May you

What has 2012 been like?

At first I didn’t want to write a post like this to sum up the year, as if drawing the finishing line. But when I came to work in the morning I remembered my very first impressions of this company. I remember I was so excited after the first interview because I knew that I had found the place where I want to work. It was and it is exactly what I had in mind when I moved to Moscow. 

The office is almost empty today, it is the last working day before the long New Year’s holidays (we officially have 10 days off here in Russia). I don’t feel like doing anything work related and I am just sitting here with this feeling of inner happiness and satisfaction.

So what are the most important things I have learned and achieved in 2012:

- quit job and took the whole month off to connect with myself and decide which direction I want to go.

- moved to Moscow and learned that I can do things on my own. I had already changed different places of living, I moved to Los Angeles for a year and St. Petersburg, but in both cases there were people waiting for me and welcoming me to their homes. But here in Moscow I stayed on a friend’s couch for the first 3 weeks, but I had to find my home on my own.

- found my dream job. By myself. Without any connections or people who know people blah-blah-blah… - which is still quite a common belief in Russia that in order to get a good job you need to know the right people.

- travelled quite a lot, both within and outside of Russia.

- I am learning new food and health habits, adding more fruits and veggies to my daily menu, going for walks and swimming.

- I am learning to be myself, which for me means that I learn to speak up, to say my opinion out loud.

- And generally I became happier. I feel happier. Do you remember in the beginning of summer I wrote that I have to cry every 1-3 months, just to let the negative emotions out? Well, I haven’t had this urge to cry since August I think. I don’t have any hidden negative emotions that need to come out through tears. I feel content. I feel happy within.

Give promise

I want again to try and give a public promise. New Year is getting closer and closer and usually the New year's Eve means a loooot of food which is super hard to resist. And already in October when I began learning to eat healthy and started my weight-loss programme - already then I knew that the New Year's Eve will be an exception, I will let myself eat whatever I want. But what I didn't know was that I will have these cravings to eat whatever I want 10 days before the New Year's eve. It's been hard for me to keep up with my healthy routine and I have been eating since and choclate for the last 5 days. And this not good at all. What is good - is that I bought a ministepper, so that even when it is -20 C outside I will still be able to do have a morning walk. But just the walk will not help me stay in shape, I need to control my craving for sweets and chocolate cakes.
I have already promised my food coach Zhenya to try to be a good girl and stick to the right outine, but I fear that it might not be enough. So I give here a public promise to eat healthy starting from Januay 1st. Not 12 am on January first, we will still be celebrating at that time. But stating with January 1st brunch, I promise to behave? to be a good girl and to eat only the good food.
So my advice of the day is: if you are having trouble doing something that you should be doing, try giving a public promise. It doesn't have to be online, you can give a pomise to your friend, your family - to someone other than just you. Or - I just had a wonderful idea - maybe I should make a bet with my sister? Ok, I'll see if I can keep my promise and if it doesn't help me, then next time I will try the bet thing.

Take the steps

I just did a small exercise called TimeQuake suggested by the guys from Radical Undoing. The exercise is very simple - you need to think about the last 10 years of your life and write down the things which you would have done differently. It took about 5 minutes to finish the exercises, I have thought of 9 things, and more than a half of those things are the same/ So this means that I keep making one and the same mistake. What is even more sad - is that this is something that I have been dreaming for a looong time, it is something that I want more than anything else. And I have recently realised this problem, and I have realised what I am afraid of and what lies behind this fear - now I need a lot of courage to overcome this fear. It is like overcoming the fear of heights, you make one small step closer at a time. And after each step you see that it is not as scary as it seemed. Yes it is still pretty scary at the very edge, and I do feel terrified? especially if the edge is way up high, but the important thing is that I am stepping to this edge. So what I should start doing now is learning to make the same small steps in life, in this most important decisions. I need to change this habit of turning my back when I see the edge, only by getting a little closer and closer will I be able to discove if there is or there isn't real danger.
So my advice of the day is: there might be some things that scare you and in order to stop being scared try taking small steps. You might realise that there is actually nothing to be scared about and all that fear is just in your head.

Enjoy music

I had always wanted to have headphones. Not the small earbuds, but the real big headphones. And about a month ago I finally bought them. I saw them and could not resist. They are of a bright yellow and orange colour and are just totally me. But today is actually the first real time that I am using them. I can tell the music here sounds amazing. It is a totally different perception of music when you listen to it through laptop's speakers and through headphones.I feel absorbed by the music and at the same time it turned out to be quite easy to concentrate on other things. And I am also now searching for new music, new artist who inspire me. Music has become a part of my personal identity. I used to turn on a radio and just listen to what they had chosen for me. But as I was discovering myself, letting myself be who I am, my music preferences have also changed. Yes, I do still listen to a radio sometimes, and there are songs on the radio which I like, but I now have a more conscious approach to what I listen to. Music surrounds me every day and it does influence my mood and my outlook on the daily events. That's why I choose to choose music which brightens my days, with the lyrics which inspires me.
So my advice of the day is: create your own playlists with songs which resonate with you. Enjoy music.

Imagine your best year yet

It is that time of the year when we are striking the balance and finalizing the past 12 months and making new plans. So I am doing this as well. Today I did a guided visualisation with Donna (aka The Faiy Goddmother), also called The Serendipity exercise. I did this last year as well. And although not many of the things that I visualised actually came true, still 2012 has been a pretty good year, and I am even calling it my BEST YEAR YET. Today I have written down all the things that popped up in my head during the visualisation and I am super excited for 2013 and can't wait to see all these things coming true.
So my advice of the day is: dream big, imagine 2013 as your best year yet and get ready for it to really be so.

Let yourself fly

In a wold full of people only some want to fly. Isn't that crazy.
Alanis Morissette

Love these words from Alanis Morissettes' song Crazy (or is it a Seal's song?). I think there are so many possibilities for our dreams to come true, and only a few people choose to believe that their dreams are possible, that they can happen. Others just live by the day and notice only the bad things. But the world moves on thanks to the people who believe, people who keep trying to achieve their dream no matter how crazy they may sound. I remember reading in Mastin Kipp's blog (The Daily Love) about this: many people used to believe that people cannot fly and look at today's world - we are flying all over the planet and beyond. There could be lots of people who would say that your dreams are crazy, but please do not believe them. Know that anything is possible and with that truth in you heart it will really be so. Sometimes it is enough just to believe and to desire something, and it will happen. For example, today I thought of making a Chistmas present fo my manager and thought that it would be great if I could give her the sweets "Love Story" (they are super tasty, but they are produced in my hometown Cheboksary and it is hard to find them here in Moscow). But it just happened so that my cousine was driving through Moscow and asked if he could stay for a night at my place. And guess what he brought from Cheboksary?:) So know I have the exact gift which I wanted. You see, I myself did not have to do a thing except for thinking about it. Of course, in many cases just thinking is not enough, but almost always it is a huge part of the whole dream-come-true process.

So the advice of the day is: don't be discoueged by other people who not dare to believe. Let your self dream big, let youself fly.

Don't be afraid to try new things

Just this morning I returned from a short trip to Prague. It's quite a beautiful city, but I do not actually feel that excited about it. For example Madrid, where I also stayed for just 2-3 days, made me feel like I definitely need to come back to the city, whilst here it was "Yeah, I am happy to have visited Prague, it is quite a nice city, but at the end I do not feel inspired by it". But what I DO feel inspired about is oysters. I have tasted them for the first time yesterday, and OMG are they delicious! And so this discovery of oysters also made me feel inspired to not be afraid of trying new stuff. I was a bit of a coward when I was sitting in front of the oysters, my friend made me drink a glass of wine at one gulp to reduce the fear and then I finally got the courage to put this small stringy thingy into my mouth. And once it was in, I wanted to have more and more.
Can you imagine how many things there are out there that we do not know about, and this unknownness makes us scared to even try, to make a first move. It's ok if we try, and do not like it, or we try and we fail, or we try and hate it - the main thing here is to try, to EXPERIENCE the unknown in order to really understand it. I used to say that I don't like oystes, they are stringy and they should probably taste awful, but how could I possibly know, how could I objectively say that I did not like it? The same goes for everything else in our everyday life.
So the advice if the day is: got out there, experience live and do not be afraid to try something new even if it may seem to be scary.

Make presents

Today I saw this little announcement at the coffee corner at work about collecting presents for the senior citizens who live in the houses for the elderly. I saw this but on the way home totally forgot to go to a shop and buy the presents. But then I was talking to my sister and it turned out that she has seen the same announcement over the Internet and also wanted to contribute. So we bought the presents, wrapped the gifts and tomorrow I will take them to work so that soon they could be delivered to the addressees.
We have four presents, four people will smile and feel needed - and it only took us about an hour. So little time, so many people will get happier. You do not need great resources to bring happiness to other people's lives. A present could be your attention, kind words or a note, actually anything that shows that you care, shows that the other person matters, that he is needed.
So the advice of the day: make presents to people you know, people you don't know, to everyone who matters in your life.

Train your brain

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. And YOU are the one who'll decide where to go...”

― Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!

 Aghh, I have an exam in microeconomics in a couple of days, so I have been reading up a lot. So I can feel my brain twisting and sweating. It is a lovely feeling, though I cannot say that I fully appreciate it at the moment, because I do not like the exams.But I know what I am going to use it fo as soon as the exams are finished - reading. Reading and thinking about what I have read and making my own conclusions and maybe even writing down a short a summary of the book. I loved doing it last year. And I miss it now. So this exam is a great opportunity to wake up my brain and then start using it for the things I love.
So the advice of the day is: train your brain daily, do not let it fall asleep.

The power of written word

Yesterday I was looking through my notebook, the one where I used to write my plans for each day. I started doing so - planning every single day - last summer. And it was really helpful for me at that time. But as I got some steadiness in my thoughts it kind of became unnecessary, so lately I have been thinking to go back to this habit, because it helped me to stay focused on my dreams. I rememebr at that time I was phusically aware of how much time is just slipping through my fingers when I am browisng through facebook and just surfing the net. And I could not let that time just go by. And that was when I unsubscribed fom a lot of different groups, I stopped looking through the whole news section and just used social media for communicating with people how live in different cities and countries. But lately I am again spending a lot of time on the Internet doing nothing. So I opened my notebook in order to write down my plans for the weekend and I came across the page where I had listed all the things that I wanted to buy in 2012. I have totally forgotten about this list, and yesterday I was very surprised to see that I know have 90% of those things. Isn't it amazing?
So the advice of the day is: write down your dreams, your goals, your desies and just watch them happen!:)

Find motivation

I think I need to go back to my routine - back to writing posts every day. I have noticed that since I have given up on one thing, the other things followed. For example, I haven't gone for a marning walk for over 3 weeks now. And I remember how I used to love these walks. But now I am finding all the different excuses, like "it's winter, it's normal that I want to sleep more" or "it's probably cold outside, I'd rather stay here in my warm bed". And I do not like that. I want to feel that excited about walking as I did in the beginning. Because it IS good, I DID enjoy it. I need to find some motivation to start doing it again. So I hope that writing here will become my motivation and I will continue benefiting my health.
So the advice of the day is: find motivation. Sometimes you need it even for the things you love to do.