Elephant Tango 2 (…or rather the absence of it)

Now it´s high time for the report about our visit to the café the previous weekend before I forget all about it.

Ah, no! Yet another thing first: I found the comments, and likes and some of you even chose to click the FOLLOW option!!

Thank you, I am honoured! – how very encouraging… and exciting!!  <3!

But now, some words on the joy of a Saturday in June:

Spring in Austria had been rather rainy before, but that day the sun was out. The light was strong and golden on the succulent fresh leaves of the greens in our street (they had obviously enjoyed the rain) and there was a faint smell in the air, as if the lime trees were using the mild temperature to have a second go at blooming. We took the Underground to the city nevertheless, the U2 line, and got off at Rathaus. The “Café der Provinz” is situated in the 8^th district of Vienna, in a part that consists of some blocks of rather old houses, not very high and linked by narrow streets, some of them cobbled, so even the walk there is a pleasure (when we entered a quiet little square opening up from the Tulpengasse a white horse drawn cab came towards us, and for a moment I felt that this was a bit much, had we stumbled into a set for some historic play?).

The Café is in yet another lovely, narrow street, and I have been there before in winter, enjoying the cosy atmosphere inside, but I really fell for it only when my friend I. took me there to sit in the outdoors dining area- it´s very charming due to the overall atmosphere, there´s not a lot of traffic, so it is peaceful, too, and as I don´t like to be in the sun, the reliable shadow provided by the house is just perfect.

There is a French touch to the menue, “Café der Provinz” sounds nice because it seems to bring a bit of provincial Austria to the capital, but actually there is a connection to the “Provence” in France, and they offer a large variety of savoury buckwheat pancakes (called Galettes) and sweet ones (called Crépes) and also freshly made wafers with sweet toppings – and all of the ingredients are organic, gorgeous! So even though the place exists for over ten years, with its nicely put together interior, the friendly staff and the healthy food it is quite up to date.

We sat there for two or maybe three hours, enjoying our meals (for me it was Galette Fontaine with sardines, cheese, onions, tomatoes and a fried egg on top), then reading the newspaper, exchanging or discussing bits of what we just read as we often do, then ordering another round of drinks (non-alcoholic beer for me, after all it said on the label that it helps the body to fend off free radicals, so obviously I only did it for the sake of health ;O) and a dessert, and the time went by in a blissful, calm and tender flow.

That day no elephant showed up wanting to Tango, no headache, just feeling fine, even though there was quite a lot activity and even music for a while on the Maria Treu square (the one that you see at the end of the street in the picture… sorry I´m not much of a photographer, but I hope that I caught some of the atmosphere and also that I will get better!) That square is worth a visit, too, it´s quite picturesque and there are the outdoors dining areas of an Italian restaurant and a café there, for those of you who enjoy the sun more than me.

And concerning the Dolce far niente, cancelling everything and so on I will report some more in following entries… it is a slow progress of course, you don´t want  to rush learning about things like that, -it would be an inconsistency, wouldn´t it?

Interlude: a Recipe for Happiness?

…did I really write it in brackets and in an “…and by the way…” fashion? I did, but I won´t leave it like that because that would be

a.) totally unaware and ungrateful

and

b.) not very attentive towards you.

b.) first: I sincerely hope that reporting on my progress and telling about what I learned on the way and how I learned it, will not only be fun for me and help me to gain clarity, but in one way or the other might also be of use for you.

And  a.) here´s the sentence from the previous post I am talking about

“(… and consciously choosing the way to look at things seems to be one of the more important recipes for happiness)” which is something that I have really only just learned, and it is worth a bit more detail than that.

Taking leadership in your own life was the first topic in the GGLS, and in short it means to not fall for seeing yourself as a victim of things that occur in your life, but to consciously decide to take something you don´t like so much on as a challenge and deal with it in an empowered way. Kirsten explained it to us in a much more elaborate and inspiring way, provided examples and strategies, and invited us to keep a focus on this approach for the following month.

Moreover as life goes we did not only get a chance to learn from each others´ experiences, the year 2012 brought a very challenging event to Kirsten´s life and we witnessed her walking her talk with breathtaking courage and grace.

Even with the best introduction and examples, it´s not easy, well, it wasn´t for me, even with small things. The change comes from many little decisions daily, reminding myself many times and striving for clarity constantly.

In the GGLS part of the progress comes from being allotted to a “bragging partner” (oh yes!, the concept of bragging, … I think that´s worth a post of its own…) for now let´s say a buddy to talk about the little steps you take regularly, and I am grateful to M. who told me about her way of doing something not unlike the “taking leadership” by blessing whatever comes her way.

It had to be tried and: blessing is quite hot, too! Both approaches change the energy or vibe of a situation immediately, and blessing to me brings in a certain benevolence and hmmm, … can I say connection to an inner greatness? At first it felt slightly too holy to me (“So who are you to go around blessing others?” my inner critic chimed in) but after all – we bless the person who sneezes next to us with our well meant wishes, so we might as well do it in other cases!? (…that is, if we remember to do it at the very moment someone upsets us! ;O)

Some months later T. was my buddy and she added yet another useful piece of information to the leadership concept. How did we come across it? I think I mentioned how I felt that sometimes my emotions are taking over the steering wheel and whoops, there goes leadership in a flash. And she pointed out that emotions are best to be seen as a message, a sign of how you intuitively react to a situation. That doesn´t mean that you have to act out the emotion, but it is certainly good to consider what the emotion has to say and then act upon it (and –that´s the bonus- not necessarily in the groove of the initial emotion, but with the attitude that has the best chances to succeed in the task at hand… grown up, grounded determination mixed with love?… would be one of my favorite choices, I think!).

Maybe you do all this already quite naturally and with ease (in that case: my utter respect!!), to me it was new and it was helpful to consider and train it. Looking back to the beginning of this post- “…. consciously choosing the way to look at things….”- I think, I am beginning to do it, it has become a bit of a habit to me (that is my excuse for writing about it so shortly in the first place ;O). But now, considering it more carefully, I am happy and very grateful for that progress.

Could it be that everyone develops their very own way of doing it? I´d say my personal way of taking leadership turns out to be asking: “What was that good for?” and well, depending on what happened just before that, it may sound more like: “What the …. was that good for??!!” and still it means: what can I learn from this occasion? My mind likes this kind of question, sounding somewhat paradox in the beginning, and comes up with all kinds of possible lessons to learn from an initially not so hot experience, and also with ideas how to handle or even avoid it in the future.

In case you now think I tend to see myself a bit like a student, someone who has a lot to earn about life, you are right! Maybe you would, too, in a situation like mine. I still get a lot of chances to decide between the role of the student and the role of the victim, and given the choice I´d say: the student part feels much better, indeed!

Elephant Tango 1

Now that´s funny (if I choose to look at it in an optimistic way, and consciously chosing the way to look at things seems to be one of the more important recipes for happiness):

here I was thinking “Yay, the structure for the blog is here, now I can go and post whenever I feel I have something to share!” and what came next was a bad cold and a painful sinusitis, and any kind of work I tried to do was ended by my head thumping like a herd of elephants was learning to tango in there.

After a week I began to feel better, and as Saturday came my beloved and I thought it was time to celebrate with a visit to a very nice café (more on that later, I know I promised to report on the joy that I create in my life, and joyful it was!).

Only the next day it was back to bed because I was sooo exhausted, I had judged the effect the infection has had on my body totally wrong.

That gave me time and reason to think….

…. about how I had spent the days when the pain was rather bad, how I had used every moment when I felt a little clearer to get some writing and some networking done, until the elephants upstairs got busy again, instead of cancelling everything and resting.

….. wohah!!!…  cancelling everything!!!?

I never managed to do that in the whole Time Out that I manufactured for myself, by myself  (because I´m really no good when it comes to asking for help, and what I had heard about the classical treatment to Burn Out – psychiatric drugs and six weeks of compulsory group therapy just scared the living daylights out of me).

(Important note 1: that is me being really, really stupid!! If you are in a Burn Out crisis or something just  slightly resembling it, do ask for help and do find the support that sounds good for you, NOW!, instead of continuing to read this! And also: I have learned to appreciate group therapy as a useful tool years ago, so I am not criticizing it altogether.)

(Important note 2: I was not all alone! Kirsten and the Global Goddess Leadership School gave me the courage to put an end to the years of painful and hopeless struggle and take a break! Only the GGLS is not a treatment especially geared towards Burn Out! It is a life changing, delightful joy booster in general but not the perfect cure in this special case.)

So in the end my thinking came to this result:

It is amazing how writing, the texts that I wrote thinking they might become posts, and the texts that I write now have an influence on my life and insights, writing really helps to get clearer!

Concerning the situation now: in the ”About this blog” text I had mentioned that this journey is also about leaving my workaholism behind, even though I had never focused very much on this part of the imbalance. Too busy getting a grip on the symptoms.  Now I see it is time to take a closer look at this – or no!! No way!!…. Energy flows, where attention goes!- as Kirsten likes to remind us, and “Stop studying your problems, start studying your pleasure!” as Mama Gena puts it, so I will certainly not look closer at my tendency to be an overly busy bee, I will keep that in mind and have a closer look at the art of Dolce far Niente, learning to be lazy, refusing the rush of activity, attracting the swaying swing of relaxation, – oh my, how I will do that?…yet another unchartered territory!

…err, on that note, the report from the lovely little café will come in the next post, I can feel an elephant  showing up for Tango practice! …hush! Go home little trunk bearing guy, no dance today!

Soul Snacks: the film Mademoiselle Populaire

Friday after starting this adventure here I got lucky. My beloved and I went to the cinema, which is a real treat, we hardly ever make it (well, let´s say, in the past we hardly ever made it, it think this should change ;O) and “Mademoiselle Populaire” was the one film that sounded fun and started at the right time (here´s a link to an English description  and a German cinema site) and moreover it plays in a nice cinema (the Actors Studio, which is  a small and charming venue situated right in the center of Vienna).

And hooray!!, so I get a chance to start a category of posts that I had in mind: every now and then I want to tell you about a book or a film or music or other things that I really like. I have grown quite picky with what I take in. Now I am not good at analysing the media I consume in a very theoretical way, what really matters to me is the emotional quality something conveys: if it feels as if the author likes his/her characters, if a life affirming attitude can be felt throughout the story, if reading, watching, listening is fun and leaves me in a positive mood then it´s good for me.

It´s a shame that some of the things that I recommend might not be so easy to get today (in case you get curious), even the film that I have seen just these days might not be in the cinemas near you right now. And did you notice how quickly books disappear from the pages of the big A online bookstore? (… some of my all time favourites may date back a little) I have found these second hand worldwide booksellers only recently and haven´t tried them yet, but I will …

So please:  if you happen to be a bit of a hunter and gatherer in the media field, and you have some great advice to share, do!

Back to Mademoiselle Populaire, the first entry in …what will I call it?…. “soul food” (wow, that sounds too grand, even though I think that´s what it is basically), “feelgood stuff” (too open)… so for now it will be “soul snacks”….

I liked this film because it is beautifully made (1950ies retro style), the story is Nice with a capital N, there are some charming characters played by lovely actors, and – what made me write about it today: when we left the cinema I felt happy and elated, and I was glad I was wearing a skirt (a still rather rare occasion, also something that could change) that amplified the joyful swing in my gait (which I know is a rather unusual criterion in a film review but luckily this is just a blog post, and I do think it is a worthy reason). :O)

The only thing I did not like was how women where portrayed in some scenes from a quite 50ish point of view (well, that comes with the whole story) and as bitchy and unfair competitors, luckily that was balanced sufficiently through the lovely power of the two leading ladies, …well, good enough to make that skirt of mine swing…

… a good time to start!

   ….o.k. …wow! …am I really writing my first post on this blog!? Looks quite like it, so :

Hello!! So good you´re here, oh my, and so good I am here, too! I´ve been thinking about starting this for quite a while, and starting it now is a little victory – over my perfectionism, that is! Because I really haven´t quite understood the software yet, and so I can´t control what everything looks like (e.g. on my screen the photo looks somewhat horrible). And the widgets to the right, well, they are the default settings, no idea how to manage those (but I will get help)! And I don´t know how to …I think it´s called hyperlinks!?… how to create a link from something I mentioned to a relating website, which I would love to do with the names of wonderful people I mentioned in my “about” text.

What a mess! But I guess, this is going to be a messy blog – again: farewell to perfectionsim, the destructive emperor!… hehe, if only you could see my wide smile as I write this… it might get messy as far as the time line is concerned, because I started writing some texts earlier, before I dared to touch wordpress, and I want to post them. Also:  I don´t know if I will post regularly, or often, or rarely. And it might get messy in the emotional way, too. I thought about only writing about the positive, joyful steps I take, but leaving out the parts where I still struggle would not show the true picture. So some of my emotional mess will also make it to these pages, but no worries: I certainly perfer to focus on joy and happiness and laughter!!

oh! ah!… and right now I have no idea how to handle comments, so please if you find this, and you even write back to me, forgive me, it might take a while before I can get back to you! Well, let´s see! :O)))