Category: Calm

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How to Thrive this Holiday Season

Already feeling the stress of the Holidays upon you? It seems we keep piling more to our already full plate every year. We feel like we have to meet all our friends and family and do so much during this season that we overwhelm ourselves and stress ourselves out in the process bringing us further away from the joyous and magical Holiday spirit we seek and so desperately want.

It’s possible for us to take a fresh look at this and evaluate what’s important to us and what is too stressful to continue with it. In the video below I go over how we can to that.

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Rather read a transcript of the video? Transcript of the video is at the bottom of this page.

Here is a short summary of the video content

  1. Evaluate what’s important
    Take a good look at the all the things that we do over the Holidays and evaluate what is the most important based on your energy, values, time and enjoyment and make adjustments.

  2. Discuss with the people around you.

The people you celebrate with might have other ideas on how to make this Holiday Season more joyous and fun. Sometimes we are keeping traditions that are not that old and are outdated. Sometimes we might want to create our own. You might have to compromise as this can be a sensitive subject to some. Maybe tiny changes this year might open up the door to more changes next year.

  1. Make a list and delegate

Once you and the people you celebrate with have decided what is important. Make a list and go from there. Maybe you can delegate things on the list, but maybe you can’t. I get it 🙂 This is a progress and something we need to practice. It is much easier to have the list outside our head than circling around 🙂

I hope you can find out what are the most important things and with these tips now enjoy the holiday season even more. Also try my tips on how to stay calm during the Holidays. We all need quick and easy tips on that 😉

Love,
Ragna

P.s. Want more support? Try this Enhance your Calm – Holiday Offer – where I’ve carefully selected three elements that will make your Holidays joyous and almost stress-free. With beautiful easy-access meditations, wonderful Yoga Nidra deep relaxations and masterclasses just to help you thrive during this season. Click here to go over to my Membervault page where Enhance your Calm is hosted. If you are viewing this in the facebook app you might need to leave the app to open this page aka open in a new browser window.

Transcript of the video

How to thrive during the holiday season. We have a lot on our plate during the holiday season, and it seems to get bigger or the plate doesn’t get bigger, but we put more on it every year.

So it’s important that we plan ahead, evaluate, ’cause we seem to want to meet all our friends and family and, do a lot of things during the holiday season. And that’s okay if we choose to do it.

We just have to ground ourselves and keep, keep calm while doing it so we don’t lose the joy. Um and the fun of, of it all.

So I recommend, that we inspect our traditions because sometimes they’re not that old, but we still have it. And see if everybody that is celebrating with you are still enjoying those tradition, if it’s something that they would like to change, you might want to compromise. You might want to, just evaluate what, what brings me joy, what is according to our values, what, what, how much energy do you have? Do I have to do those tasks? Um, what time do I have?

So it’s important to just do that.

And when once you’ve done that, just make a list and see if you can delegate and somebody else can maybe do things. Um, or maybe that’s, you cannot let go of the control, and that’s okay too. I totally get it.

And it’s, it’s important to, to see this, because we often think that traditions are very, very old and they have been for hundreds and hundreds of years.

And I like to take the example of the, the food that is very traditional for, for, uh, Christmas Eve dinner here in Iceland. And that is like a smoked ham.

And it turns out, I thought it had been forever. Turns out it’s just, uh, I think around 60 years old tradition maybe. And before it was lamb, everybody had lamb. And maybe if you didn’t have lamb, um, you would cut this bird and, and make dinner out of that.

But sometimes we think that it’s so old, you have have it all every year and, and you feel like it cannot be changed. Maybe you are up for discussion, maybe the people around

you’re up for discussion. I want to change some things that might be stressful to you or, something that, um, is not in your, not in accordance to your values or, something like this.

So it’s good to evaluate this and just use the time, the energy, the enjoyment and the values, as a guide. Like is it bringing, of course, we have to compromise when we are with other people, but still try to see what’s, what’s working for you and what’s not working for you.

And then make the list and, and go accordingly.

’cause Christmas comes, or your holiday comes every year at the same time.

Not the health inspection that you’re not, you don’t have to clean the back of the cupboards anymore unless you want to.

And if you want to use your time that way, that’s okay too.

So enjoy, enjoy the holiday season.

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The day I realized that I could hold space – Even in the most difficult situations

“He asked for you” – the nurse said as I entered the Oncology Ward Station. We had met several times before. I was his nutritionist and dietician. Let’s call him Jon. He needed guidance about nutrition as he had trouble swallowing. Or that is at least how it started out.

At the time, I was the nutritionist and dietician for all the cancer wards in a University Hospital. I worked both in oncology and haematology departments in- and outpatients’ wards. I saw thousands of patients and relatives for the few years that I worked there. 

When you work with patients in such close proximity that are going through cancer treatment you quickly develop a mixture of an educated guess and a sixth sense about who are going to make it and who are not.

This was not one of the – going to make it – cases. Jon had trouble swallowing for a reason. And it kept getting worse and worse. This I could help him with my education and training. I did everything I could. I guided him through, gave my best advice, applied for advanced nutritional drinks, ordered specialized textured food from the kitchen that he could tolerate and swallow.  

I don’t know when it changed. Why he started to talk to me about all the other things that were troubling him. I felt he had something on his mind. Were there questions about the nutritional plan that he was on? Was it something else? It turned out to be something else.

Jon was just a few years older than me. I was in my early 30s. He was in his late 30s. We both had kids of similar ages. I had one. He had two. I was healthy. He was not. We both knew that he was at the end of his life. 

And that became the topic of our conversations. How horrible he felt for leaving his two kids at this young age. How he felt about leaving his ex-wife to be the sole provider for everything for their kids. How he could not talk to his friends or family about this. It was too hard. He had to show strength for them. 

I told him that there were experts working in this ward that he could talk to. A psychologist and an excellent priest. I tried to convince him to talk to them about this, not me. I wasn’t sure I was qualified to do this. 

He said he felt comfortable talking to me. It felt good to talk to me. I still felt I was not the right person for these types of conversations.

I talked to the hospital priest on the ward and told him about the situation. I asked him if he could talk to Jon. He said that if my patient had not himself requested to talk to a priest that it would not be helpful for him to see him. He also said that if the patient only wanted to talk to me and he was confiding in me, I should continue to see him. These were things Jon needed to speak about and it was important conversation to have before he passed. He said that Jon obviously trusted me, and he also trusted me to have those hard conversations. His advice was to stay in the room, listen and just be with Jon as he relieved what was in his heart. The hospital priest himself had faith in me and for that I am forever grateful. 

So that’s what I did. I gave up the idea that there was someone better than me to have those hard conversations. I came to see Jon every single day that week. I gave him nutritional advice that he already knew so we could make this a “legal” appointment and I could make notes for the records. And then I let him talk. 

About everything. All the horrible things. About everything he was anxious about. All the things he loved about his kids and his ex-wife. All his sorrows. All the things he could not do anymore or ever. What he could still enjoy doing with his kids. What he missed. The failures in his life. 

I sat with him. I listened. I held space for him. 

Maybe it sounds horrible, but it turned out it was not as hard as I thought it would be. It was just life with all its good and bad. Jon’s situation was grim, but all the emotions were recognizable. All the feelings were very normal given the situation. 

I learned that holding space came naturally to me. Even though it was hard to listen to him speak his truth, I could recognize that it was a shared human experience and all I had to do was to be there and listen. What he needed from me was holding space for him while he off-loaded everything he needed to share. 

At the end of that week, he was discharged home. I never saw him again. I’ll never forget him and the lessons he taught me. I’m grateful that I could be there for him to relieved what was in his heart before his journey to a different plane.

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Five (and then some) tips on how to calm yourself when you are feeling stressed

Have you noticed that your shoulders are sometimes all the way up to your ears or that your jaws are clenched together? Stress can manifest itself in our body in many ways but it’s not always easy to notice that. But when you do notice it, you have the perfect opportunity to relax your shoulders and take a deep breath, slowing down both your mind and your body at the same time.

Video not working – Watch it on Vimeo? Click here!

Rather read a transcript of the video? Transcript of the video is at the bottom of this page.

Here are the tips from the video

1. Lower your shoulders.

When you notice that your shoulders are up to you ears: Lower your shoulders and roll them a little bit back. This way you can give your lungs more space to breathe. Which brings us to the next tip.

2. Breathe deeply.

This tip sounds so easy that we often dismiss it for that reason. But I’m telling you it works 😉
Be gentle when you are taking deep breaths. There might be constrictions in you chest when you are stresses but with each breath you can breathe a little bit deeper. Put your hand on you chest so you can feel if your breath is short or long or shallow or deep. Then put your other hand on your tummy so you can feel how it expands as you breath in (this tip is easier to understand with the video, I promise :)).

To breathe in first expand your tummy, then your chest and at last your shoulders move a little bit backwards. When you breathe out, relax your shoulders first, then your chest goes down and at last your tummy.

Be gentle and tender if you have restrictions in you chest area. Expand your breath little by little.

3. Breathe slower and deeper so we can notice our thoughts.

Next tip is to breathe more slowly and deeper. Now you know how 🙂 By slowing down our breath, we slow down our mind. Then we have the change of noticing our thoughts. The thoughts that go around and around and keep us stressed. And when we do have this self-awareness we can write down our thoughts, making our thoughts separate from our head. This helps a lot.

4. Move the attention from your thoughts to your body.

This can be done in many different ways. One way is to trace a pencil along the side of your hand (shown in the video), tracing along each finger. Be mindful when you do this. Be in the present and try to do that without judgement. It’s not always easy but that’s OK too.

5. Activate the Soothing system.

The Soothing system is one of three systems that regulate our emotions. The other are the Threat system (the fight, flight or freeze response) that is activated during the stress of our lives (and we all know so well), and then the motivation system (Drive system) that motivates us to have a house over our head and being fed and stuff like that.

The soothing system is often ignored, so I recommend giving yourself a hug, just embrace yourself. That gives you a feeling of belonging and feeling that you are okay and you’re going to be okay. It’s okay, at least for this very moment, it’s okay. That helps too.

So in summary those are the quick, most helpful tips that you can easily access wherever you are.

I recommend taking at least three deep breaths and if you feel this restriction in your chest, just be gentle and tender with yourself until you get a little bit more familiar with taking deep breaths.

One more tip 🙂

6. Be mindful of your thoughts

It’s often very hard to notice our thoughts because they go so fast but if you go with the tips that I have gone over already, you can do that more easily.

The most difficult trick is not to judge your thoughts, just to notice the thoughts, just like they are clouds in a blue sky. Just notice the cloud come and you see it, there it is and then it moves away. This is a practice that takes practice 🙂

But it’s something that gets easier with time.

Those are my 5 plus tips that I recommend to feel more calm. I hope some of those tips will benefit you. Share what helped you the most.

Love from Iceland,
Ragna

Transcript

Hey, it’s Ragna here and I wanted to give you a few tips on how you can calm yourself down when you’re feeling stressed and anxious.

We know that we often get this tightness in our body and our shoulders go up to our ears, so my first tip is just to lower the shoulders and get the, maybe have them also go down and a little bit back and that gives your lungs some space to breathe a little bit more.

And the second tip is just to take a deep breath and we often dismiss those easy tip because we think they don’t work for us, but I’m telling you, they work and when you deep breathe or take a deep breath, there might be some restrictions in your chest because you’re so used to shallow breaths. And that’s just when you are stressing, you can go a little bit further each time you take a breath, so it sometimes helps to put your hands on your chest and maybe you can feel if your breath is short or long or if it’s deep or shallow.

So, if you can feel that you are breathing only with moving your chest, you can also put your hand on your stomach and you first expand the stomach and then you expand the chest as you breathe in and you can put your shoulders a little bit back. And then your shoulders go a little bit down, your chest goes down and your tummy goes inwards, so you can push out the air that’s left. And then you let your breath in, through the tummy, expand the chest, you might feel some restrictions in your chest, that’s okay, shoulders go a little back here, still breathing in, right? And then again, you let go of the breath. So try this.

I know there’s restriction in the chest can be a little bit painful, don’t overdo it, just do it, be gentle with yourself, do tiny little bit at a time and see how it works for you and where it takes you. But when we take a deep breath, it also means we breathe a little bit slower, so we lengthen our breath and we deepen it. So it’s good that you can do that.

So that brings us to the next tip, which is just to breath slower and deeper and that can actually slower your thoughts because we know it’s usually our thoughts that keeps us stressed. So if you don’t know it, I’m telling you. It can be silly, our thoughts. And when we breathe a little bit slower, it can slow our thoughts down so we can notice, what it is that is stressing us out and maybe we can then more write it out and have it like a separate thing, out of our head and I think that’s really important because when it’s in our head, it’s going around and around and around, but when we write it down, it’s out of our head and it’s separate from us. And that helps a lot.

So the next thing is to take the attention away from the thoughts in your head and to the body. And that can be done in many, many different ways. Most people have maybe a pencil or something on the desk, on your desk, so you can maybe trace along your hand, so the side of your hand, along every single finger and be present when you do that and try to do it without judgment, just try to be mindful. It can be easy and it can be hard and both are okay, it’s okay. It’s not always easy to change the focus.

Another good tip is to activate the soothing system. I’m not going to go in too deeply into the soothing system, but it’s said that we have three ways to regulate our emotions and one of the things that we have is the soothing system, the other one are the threat system, the fight or flight response that we know so well when we’re stressed and then the third system is motivation system, just to keep us fed and have a house over a house and stuff like that.

But the soothing system is often ignored, so I’ll recommend giving yourself a hug, just embrace yourself, it’s okay. And when you do that, it gives you a feeling of belonging and feeling that you are okay and you’re going to be okay. It’s okay, at least for this very moment, it’s okay. So, that helps too.

What else? Yeah, I think those are the quick, most helpful tips that you can easily access wherever you are. I recommend taking at least three deep breaths and if you feel this restriction in your chest, just be gentle and tender with yourself until you get a little bit more familiar with taking deep breaths and I think that’s helpful.

And then one more tip is, in other words be mindful of your thoughts and it’s often very hard to notice our thoughts because they go so fast but if you go with the tips that I have gone over, you can do that more easily.

And the trick that’s the most difficult one is not to judge your thoughts, just to notice the thoughts, just like they are clouds in a blue sky, just notice the cloud come and you see it, there it is and then it moves away and this is a practice that takes practice. But it’s something that gets easier with time.

So I recommend that and you will find more tips on that elsewhere on my site . So, I will see you later. I hope some of those tips will benefit you and share what helped you the most. I’ll see you later, bye.

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How I came to realize my theme word for my life

I realized something today. Something BIG. Something that I should have seen before. If I had been paying attention.

See, I‘ve been struggling for a long time to find out what I can help people with. I’ve been asking myself this question again and again. What can I help people with? What can I share on social media that will show who I am and what I do for people? What are my themes? What is it that I’m here to do?

I’ve struggled with this even if I’ve been teaching various online courses, hosting online retreats and webinars, speaking on summits and so much more online since 2014.

So I opened up this big A3 sketchbook that I only open up when I’m planning something big. Like a course, lecture, or a membership. I took it out because I wanted a social media plan. A big big plan. Something tangible for me to work after. And I wanted it ready right now! 😉

So I got the book out and started staring at the big blank page. Asking myself- What can I talk about? What do I know? What is helpful for others? What can my themes be?

Then I remembered something – I had made some kind of a plan before. Maybe it was in this book. I started flipping through the pages, looking for that plan.

I found many things. Somethings even dated back to 2015 when I was starting to work online. And as I was flipping thought the pages, I kept seeing the same words popping up again and again. And then again and again.

And that’s when I realized it. I HAVE been talking about the same things again and again. I have the same themes. What I’ve been doing is not so random as I’ve felt it has been (teaching course on various themes come to mind).

What I have been doing is dressing my themes up in different costumes. But the themes have remained the same.

I´ve always been talking about the same themes. It has always been about acceptance and compassion toward yourself. It has always been about nourishment for your body, mind, and spirit. It has always been about cultivating your mind so it can serve you better. It has always been about self-care, self-compassion, and self-love. It has always been about activating the soothing system. It has always been about meditation and mindfulness. It has always been about connecting within so you can find that inner peace.

But first and foremost, it has always been about calm. Finding calm in everyday situations. Finding the calm within. Being calm whenever possible so you can make better decision, so you can have better focus and concentration, so you do not miss out on life as it moves past you. So you can enjoy your life better. Your everyday life. Not only when you are on vacation on a faraway beach.

Because to me calm goes together with joy. Calm goes together with feeling content. Calm goes together with feeling happy, for being happy. Even in the midst of the chaos of everyday life.

And that to me is life.

Love,
Ragna

P.s. I’m working on a membership where all of my themes come together so you can live your happy, calm and content life in the midst of the chaos and stress of everyday life. Join the waitlist here.

P.s.s. I’ve been called the Icelandic Queen of Calm and up until now – I’ve laughed about it because it implies that I’m calm all the time in every situation and nobody is calm all the time. But now I’ve come to realized it’s not that what is meant by this. What is meant is that I have a calming presence. Something that might be hard to convey through words. That calming presence helps people feel calm and at ease when they listen and talk to me. Again very hard to convey through words. But videos are easier. Follow my on social media for a better look 🙂
I spend most of my time at Instagram and Facebook.