Feeling calm and present, I pour raspberry tea into my favorite cup. I have just devoted a couple of hours to my annual ritual – bringing my year to a close and celebrating the extraordinary things I’ve learned.

When I drink my tea it not only warms my body after a walk in the cold, it also warms my heart because it reminds me of Michaela Boehm who has the same Iittala cup that I do. Michaela is my embodiment teacher, who I have seen drinking tea many times over Zoom, in 2020. One key reminder this year was – it’s the small things that matter!

Today, I will share my personal journey from 2020, then, invite you to answer some powerful questions to help you to mindfully complete your year.

My Personal Journey

“I was disappointed when you didn’t keep your promise”.

“I don’t agree that you can spoil your child with too much love”.

This year I used my voice to speak up and say the truth more often. I didn’t swallow my feelings in a joke or a fake smile. It was a year when I skipped small talk and went straight to the essence of how my heart was doing.

Are you happy this challenging year is over?

Taking time to look back I realise the word “challenging” doesn’t speak to me here. I see it more as an extraordinary year, a year when the world gave me the opportunity to become more present than ever. A year when I was forced to home retreat, look the reality in the eye and stop procrastinating on what really matters.

Before, when something was problematic in my marriage, I would sometimes think “I won’t bring that up now, it will pass in a few days” or “my business is working well enough, it’s not necessary to do that right now” if I stumbled on technical difficulties.

All the things I occasionally procrastinated on before, I was forced to deal with right away.

When my father called from Sweden and shared that he had all the Covid-19 symptoms, I could not distract myself from my worry, since I wasn’t in the middle of a training or on holiday somewhere. (Thankfully, it turned out later he didn’t have Corona)

When my best friend, who lives in Stockholm, shared with me what her reality working in the intensive care unit looked like, I was not on my way out to have dinner with friends. I was sitting on my sofa and could take the time to fully face the sadness.

When we embrace the suffering with Love, let the facades fall, slough away the illusion… we come into alignment with the heart space

– Danielle LaPorte 

My 2020 Learnings

Ten things I learned that helped me build my resilience this year. I hope these learnings are useful to you too. 

1. 1. Accept that life is beautiful AND messy. Feeling good all the time is not the number one thing about being well. It’s bypassing being a REAL human being. The more I learned to love my mess and share it with my close ones, the more connected I felt.

    

   2. Areas in our lives that are already problematic are highlighted when we can’t distract ourselves. When I stopped procrastinating and started dealing with things as they arose, I carried less resentment.

    

   3. Change happens during hard times. This year was a perfect opportunity to look at what actually matters. Health became a number one priority and I started to work out regularly, eat less meat and drink more water.

    

   4. Remind yourself that hard times are temporary. During the most difficult times this year this reminder was very helpful.

    

   5. Engage with your body every day to turn down the noise in your head. I signed up for an embodiment training with Michaela Boehm and learned the non-linear movement method. With ten other beautiful women, we learned ways to shift from go to flow and some useful exercises for emotional release.

    

   6. Instead of reading the news, focus on communicating with your loved ones. I decided early on that checking the news just two to three times a week is enough. I used the time I gained to practice gentle communication. In the evenings we did a family sharing on the highs and lows of each of our days.

    

   7. Use difficult times to BOND! Giving my daughter extra hugs and calling my aging parents and my close friends more often, made me feel very nourished.

    

   8. Align your need to help with your own resources. During the first weeks of the pandemic, I got carried away with all the online offers I saw from others. I thought I needed to offer MORE than I already did. When I realised that I needed to focus on my own and my family’s health first, before I could support more people, I felt much calmer.

    

   9. Other people’s aggressive behaviour has nothing to do with us. When my daughter was overly aggressive towards me or when a person hit my car with his fist on the street, the reminder “not to take it personally” helped me to not react with judgment.

    

   10. Find your working tribe and get support. This year I joined two masterminds, started therapy supervision, joined a membership community and learned selling from the heart, joined a story school where I found my wild voice and hired a virtual assistant. Being self-employed can be lonely sometimes and with the lockdown, even more, but reaching out for support helped me stay sane and expand my business at the same time!

    

The Most Important Thing I Learned This Year

I used to hate uncertainty and planned my life in rigid detail. I still see my Danielle LaPorte calendar as my little bible, but with so many things being changed and cancelled this year, I had to let go of controlling the future. The outcome was that I experienced being much more present. My most important thing I learned this year was:

When I embrace the unknown future with love, I connect with my needs in the now.

Create Your Own List

What were your biggest learnings this year?

Here is a list of questions to work on so that you can complete your year and identify your own learnings. You can do it alone or why not do it with a friend?

Powerful Questions to Ask Yourself to Achieve Completion

Looking back on 2020 how have you coped with the challenges?

What was positive about this year?

What was the hardest part about this year?

Which situations drained you and how did you cope with them?

What were you most proud of?

Which activities made you feel really alive?

What would you tell someone who had this year in front of them?

What do you want to leave behind you?

What do you want to bring with you into 2021?

Answering these questions will enable you to make space in your life for new creations in 2021. As long as we are stuck in old habits that don’t serve us any longer, or are stuck in resentments or regrets, we don’t move forward.

Some Book Tips..

I read three books this year, which each helped me in different ways:

1. Untamed, by Glennon Doyle “We don’t need more selfless women. What we need right now is more women who have detoxed themselves so completely from the world’s expectations that they are full of nothing but themselves.” 

2. Transitions, by William Bridges “Transition means something is going on inwardly. You have reached a point where it’s time to let go of an idea or an assumption, a self-image or a dream. It means you are moving from one chapter of your story to the next.” 

3. The Choice, by Edith Eva Eger “You can live in the prison of the past, or you can let the past be the springboard that helps you reach the life you want now.” 

Moving Forward

If you need support with feeling your feelings, practice gentle communication and creating your life with intention, book a free 30-minute consultation with me: https://calendly.com/katarinastoltz

Stay healthy!

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“My biggest takeaway from the sessions with you was that I invested time in myself!” One of my clients just completed a coaching program with me. Over the course of eight weeks, she went from being completely overwhelmed, to creating a life with less pressure and more time for meaningful relationships.

I hear from a lot of stressed out working women who say they simply have no time to invest in themselves, and I know how hard it can be. These days, I block out time in my calendar so I can recharge regularly, but it was not always like this.

“I have to get on that plane NOW!” I screamed so that my jaw was shaking. The woman at the Air Berlin counter in front of me tried to calm me down. There was not much she could do about the delayed plane to Mallorca.

I left the counter feeling as if someone had just ruined my whole life. My legs felt like they had turned to stone. I slowly moved towards the airport restaurant where I comforted myself with a black coffee.

When I sat down I could feel my throat burning, I pressed my teeth together and swallowed a scream.

I reached for my bag to look for my notes about the yoga retreat I was going to. My plan was to share a taxi from the airport with a group of participants, but now my flight was delayed.

“I can’t afford a taxi on my own,” I thought. “I need to be there on time.”

Emboldened by caffeine and adrenaline, I stood up and went back to the counter.

“You don’t understand, I have to be in Palma in three hours, people are waiting for me there!”

I could feel the line growing longer behind me, but I was determined. I had done difficult things before, maybe I could convince this impatient ticket agent to put me on another plane.

No matter how much I pushed, I was told to sit down and await further information.

Regardless of how much I tried to hold it together, I couldn’t. I felt tears pressing beneath my eyelids. Out of fear of being alone with my emotions, I called my husband. But instead of letting him comfort me, I somehow made him partly responsible for the delay of my flight.

I added another layer of aggression on top of my sadness.

“You have about a 30 percent chance of getting pregnant,” the doctor had said to me three months earlier in the fertility clinic. Her voice sounded like she was talking through a wall, though she was sitting right in front of me. I squeezed my crossed legs tighter together and held my breath. I didn’t hear what she said next — a common behavior when I receive bad news.

In the coming months, I frantically did whatever I could do to be within that 30 percent window. The problem was, it was exhausting!

When I finally found something that could help me relax — a yoga retreat in Mallorca, I was massively exhausted and burned out from all the pushing and forcing.

Imagine a world where our value is not based on how well we hold everything together.

I know you’re thinking you don’t have time to invest in yourself. I see you rushing from one appointment to another, trying to squeeze in a massage or a manicure in between. I get it. I’ve been there. Don’t wait til you’re screaming into your coffee cup waiting for the retreat you’ve left too long to really benefit from.

I know you’re anxious that seeing a coach or a therapist will be one more thing on your to-do list. But maybe it’s exactly what you need to start creating that post-yoga-retreat feeling in your every day.

I want you to know that pushing less and making more time for just being you sometimes leads you to what you are longing for.

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It’s week 9 of… I was going to write “lockdown” or “home retreat” but none of those descriptions fit anymore to what this feels like right now.

I found a new word, inspired by the trauma therapist Edith Eger, who says there is no such thing as a crisis. She says there are only “transitions”.

It’s week 9 of our global transition and I would like to share parts of my process with you and give you tips on how to practice “choosing calm”.

Choosing calm.

I often hear that my clients appreciate my calmness and non-judgmental presence. Being calm and slowing down doesn’t come naturally to me. My natural temperament is loud and fast.

According to acclaimed author Brené Brown, choosing calm is a practice, and I couldn’t agree more! I have been practicing “choosing calm” for a couple years and it has changed my life.

The practice of “choosing calm” has been my most important practice during Covid-19.

When we choose calm before a panic response, it usually has a tremendous impact on the people in our lives.

“Our calm can be as contagious as our anxiety.” – Brené Brown

If you feel you have a tendency to panic and overreact right now, these three tips from Brené Brown will support you:

– Be quick to think and slow to respond and ask yourself: Do I have the information needed to make a decision or form a response?

– Stay mindful that a panic response produces more panic and fear.

– Ask yourself: Will freaking out help the situation? 

Going deeper

Over the past two weeks I have gone deeper, allowing myself to feel it all. It has been painful, but I know I am passing through a huge portal to transformation.

The world is asking us to get off the fast track. To slow down. To go from “doing” to “being.” And I’m listening.

I haven’t felt this tired and at the same time this ALIVE in a very long time. The other day I was listening to the author Shefali Tsabary, and it became clear to me that this aliveness comes from living much more in the present moment.

Normally, I would spend many of my waking hours planning my future. But I can’t plan a future that is so uncertain, so I’m only left with this present day.

I can only take one step, slowly… forward.

This stillness and uncertainty can be so scary, and it also gives us a great opportunity to practice presence.

Locked down in our internal homes.

According to Shefali Tsabary, the reason some of us are feeling panic is not only because of the virus, but because we are locked down in our internal homes. We are locked down in the present moment. For most of us, this is a place we haven’t been to before.

All our distractions have been taken away.

This is the time…

…to take an inventory of your life.

…to take time for you, who went ignored for so long.

…to get to know your loved once better.

…to find new ways to connect with one another.

…to raise your consciousness.

RETHINK. REDESIGN. RESET. 

How do you want to remember this time?

When I check social media, I see a lot of productivity and it always makes me wonder if we’re in a productivity contest. Sometimes I unconsciously join the competition, until I wake up and remind myself that:

My worth is not dependent on how productive I am.

I want to use this time to STAY AWAKE, slow down, observe and feel.

I want to remember this time as the transition to a life much more lived in the present moment.

Life outside.

Sometimes I’m so caught up in the effects of the lockdown that I forget about the actual virus.

This is when I pick up my phone and call one of my best friends who works as a nurse in Stockholm, to see how her day in the hospital has been.

I pause. I sit still. I take it all in. And then I choose calm. One foot forward.

I came to realize the other day that I don’t want to “get it all back”. I’m not in a rush to leave this special time in my life just yet, even if some days I feel I can’t take it anymore.

It’s a hell of a roller coaster ride and I don’t know the path ahead. But my curiosity about what it feels like living like this, is stronger right now than the wish to “get it all back”.

Welcoming it all.

“Happiness and feeling good all the time is not the number one thing of being well. It’s bypassing being a REAL human being.” – Danielle la Porte

Life is beautiful and messy.

My work is not about making you feel positive all the time, my work is inviting you to get to know both your beauty and your mess, feel your feelings and welcome your whole self.

Coaching offer.

If you want to learn more how to practice “choosing calm”, book a free coaching consultation here: https://calendly.com/katarinastoltz

I invite you all to take one step, slowly… forward.