Who am I?

Who am I?

For many years I’ve been struggling with the question of my essence. What is it that I’m really good at? What is it that makes me unique? What is my role and my purpose?

And after asking myself those questions for many years, I finally got clearer answers a few weeks ago, when I realized, that I was trying to put myself into predefined boxes, that didn’t really fit.

My process

I felt like a puppet on a string, until I had realized that I needed to let go of those ideas and definitions and openly look at what I do. That process of realization and anger (described in Puppet on a string), and now letting go and opening up, were the most important steps in my process of figuring out who I am. read more

Puppet on a string

Puppet on a string

Have you ever felt like you were torn into pieces from many different sides and helpless to step out of it and realize that it’s just your mind playing tricks on you? – Well, that’s how I felt really intensely for most of the day yesterday.

Like I mentioned in my last post about purely being me, I’m really good at anticipating what others want and expect of me. But I didn’t realize until the last few days, of how it seeped into many different parts of my path to be self-employed and build up my business. I didn’t know at all how to handle that completely new process of being on my own, deciding for myself, what to do almost every single minute. No idea, how to really focus and build up a project like that from scratch. read more

Purely me

purely elizabeth - Photocredit: Elisabeth Demeter

A few days ago I got a special gift: a grain-free superfood bar with the name “Purely Elizabeth”. It made me laugh and be thankful, but also reminded me again, how important it is, to be truly, purely myself.

It seems that we constantly hear and read about being authentic and being you and being true to yourself. But what does that actually mean? I read a wonderful article about that topic by Manuel Harand (article only available in German), writing about his journey to his truth and it touched me deeply. For many years I’ve been on my path to be honest and tell my truth, not hiding behind white lies. But the painful realization is, that I’ve only been scratching on the surface, not really being completely honest to myself in that path. I touched on that in a previous article on vulnerability and expression of self. But it goes much deeper than that. read more

floating with the river…

floating with the river…

Last week I was embarking on a new journey full of challenges and new experiences.

I was offered to join a small group of people to go on a 3 day, 3 night adventure with the canoe into the Northwoods of Wisconsin. It was organized and facilitated by the Teaching Drum Outdoor School, so the main goal was a full immersion into the land and to learn and experience to use simple (some would say primitive) tools and techniques to help to get really connected with the natural world around you.

we are starting…

When we started, my feelings were a mix of excitment, curiosity and fear, which is a mix I know all to well, since most of my adventures start off like that. The only difference might be the intensity of one feeling over another. read more

I’m fed up!

I’m fed up!

I didn’t write for such a long time, because I always valued other tasks as more important. Task for my job, tasks for the projects I’m part of, tasks my friends or family asked me to, tasks that I thought were expected of me.

No matter what, it was always more important than to do the things that made me happy at the moment. And when I finally had time, I had to play a defiant little child almost as long as I had worked before. Every time I was mad at myself afterwards, that I didn’t assign my wishes a higher priority. That anger and defiance was expressed in a way that I just didn’t want to do anything any more. Not even the things that would make me happy. read more

pressure and the need to do something

pressure and the need to do something

It has been a time of highs and lows for me the past few weeks. I’m usually very easily overwhelmed by my emotions, so I constructed an intricate pattern of safety nets, not to get tangled up in them. This has – for a long time – served me well in supporting me not to feel very much at all. The side effect of it is though, that the emotions don’t really go away. They are still here, they seem to be getting stronger, and I feel like I can’t handle them, because I’m not used to it. read more

Vulnerability and Expression of Self

Vulnerability and Expression of Self

In my live now and again I achieved smaller and bigger things that I’m proud of, but never really showed publicly or kept as small as possible. I didn’t even really admit it to myself, that I was proud. It was and still is really hard for me, to really show myself.

I did manage to show parts of what I accomplished and some of my thoughts in my previous blog Wandering Treechild, but was always too afraid to connect it to my name. I always had the feeling that I wasn’t ready to open myself up to the effects that it would generate. Would I loose my credibility at my previous work? Or some future work? Would I embarrass someone that knows me? read more

One of those days/weeks/months…

cat

Have you ever had a time in your life where it felt almost impossible to sit at the computer one more second than absolutely necessary? Well, that’s what happened to me. Somehow I was functioning, but my inspiration was missing. I had ideas of what to write about, but for the life of me couldn’t sit down and form it into words. But I want that phase to be over, so with this post, I let you know: I’m still alive and kicking :-). I even (almost) finished translating my older posts into german! read more

Home is where my heart is

Sonnenuntergang

I’ve been asking myself: When does a house become a home? – Well, I found the answer in an old folk song (probably from the Natives of North America, but I never verified it):

I’ve been travelling a day,
I’ve been travelling a year,
I’ve been travelling a lifetime,
to find my way home.

Home, is where my heart is
Home, is where my heart is
Home, is where my heart is,
My heart is my home.

My heart IS my home, but since I put so much of my heart into my little house, it is now also part of my home. My home also includes people I call family and dear friends, so I’ll probably never be truly homeless, but since I moved in, I do feel like I’ve come home. Being in my tiny house feels like a warm hug by a loved one. Not perfect by outside standards, but perfect in my eyes, including all its imperfections. read more

bad hair day?

Haare mit Stärke

For a long time now I wasn’t very happy with the fact that I could find shampoo only in plastic bottles and mostly filled with who knows what exactly. This got me started in looking for alternatives. How did the people wash their hair back in the day when there was no shampoo from the supermarket/factory?

I saw a short report on TV a few years back, where there was a guy cleaning his hair by “rolling around in the dirt” like his donkey did. I was kind of confused how that would actually CLEAN the hair, but didn’t pay any more attention to it. read more