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Follow my colorful days and development as a graphic design student, experiencing a new life in warm Sydney on Billy Blue Collage of Design, described in detail with photos, colorful writing and other inspiring stuff. What tips am I learning? What is my project at the moment and how do I get to know Sydney? It will be like you’re with me.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Julig morgon & Ayurveda

Vilken morgon!

Jag super-klädde mig och lufsade ut i skogen i morgon-diset och kom hem till en varm nedbäddad daniel och även en varm dush kombinerat med tio minuters avslappning. Då känner man att man lever.

Efter detta en stor jäkla macka med juleskinka å senap och lusse-the till det. Mysigt! Så satte jag på radion, p3, och vem sitter inte där och snackar sig ut i mitt kök med sin välkända röst som man omöjligen kan hålla sig för skratt när man hör; MARIA MONTAZAMI som pratar om sina fina "Tassles"! Haha hennes fina tassles var hennes utomordentliga bidrag till en auktion där pengarna skänks till barn som har det svårt.

Fantastisk morgon.

Idag ska jag hålla två föredrag på engelska. Vi har en intensivkurs på två dagar med "making your point" där vi lär oss allt om att tala inför folk. Det känns jättekul och jag ett av dem skulle jag vilja dela med mig av till er för att det kanske kan hjälpa någon. Det är på engelska och här kommer det:






Ayurveda – inner strength in your everyday life


Try too feel how your back feels against the chair you're sitting at. Try to feel how your clothes feels on your body. And try to listen to one of the breath-ins and breath-outs you take, without thinking of anything else. Does all this feel unusual to you? For me this has felt unusual for my whole life until one year ago. I then discovered that my body wants to communicate to me. And as a Berghs Student to be I started to listen to it.

Hopefully you'll always keep something of the following in mind when you get into a very stressful period of your life, no matter if it is in your future communication business, a breakup or something else.

I worked with a family from Syria where they have a totally different way of working. I have always seen myself as a person with an unlimited amount of energy but in this family I was all chocked. It's amazing how their driving force for their work never tend to fade. I loved their extremely honesty in every thing we did, even though in some cases I had a hard time taking it from the beginning, and I became a part of their family.

The tempo was extremely high and everyone pushed everyone to everyone's maximum limit. Even though I worked for normal 8 hours, it was actually like running a stressful marathon for 8 hours with barely no time to eat. Also, what's typical me is that I did my best in every second of every working day, and I pushed myself further and further to be more and more quick and effective. When I didn't get proper food my body couldn't take this pressure. I started walking around with this inner stress all the time and it didn't even help when I went out running regularly anymore. When I came home I just bumped into bed but whilst there I couldn't sleep how much I tried, and I was exhausted the next day and the next day. I was in a bad circle and my body seemed to try to tell me this by getting me a hard time breathing. This was really punishing for me, I couldn't get my mind of it and after some months I almost got depressed. I realized that the only thing that tells me the through is my own body, so I quit the job but the problem with my breathing was still there. The stress was still inside of me, I tried a lot of things and one day my mother handed me a book called Ayurveda.

“Ayur” means life and “Veda” means knowledge in sanskrit, an old indian language. The book of Ayurveda describes our ability to avoid discomfort but also to feel well, powerful and a urge to live. With Ayurveda you can increase your understanding about yourself and why you have your good and bad habits and most importantly, what you need to feel good. You can get an understanding of what drives you in your career and which talents and strengths you could develop to reach your goals. According to the book a lot of elite athletes uses Ayurveda knowledge to increase their patience and achievement. The author of the book states that this science is not at all dogmatic but more a way of understanding how everything effects us.

Ayurveda divide personality types in three different categories; Vata, Pitta and Kapha. Most people are a little bit of everything although one of them is mostly dominant. When I started to read I burst into laugh. After two pages I realized that I was CLEARLY just one of them – Vata. It was almost frightening to read something that seems like a total “instruction manual for how Freja works”. There is some tests in the book where you get to grade for example how you move, how your skin type is, if you get easily tanned, how you react on something that is new, sleep, hunger, economy and so on. For example a certain personality type should mostly avoid hot food and go to bed before 11 to keep themselves in balance and so on. I learned that some people get more easily stressed than others and how to deal with that. I realized that I had never, in my whole life had some minutes where I just sat, quietly, with myself and my inner thoughts. I had just never thought of it, and that felt horrible. My body was trying to communicate to me that I was carrying inner stress and I started to listen to it. It feels strange and unusual in the beginning to sit down and not think for a while, and it demands practice. I set aside 15 minutes a day, that's all. I sit down before breakfast and start by listening to my breath as it pass in and out. When I feel that my thoughts is carrying me away it's no problem, I just try to focus again at my breathing. I also try to feel every part of my body, step by step as you did recently.

If I had not got this really stressful experience at that café I'm pretty sure I sometime in my future career would burnout. The thing is, many people think that they are not in the risk zone because they LOVE what they work with and just can't take a break. In fact, it is these people who are in the risk group. Because they have a harder time listening to what their bodies try to tell them and suddenly they just can't get out of bed one morning. Fortunately this didn't happen to me but I can't say I was far away. It's okay with stressful periods in your life as long as you always make sure to get a break afterwards or regularly.

With all this I want to encourage you to start listening to your selves. Your body is the only thing that you will always bring with you and it wants you all the best. Be smart and l­isten to it.



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