Tag: joy

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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 Sometimes we are keeping traditions that are not that old and are outdated.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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How to Stay Calm during the Holidays

The Holidays can often be a stressful time so here the three most important tips that help you stay calm and get you trough the season.

Already feeling the stress and overwhelm build up? Listen to this short video and get your key take-a-ways.

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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. Breathe deeply

    Deep belly breaths are my go-to method – ALWAYS. When you breathe deeply you collect yourself and connect to your body. That helps you move from the busy mind into the body, bringing an instant calm. With every inhale you breathe in a little bit of calm and with every exhale you let go of some of the stress and overwhelm. Take three deep breaths and then check-in with your body and mind and notice what is there. JUST BREATHE AND BE.

  2. Be mindful

From the deep breaths we move into mindfulness. This way we can dig a little deeper on what is going on in our mind and body. It’s important to name the thoughts and feelings from a viewer’s perspective and just notice what is there. The key in mindfulness is doing this without judgement and that is always the tricky part because we are so used to being hard on ourselves. So just name what is there and say to yourself that this is normal. I’m feeling stressed. Yes that is normal during the Holiday season. I’m feeling overwhelmed. Yes that’s normal too.

  1. Connect to your body

Connecting to your body is a way to activate that soothing part of yourself. You’re already doing this with deep breathing. Try giving yourself a hug and rub the upper arms. Try swaying from one side to the other. This always brings calm and relaxations to the body and helps you move the focus away from your busy mind.

 So these are my most important tips to stay calm over the Holidays. Maybe you need to use these often and maybe you don’t. Maybe you would like to put a reminder on your phone so you remember those easy to use tips and tricks.

I think that’s the hardest part – to remember to use them – as well as remembering how powerful these simple tips are and how they can help you find your inner peace and calm when you need it.

Enjoy the Holidays!

Love,
Ragna

P.s. If you want more easy to use tips and tricks that work like a charm, check out my resource page. Open in a separate internet browser if you are reading this from your facebook page.

Transcript of the video

Already feeling the stress of the holidays. I’ve got just the thing for you.

First of all, just breathe. Take a deep breath in,
Be. Hold it a tiny bit, and then just let it all out. Ah,
And again, take a deep breath in, feel your belly,
feel your chest, and then let go. Ah,
yes, you might want to keep breathing like this and feel the stress go
this way. You can collect yourself, connect with yourself,
and, and maybe not be as stressed. So tip,
this was my number one tip, and this is always my number one tip.
And that’s deep breathing.

Number two, be mindful,
mindful of what you are thinking because we are so caught up with,
um, uh,
all the things that we have put on our plates because usually we,
we have a lot of things on our plate during the season.
And so being mindful really means just take,
take a deep breath and then notice your thoughts and say, Hey,
what’s going on in my, in my head? Um,
what can I look at it from like a viewer’s perspective
and say, oh, yes, I’m feeling overwhelmed. Yes, I’m feeling stressed. Yes,
I’m feeling anxious. I feel like this is too much. Just name those feelings.

And the tricky part is to do it without judgment. It’s like,
um, so that’s the tricky part in mindfulness has to,
has to do with the non-judgment part.

So when you just name the feelings and see how you’re,
you’re doing and the thoughts, you say, oh yes, there’s this thought. Yes,
that’s normal. Yes. Then, then this, this thought and this feeling is there.
Yeah, that’s normal. I can see, I can see it. So that’s a good point.

And the third thing is to just connect to your body.
You do it already when you are, um, taking deep breaths,
you are connecting to your body and put, uh,
you can activate more soothing part of yourself.

If you just give yourself like a little hug, maybe you rub your upper arms,
what you’re doing, and if you sway like this,
it really brings you calm. And,
and that’s really important because when we have the calm,
we can choose our attention. We can choose what we focus on. We can,
we can,
we can have more choice and not feel so stressed and overwhelmed.

So those are my top three tips.

Deep breathing,

Being mindful without judgment and naming the feelings
and the thoughts that we are having and noticing them,

and then connecting to our bodies
And maybe give ourselves a hug and swing our body.

It’s even better when you do, like,
when you stand upright and you just connect that way.

Enjoy.

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Getting back to good quality sleep

So ironic. In the Summer of 2018 I taught two courses on better sleep named appropriately: Less Stress – Better Sleep. One in Icelandic, one in English. 

Ironically after I taught those classes my sleep got worse. Not better, worse. Not because I was not using my own tips and tricks for a good quality sleep. 

No – It was because of pain in my hips. Nothing serious but something pulling enough on the sides of my hips to wake me up in the middle of the night, sometimes multiple times. Messing with my sleep cycles, messing with my deep sleep, my rejuvenating sleep. 

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Trying to find sleep

I used all my sleep hygiene tricks. I went to see several specialists. I saw a doctor that prescribed pain killers for me but those didn’t last the night (and my body was not a fan). I saw my physical therapist who I deeply cherish and is the best in the world in my own opinion (and my dear friend). I felt better for a few days. Well, you know physical therapy, I felt worse at first and then better later but sadly it only lasted for a couple of days after each session. It seemed that as soon as I started moving my body like a normal person and not like a turtle, the pain came back.  I saw a chiropractor – Same story. Wonderful at her job. Felt better for a few days, then back to what it was before.

Was good quality sleep not within my reach anymore?

I gave up multiple times. And tried to face the fact I was just this old and this was just my life now. I would not sleep through the night again and this pain in my hips had come to stay. I would not be able to hike, ski, swim or even take a walk around the neighborhood, not without consequences. Moving my body, such as working in my garden, usually resulted in payback later. I had to rest for a few days and my sleep got even worse afterwards. Not a great motivation for movement at all. 

So this was my new normal. I tried to meet it with self-compassion and calm. But it was sometimes really hard because I felt I was failing on so many levels. I had a hard time focusing on tasks. I got irritable at things that normally wouldn’t bother me. Things that usually brought me joy didn’t anymore. Cooking was a drag. Watering my plants too. I felt like an old diesel engine. It took me ages to get going but once I started I was good.

When we are not sleeping well everything gets out of place. Our lives seem boring. Stress becomes a living companion. The effects on our mind and body get really clear.

Hopeful journey?

Even with all this I knew somehow, at the back of my head, that there was hope. I knew there was. Somewhere.

I had before the pandemic signed up for a Yoga Therapy training that kept getting postponed. I thought maybe that might be the thing to help me. That would be amazing if it did, even just a little. I almost didn’t dare to dream that it would. 

I finally got to the first part of the Yoga Therapy training. It was out in the countryside at a lovely eco village. I think I won the contest – “brings most stuff”, because I brought so many things that were to aid my sleep 🙂 I even took a memory foam mattress topper with me so I could at least sleep a little. I later found it helpful to bring with me to the house where Yoga Therapy training happened during the day, since we spent most of the day on the floor, sitting, listening to lectures, practicing with each other and so on. Just imagine me carrying my bed with me back and forth – It was almost like that 😉 

* Quick note on Yoga Therapy.

The easiest way to describe a Yoga Therapy session would be to say it’s a mix of a yoga class and a massage. It falls short on the therapy part of it though. It can help you release tension in your body that is ready to be released through the assisted yoga poses, could be another way to describe it. You have all the benefits of yoga and massage and then some in Yoga Therapy. 

Transformational Yoga Therapy session

Towards the end of the third day (yes the third day), it was my turn to be a recipient of a Yoga Therapy session with a sequence for the hips. I was both anxious and excited. Hopefully it would help a bit and I would learn something about what this was about, the pain in my hips. 

The session started with me informing my “giver” that I had really sensitive hips, I needed a lot of tender care with the poses and I would not be going as deep as some of the others. This check-in with the recipient (me in this case) is of course a part of every session but I needed to make extra sure my giver understood me completely. 

As she gently guided me into the poses and reminded me to breathe, I felt good. She was attentive to me and where my edge was. The edge is really important in Yoga Therapy because that is how far we go into poses and that’s where the release can happen. The edge is the place before pain. You might feel a stretch but there is no pain involved. 

The flow of the session was good and I felt safe to experience whatever came my way. During the last pose I felt suddenly fearful that my giver would overstep my edge as she moved my leg 1 centimeter to cross my center. This was the start of waves of release that kept coming. It was just amazing how the waves kept coming. Soon my giver didn’t need to hold my pose and the tension left on it’s own. 

After the session I felt amazingly light and calm. I was on a pink cloud. I wondered if this grand release would show up in my life somehow or if this was just one of those experiences where you feel amazing like after a yoga class, good night’s sleep, great walk, meditation and so on, that slowly wears off and you go back to feeling normal. 

Adjusting my experience

I went to bed still feeling the lightness and wonders of the session. When I woke up the next morning I realized that I had not been woken up by a pain in my hips. My roommate had gotten up around 4 but the pain in my hip was not to wake me. I wondered if this was a fluke. I went hopeful to sleep the next night. Again the same thing. 

I went into overthinking mode. I thought maybe because I’m moving my body and giving Yoga Therapy sessions  and also receiving them during the Yoga Therapy training, I was sleeping better. Or the wonderful time off from my daily life was responsible for this new found sleep. Or that I don’t have to stand in the kitchen cooking everyday. There were a whole group of people doing that for me, and the rest of the group 🙂

Basically I thought once I was home, the pain would return. I was not hopeful really. 

Back at home – Back to sleep

But that did not happen. At first I slept a lot. My body was really ready to rest and sleep. After a few years of not having good sleep. If I was woken up it was my children needing help or a cuddle in the middle of the night. Or a storm. Or something else, not the pain in my hips. 

It is and was amazing to experience the difference between going to bed at 11pm or 1am. Before it didn’t matter because I was always tired. I felt no difference. Now I do. 

After a couple of months with Christmas and the New Year Celebrations I noticed that I could wake up more easily. I was more alert. I was more focused. My brain fog had lifted. I was able to move my body and not feel so tired that I had to rest for days. I felt alive. I felt happy. I felt joy in my everyday life again. Things that I used to enjoy, I started enjoying again. Like cooking and gardening. And teaching and planning ahead. Seeing one-on-one clients. Being outside. Playing with my youngest in the snow. Spending time with my loved ones. Everything was more joyous.

I had space in my brain for all of it. Wonderful feeling. I felt and feel like a new person. Someone that can easily take a deep breath and enjoy every moment if she remembers to do so ( because sleeping does not fix everything. But almost everything :))

And I’m so grateful for Yoga Therapy and all the wonderful tools I have in my toolbox for less stress, better sleep, well-being, feeling joy, peace and calm.

How would your life change if you were able to breathe calmly and get good quality sleep? 

Video – Coming back to sleep

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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.