon. :o)
It still confirms though that I still can't do moderation. It just doesn't work. Once I started, I CAN NOT stop myself. Even if it makes me feel sick. My body speaks very clearly to me in these situations. My gurgling, cramping stomach, the sicklish feeling in the back of my throat and the horrible ache in my head are screaming at me to stop.
And I just can't.
If I needed any more motivation to cut it off again, the creepyness of this situation would totally be it.

Valentine's day thoughts

 Listen children to a story that was written long ago
'bout a kingdom on a Mountain and the valley folk below.

On the mountain was a treasure buried deep beneath a stone, 

and the valley people swore they'd have it for their very own.

So the people of the valley sent a message up the hill

asking for the buried treasure, tons of gold for which they'd kill.

Came an answer from the kingdom: "With our brothers we will share

all the secrets of our mountain, all the riches buried there."

Now the valley cried with anger; mount your horses, draw your sword, 

and they killed the mountain people, so they won their just reward.

Now they stood beside the treasure, on the mountain, dark and red,

turned the stone and looked beneath and "Peace on Earth" was all it said.

*~*On this Valentine's day, think about what love you can give to heal the world*~*

Sshh - I'm writing a masterplan!

In the past week, inbetween trying to find a flatmate for next month, babysitting and having my sweet sister as a guest, I didn't really get much time to think and organise.
I am a person who loves to have an overview. Making a plan motivates me more than anything else. Having things all lied out in front of me, neatly ordered by topic or importance, marked with different colors... add some cute stickers and I'm totally in!
I also really really need time to do this. To sit down and think, write down endless lists, then make lists off these lists and order those lists in neat folders. Some things need a big page to be written down on. Others are snippets of thoughts, philosophic insights or just personal ramblings that go into my diary. Things that will be used often or very simple to do lists go in my carry-on notebook. To do lists for computer-related things I write on desktop stickie notes. Webpages I want to look at more closely one day get filed in my favourites.

So a 'planning and thinking' session is jumping back and forth between different mediums, sometimes closing my eyes and just thinking or meditating, sometimes writing or typing furiously. It's something I do with fervor and is totally sacred for me.

That's what I've been doing yesterday. Amongst other things, I wrote down a spiritual manifesto, invented a couple new rituals, created an outline for my spiritual life and wrote a blogpost about my diet.
Quite a productive day, I would say.

The thing about planning your life? You have to accept you will never be finished. As long as you live you will be adapting, changing, rearranging, writing down new dreams and plans... it's a wonderful firework.
I've created an impormptu altary of gratefulness to remember myself that it is not about putting the last tick on the list, but about enjoying the process of achieving all the wonderful things you wrote on that list.

What plans are you excited about or what dreams for your life do you have these days?

Why family and homes are amazing!

Holdriooh, here I am in Switzerland! ^^ Jack Frost sure has made an appearance here, but there is snow, and that makes me feel like at least we get something for enduring the cold: Everything looks pretty. I love sitting at the kitchen table at my parent's place and see tiny snowflakes peacefully float down in the streetlight in the evening, or looking over the misty outlines of the forest in the distance in the afternoon, and watching the sunrays dance on the white bark of the birch tree across the road.

snow in switzerland

I've had a very busy period since we moved to Montpellier. I was trying to make sure I made the most of every moment of my stay. Me and France, we have a history. A history of childhood memories of glorious summers, spent camping in the south. A history of heartbreaks, first loves, and the bittersweet times when a childhood's magic world turns into something you point at on a map. A history of falling in love all over again, making new memories and creating new magic.
It has been my dream to make this place in the world my home and to be able to speak French confidently for a long time.
Now that it has become reality, I suddenly felt a lot of pressure to make it as good as I possibly could. It has been fun, organising language exchanges and starting to build a network, trying to hack my way into French culture, trying to find a job... but also tiring and a tiny bit frightening.
That is just how it has to be and I wouldn't want to change a thing, really. But now that I got some distance I realise that I needed a break quite badly.
I have been worrying about a number of things - too many to be worried about at the same time. The worry drained me and made me much less productive than I could have been.

busy

When I arrived home, I was surprised by how utterly at home I felt. Everything is so friendly and welcoming here. I know every corner, every tree around here... this is my territory, my homeground. The flat, still the same rooms, the same furniture... everything so cosy and warm and embracing.
And of course, the people, my family. My parents have always been utterly (sometimes riddiculously so) supportive of me and I was never in doubt that I could fall back on them if there was a need. I also did, a few times and I have always felt grateful for it.
But it seems like this time, it was just exactly what I needed at exactly the right time, and it seemed to me that I have never been so deeply moved by how blessed I am in this.

peaceful

I have been rid of a very big load on my shoulders by my parent's generous offer to support me financially until I find a job - money issues have been heavy on my mind for a couple of weeks. Trev has supported me a lot for the past few months, partly because it was his delayed graduation that had made it impossible for me to take a steady job this summer, but mostly just because he's the sweetest guy in this world. But he'll be up in Scotland having to support himself and another flat next month and I'm starting to feel bad relying on him so much and had planned to be independent again by March.
Sadly, there is not much happening in my life jobwise atm and I started to feel stressed and pressured. Well, now I don't have to, anymore and I feel very grateful for that.

Talking about money is awkward, isn't it? It's weird. I don't feel like I'm poor but I'm used to living with little and want to keep it that way. I don't feel like money is something I don't want to talk to you about. This is about my lifestyle and how it works. And sometimes, well, it doesn't work so well. ^^

I just needed to get this out of my head.

I think, next week it will be time for another big post about my diet. It's been almost nine months since I went sugarfree, and there have been some other changes, too.
Don't miss it. You can follow me with Google friend connect or on facebook to be informed of new posts.

Happy Sunday!

Ice affairs

Even though it is not as bad as the stories we hear from Zurich, the cold weather has reached us here in the south, too.

This poor plant in a pot on our terasse got iced in when some id* weird person left on a sprinkler during the night. This is what we found the next morning.

I honestly don't know what I'm going to do when I get to Switzerland tomorrow... I'm already wearing all my clothes here, and it's supposed to be even colder up there. I think I will have to stay inside and huddled under a blanket all day.

Wait, that's pretty much what I do here, too! It'll probably have to be two blankets. oO
There is a fountain down in town that got frozen over, too. I saw a little girl that wanted to try and walk on the ice, but it was realy only thin... luckily she got saved by her dad! :o)

I'm having my ritual on the 25th and I'm already shivering when I think about it - not because I'm nervous but because I imagine how cold it will be... I had planned on wearing something pretty, but I guess I'll just make it into something as warm as possible.
Oooh! I'm off to make a cup of tea! 

Retro treasures from the beach

We didn't find any pretty shells, but we brought a bottle of sand and many pictures, and even more memories.

Although it was frosty and windy, we kept our spirits up and enjoyed our little adventure! :o)