Sez Kristiansen's Blog, page 5

Belonging & freedom in a highly migratory world- 'The cat that walked by himself' analogy

Belonging and freedom in a highly mobile world. How does being a TCK adult change the way you see belonging? Sez uses her childhood book...

How to quit your full time job and become a successful entrepreneur (as a mother)

The 3 stages of transitioning your mind, body & soul out of work and into creative entrepreneurship in motherhood - and move to paradise :)

Why poetry is the new minimalism

How condensing your thoughts into short, potent sentences can help us heal from even the deepest wounds. I have spent the better part of my life intimately journaling my life. Books and books stacked my cupboards from my nomadic childhood, to my spiritual path, to settling down with a husband from a different continent. My life experiences were written down and then later self-analyzed, giving valuable introspection to who I was as a person and how I saw the world. But then I became a mother and no longer had the contemplative hours to spend on self-reflection, and resolved to get back to this invaluable tool later in life, when the kids grew older and I had more time. A few years passed and I had another child. The when I have more time card was extended a little longer to accommodate another soul I was responsible for and began to fall into a pattern of motherhood/work/motherhood/sleep (sometimes)/repeat, and in those early years of figuring out my new identity, I managed to lose myself completely. I didn't lose myself to the demands of early parenthood, the stress of a full-time job in the fashion industry, nor did I lose myself in the challenges of living in a vastly different country to the one I had grown up in - I lost myself because I lost vital time with myself. As a result, I struggled through a crippling psychosis in my children's younger years and put it down to the many factors of my unique genetic makeup, the stress of balancing demanding work and young children, and having lived a highly mobile life. After a few months being anchored to sick-leave, I intended to get back to some part of myself that had never changed and that made me feel most me again. This came through discovering myself again through my journaling practice. After a few determined weeks spent writing late into the evenings, I had no choice but to give up. The sleepless nights, the long days, the work load, the tantrums, the laundry... I simply couldn't fit me into my life again, and it was not because I didn't have 30 minutes at the end of the day to self-reflect, it was more because I could not articulate a clear-headed biography I used to be able to confess onto paper with. My mind was an exhausted bog with little reflective qualities. In resolution to simplify my act of regenerative self-care, I sat determined at my journal one night, staring blurry eyed at the blank journal. As my pen inked the page, I began to condense my words into short sentences. Boiling down my emotions into simple statements, confining my thoughts to only the most contrasting and expressed my inner world in a pint-sized portion of poetry. The freedom I suddenly felt was inexplicable. After a few days of writing short, condensed poetry, I started seeing a lift of weight occur in my emotional world and began to view everything in my life as having the potential for de-cluttering, condensing and making more potent. To say writing poetry was the start to a few minimalist efforts would be an understatement. It changed my entire life, my livelihood and how I am able to heal myself through this tool. It was exactly one year ago (6 months after I started writing poetry) that I sat down with my husband and decided to condense our life with intention. I realized I would never have more time and it was, in fact, this way of destructive thinking that lead me to give up on myself, put everything meaningful on hold for the hope that time would become more abundant with the lessening of responsibility and commitment. Having met in the middle of two very different worlds, my husband and I went about the de-cluttering of our life to only focus on only the three most important values we shared; family, travel and freedom. - I quit my job in the fashion industry to spend more time with our children, and became an Author. - We sold our large house that came with a restricting mortgage to live in a commune in the city of Copenhagen and used the remaining funds to buy a piece of land in the wilderness, to which we hand-built a small cabin on. - My husband moved into the green energy industry and we took our children travelling for a month to Sri Lanka to revisit a country we had spent many years living in before we married. These are just a few of the ways our life has recently changed from boiling our priorities down and honoring a simpler, more potent way of living. It feels like time has expanded and that the hours are filled with newfound energy from the space we have created in both our minds and physical lives. I am reminded constantly of how incremental changes are the most powerful ones, and that by making the simplest one you can think of today, you are setting forth a motion of energy that has the power to create any life you dare dream. Life simply does not get more spacious as your kids grow, or your work load lessens, or when you buy a bigger house, or when you move to another country - because you will always find a way to fill the voids with more to desire. Time is more a matter of creation than a seeking, and that can only ever be achieved once we learn to hold more space for our own self-care needs and realize that less really is more - in words and in life. ❃ New Book - Healing HER - available HERE ↠ Join me on Instagram - HERE ♥ Get the newsletter and free audiobook (limited period only) - HERE

Q&A about Healing HER, the new poetry book out in June 2019.

I have been asked a lot questions about the process of writing two books in a year, and thought I would give you some insight to the how's and why's that brought me to write two very different books - one traditionally published and another self-published. 1. Why have you decided to self-publish your book of poetry when you have another book being traditionally published at the end of the year? To me, life is about trying everything. I truly believe you can't have certainty in anything - unless you have tried all options within your power. Anyone who is interested in publishing anything these days knows the vast, and often merry-go-round of information about both traditional and self publishing options. There are valid reasons for benefitting from both - but how do you know which one will work for you as an individual if you don't try both? I am an entrepreneurial minded person - so I wanted to have full-control of the poetry book and its illustrations. I wanted the soul-creation of it to stay in tact - while the non fiction book will benefit from others’ skill sets such as line and copy editing. 2. How did you get a traditionally published deal as a first time Author? Determination and openness. I was shifting my life as I wrote the first book from working in the fashion industry to becoming a fully independent Author, and I used every critique, every disappointing response, every unwanted comment about the book as learning curve. I split myself into two - One side of me was an artist, a creative and deeply involved in the process of research and writing - the other part of me became third person to the business side of writing. I was detached and almost saw emailing manuscripts, talking with publishers, responding to advice etc as if I was an agent for someone else. On the practical side of getting a deal - I approached only a select few houses that I knew had the right audience for the book. They were much more open to non-agented authors in non-fiction, so the genre also helped me. I was determined not to get an agent and not to give up before I had a contract in my hand. I got three contracts in the end and chose the publishing house that would be able to get my message out to as many of my target audience as possible. On the spiritual side of getting a deal - I sent the book out on a full moon, no joke. I had been manifesting this outcome for the 8 months I was writing the book. I didn't watch, listen, read anything other than what would help me get a book deal - and I never read about how hard it is to get one - because we all know that already. On the physical/psychological side of getting a book deal - I ran every morning - I meditated every day - I checked in with myself and aligned with the greater message I wanted to share with people - I went completely off social media - I focussed on my family and moments of self-care so that if I didn't get a book deal - I wouldn't have given myself, or them up for nothing. 3. How did you manage writing a 70k word non-fiction book and an illustrated poetry book in 1 year - while being a mother of young children? Madness. It helps. A lot. I gave myself 8 months to write and get a publishing contract - I had just quit my job and the combination of passion and pressure gave me the right combination of motivation. I created a plan for everyday and stuck to it. Mindfulness was my saviour. When I picked up the children, I was WITH them and when I worked, I gave it everything I had. I kept high-vibe about everything I put into the books and never wrote when I was tired or uninspired. My mornings were PROactice and evenings were REactive. This meant I woke at 5am and wrote for 2 hours before getting the kids ready for school/daycare. After dropping them off ( my daughter only goes in 3 days a week), I ran 5 kms and listened to motivational podcasts. I meditated just before getting back into writing. I wrote 2000 words a day as a target. When I picked up the kids 5 hours later and until they were in bed, I truly let myself relax and be mindful with them. After bedtime I would read books that inspired my own genre and went to bed really early. The weekends were ours as a family and I never worked at night. Enduring, unsocial, isolating - yes. Incredibly productive - absolutely. 4. Your poetry book, Healing HER - How can you compete with the likes of Rapi Kuar and other 'Instagram Poets'? I believe poets are not competitors but companions - and those who have that approach are being true to their art. My poetry comes from my unique life, just as any poet. I have the psychological makeup of madness, which mixes well with creativity - and for me the written word has always held a potency like no other art form I know. To me, my expression is not melding modern slang against themselves, their politicians or their society - but the rising up through self empowerment that then make up the power of the collective conscious. My poetry is emotion-based - and emotions are what rules our entire life. Everything we are motivated towards is an emotion. Our tangible wants are really the desire to FEEL something good. So, I don't write about depression - but how to get yourself out of it - because I know intimately the suffering it brings to you and others. I don't write about hurt, pain, ancestral wounds, loss - but how to revive yourself from those experiences - because I know how deeply those afflictions can tear away weeks, months, years from your precious life. I don't wish my readers to associate with the emotions that got them into their state - but align with the emotions that help heal and create new ways of seeing their world. It's an awakening - and that is what separates my work. I love the work of those who give a voice to those who cannot literate their own emotions - But I also believe there needs to be a voice that expresses how grow through these difficult times, not just be a witness to them. This is my mission and why I believe poetry is so self-empowering ... it's literally condensed behavioural therapy. 5. How have you had the energy to do all of this? When I worked full time in Scandinavia's largest fashion company as a designer and then marketing manager - I was exhausted. Not just tired - but I would pick my son up as the last child in daycare and crumble into a heap of heaviness as soon as I got home. I felt like Golem, literally the shrivelled up, bent over version of myself. I ate whatever I could fry/oven/burn in 10 minutes and I numbed out in front of a whole lot of t.v. I went to bed late and woke up tired. Rinse, repeat. Day in, day out. For 3 years. I never felt like I had energy - giving excuses like 'This is motherhood - it's supposed to be like this' - Or 'This is what it takes to work in the fashion industry - It's just how it is'. I took loads of vitamins - thought I had an iron deficiency, or some unidentifiable illness that was slowly condensing me into a stress-pulp. I drank wine at the weekends, sometimes on a weekday...often on weekday - and that made me feel more exhausted. I look back at how I used to live and see one big worn-out, tired, shadow of who I really was. I realised at my hardest part of life that my energy was being tapped out into unfulfilling places and my exhaustion was not a 'part of life' like everyone kept telling me - but that it was a signal of being very far off from my best life. Mediocre seems to be the cause of exhaustion. I began running when I was at my most exhausted. And started feeling more energised. I learnt (and I literally needed to learn) how to run a few km's after work and I began to beat out the office mentally into the sidewalks. This gave me a little more energy to read at night - so I started reading my Buddhist books again and learnt detachment, compassion, non-duality - which helped me survive in the work-place. This then gave me the distance to look at my work as it really was - soul draining and a paradox to the values I held for myself and my family. So I quit. This gave me the passion and ignited the ever-burning power of soul-driven energy to create work that is truly meaningful to me and has the possibility to help others. I have never had so much energy in my life as now. Being tired is a lifestyle - I am the energiser bunny version of who I used to be because of this change in diet...and not just in terms of food, but the mental, social, workplace, friendship diet that is clean, meaningful and wholesome. Incremental steps in aligning with what feels good again - is the key to heal every type of exhaustion. 6. What was the biggest cause of your own suffering - and what lead you to write a book about healing? I have come to see that all types of suffering actually come from oneself. Situations that occur in life can always have two outcomes; to weaken you and justify your way of thinking or, to empower you with a new mindset. Most of my suffering was because I chose to justify a belief that I was lost, lonely and not able to find contentment with my life. The moment I decided to be fully intentional with my life was the moment I realised that I could validate all kinds of other positive stories about myself like, I am resilient, independent and creative. So, living with emotional suffering sometimes causes us to live within the stories we tell ourselves - and to break away is to become responsible for our attitudes. This is why I write intentional poetry - because it has an intention to heal, not to 'just' be a witness to pain. 7. Why do you have flower illustrations in the poetry book? My mother is a floral artist, and as a child she would hang-dry big bunches of flowers up in out garage hanger, so she could create art pieces for hotels in Southern Africa. My early life revolved around helping my mother dip-dye flowers (the white flowers were always cheaper than coloured ones so she would bulk-buy them...) and spreading all the colourful bunches on the dry ground outside our farmhouse. The dye would stain my hands, my clothes and the ground, so everything looked like an art-installation. I love the feminine qualities of flowers, their ability to give life to bare room, and how they represent forgiveness and love. Flowers are part of my history and remind me of how much my mother went through in her life to make the artistic empire she has today. 8. What is the next book in the series going to be about? I am so excited that this is a series- I have called it the Soul-Skin series because there are many resonances to the way we heal. One way is through the feminine super-power of allowing, nurturing and creativity - but there are other energies that heal too, and that is my intention; to provide the complete guide to all healing energies through this series of poetry. Subscribe for a exclusive book updates and free chapter excerpts! Thanks for reading and let me know if you have any more questions or if you would like to learn how to write your own healing poetry! I run an online healing poetry workshop which you can join for free. Just SUBSCRIBE to the mailing list on the bottom and I will be in touch. I N S T A G R A M & F A C E B O O K READ ABOUT THE MOTHERHOOD, SPIRITUALITY & LONELINESS HERE...

Inner-freedom #hacks for busy mamas

Here is a go-to section of inspired actions that create the foundations of inner freedom. As a mother, life can get busy - so use this guide as a quick reminder of some actions that bring you back into alignment. Journaling: Free the pen · Journaling is an exceptional method of reflection. · Treat journaling as an experiment rather than a duty. · Your journal is a record of the unconscious inner workings that have controlled your life. It’s time to let in the light and give that control back to the authentic “you.” Detachment: Free the chains · Detachment is the practice of releasing things that create draining, negative energy. · Decide whether challenging situations deserve a response. · Remind yourself that others’ reactions reflect their inner worlds and are not true statements about you. · When you find yourself being pulled into a vortex of negative emotions, try to see them objectively, not as something happening to you. Meditation: Free the anchor · Meditation is the practice of quieting your mind with attention in the present moment. · Create a space that is yours to encourage a positive psychological response. · Access your intuition through regular meditation and connect to an undisturbed well of knowledge through this place of calm. Reconditioning: Free the habit · Our lives are based on our emotions and belief system. This is made up of all the conditionings we have all been exposed to in early life. People, environment, experiences, and habits have reinforced their strength of our beliefs. · Reconditioning is a gentle and consistent way of changing even the most negative habits. It starts by replacing a damaging habit with a more nourishing one. · When you start noticing negative habits that sap your energy, write them down. Look at the relationship you have with this habit, why it has been formed and what it might be covering up. Do you notice a need to escape your life are there any unresolved issues that trigger your habit? · Every time you notice a negative pattern emerging again, detach yourself from their control and remind yourself you are fully responsible and capable of changing that which does not serve you. You do not have to commit to any habit, energy, or command that does not result in love, openness, and empowerment. · Use a trigger that usually affects you to remind yourself to take a different action than the one you are reliant on. Slowly change your triggers to neutral ones, if not a positive one. · Start redefining yourself by a future you want to experience and not a past you have been habitually conditioned to define yourself from. This means practicing visualization using a mood board, which is discussed later in this chapter and in Part Two. · It is a fact that your conditions do not make up who really you are, and if you need more freedom in your life, you need to start creating incremental habits that are different to the ones you live in now. This opens you up to an infinite amount of possibilities in life and you will be able to consciously choose the best version of life to manifest into reality. Mindfulness: Free the past and future · Mindfulness is the act of bringing your consciousness to your present activity. Unlike its name intends, being mindful means to be out of your mind’s thoughts and into your sensory perceptions; feeling, seeing, hearing, tasting everything the moment has to offer. · Remember that joy resides in the now and that this moment is all that exists in your life. When you simplify this existential factor, you may be able to see that all of your life has been a series of “nows” and this creates the life you are presently living in. If you want to create change in life, now is always the right time to do it because no other concept of time exists. · When you experience fear and doubt you are living in the future when you experience regret or depression you are living in the past. Whenever you experience these emotions try to figure out why and whether it requires action. If 80% of our days are lived outside the present moment, we are essentially only giving 20% of our efforts into consciously creating our lives. · Mindfulness is beautifully practiced through our interaction with our children and spouses. Deeply listening and responding to their questions with awareness of their needs is a great way to deepen bonds, actively participate in their worlds and live a life without regretting “not being there.” Compassion and gratitude: Free the judgment · Compassion is the ability to deeply look into someone else’s life and feel their pain. Although mothers have a high connection to this emotion, our lives can become so busy that our worlds turn around our own minuscule radius. · Take a moment each day to reach out to someone that may need help. Whether it is in the form of a smile, a helping hand, an opening of a door—the selflessness that comes from turning your view outwards will raise your vibration and resonate deeply with your higher self. Acting in accordance with the highest version of yourself is the path to freedom and empowers you to make the right decisions. · We want to practice compassion without return to truly tap into freedom, so try to detach yourself from the reward. When you find yourself wondering how to help others when you have so much going on in your own life, remember that when you practice true compassion, the universe will always respond with likeness. It's like threading another bead onto the chord of our humanity—connecting and strengthening our oneness. · Gratitude is the practice of recognizing elements in our life that we are truly happy for. When we are aware of the small details in the tapestry of our life, the greater the vibrancy of our existence. · When we come from a place of “lacking” and continue to see our lives as unfulfilling, then we are perpetuating a cycle that will forever see the absentees over attendees. · Every day, write down five things you are grateful for. This can be incorporated into bedtime routines with children and provides valuable insight into your child’s perception of the world. · Remember—the more you are grateful for the life you already have, the more your life will pivot toward more experiences that respond in gratitude. · Perspective is a way of allowing yourself distance. Remember the story of the pyramids and how a little perspective is sometimes all we need in order to reach the horizon. Physical: Free the body · To create a physical habit that energizes your mind and body, keep it simple. Some may find yoga the right practice for them, others may find incorporating adventure, dance, or play into physical activities better suited to their personalities. · Treat your relationship with exercise with an open mind, one that allows you to see how you deal with the rest of your life, and ask yourself if that is how you want to define yourself. · The moment exercise becomes seen as a duty, a task, rigid and inflexible the less likely you will stick to it, so make it sociable and fun, or feed off the psychological rewards for motivation. · Start incrementally with simple steps such as putting on your trainers and then walking down to the bottom of your road. If you continue, then great! If not, don’t worry about it and do it again tomorrow. Do this for 21 days to create a lifelong habit. · The body is a mind’s playground. Treat it that way. It’s an experimental process to get more movement into our days because there are so many other things seeking our prioritization. Use your body as an outlet to your mind and challenge your problems with it. · Remember to listen to your body. It is the vessel you have this lifetime to carry you, to protect you, to nourish you. It’s your sacred responsibility to show it daily attention, love, and gratitude for all it has provided you with. When you cannot see the good in it, remind yourself of the life you have nurtured within, the double heartbeat that grew from one, and the little soul that flourished from its primordial knowledge. · Your body is a gift that responds in accordance to your mind. Be aware that this reflection is a beautiful thing and if you seek to change, do it from within first. · When you find yourself disliking your reflection, don’t try and change the mirror, try change how you see yourself. Nature: Free the wild · Inner freedom can be discovered through spending time in natural environments. Our smallness and place in the world are experienced when we connect with nature, its wildness, and its changing seasons. · Grounding yourself in nature is one of the best ways to reconnect to the bigger picture. Spend time with bare feet, bare hands, and exposing skin to the elements. · Rewild yourself with incremental excursions into nature. Acknowledge the numerous, documented benefits of spending time in nature and remind yourself that even a short walk outdoors, spent mindfully will have a dramatic effect on your mind-set. · Discover more about the world of natural therapy and how it can alleviate many emotional symptoms of depression, anxiety, and hormonal imbalances. Humor: Free the weight · Life as a mother has many moments that remind us that life should not be taken too seriously. From the struggle of keeping up our ego in embarrassing moments to the endearing actions and words that come out of our children, we can learn to step back, see the moment as it is and lighten the seriousness we tend to place on everything. · Detachment is a companion to humor as it takes a conscious moment to step back and look from an outsider's point of view of a situation. Once you start practicing small amounts of this combination you will notice a lightening of moods. · See the mortality of life through a humoristic perspective. We are spiritual beings having an earthly experience and are on this planet for but a second in time. Give yourself a moment every day to remember the meaning you give to life and laugh at how you sometimes get caught up in it all. Community: Free the loneliness · Being a part of a like-minded community is an encouraging way of keeping up with your practices and further developing your knowledge. · Join groups that play on a wide variety of your interests and not just the one-sided view of life. · Remind yourself that everyone has something to teach you even those who you don’t have anything in common with. These are especially great conversations and interactions as they develop your mind to create more space for compassion and tolerance, seeing a different point of view or reaffirming your own beliefs. · Practice compassion whenever you feel like you are being judged, or when you fear rejection. No one finds the art of making friends easy and it takes patience to let a tribe grow organically. Know that even the most extrovert of people can have had deeply isolating experiences. Mind-set: Free the foundations · Our attitudes toward the day are set the moment we wake, so be mindful of the way you wake up. · Wake 30 minutes before the household wakes and spend this time as you would in another life. Reading books, indulging in your passions, creating ideas, sipping coffee mindfully—see this time as an extension to your life, allowing valuable practices to be focused on in peace. · Place inspiring objects or books by your bedside. Keep them non-electric devices. Tune into what you need most in the morning to ensure a positive outlook. This will be the tone of your day and vital to help with personal growth. · A good start to the day begins with a good night’s sleep. Prioritize this first and it will create a domino effect to the rest of your week, ensuring positive, high-vibe energy every day. Intuition: Free the guidance · Your inner compass is our most reliable way of navigating your life toward the best outcome. Intuition’s sole priority is to guide you to your best life. · Intuitive responses are not rationalized with the head but felt with the heart. Tune into your heartbeat by thinking of all the emotions you feel toward someone you love and ask a question that requires direction. Note in your journal any illogical inner responses to reflect on later. · Intuition is always felt in the present. With the practice of mindfulness, you are able to open a gateway into communicating with your intuition. · Document your dreams and practice free-writing to discover the hidden messages of your subconscious. · An intuitive decision will always create the best outcome. Look at your life and see how the major, positive peaks were created by opportunities or choices that were taken by listening to that inner pull. I hope this resonates with you and your journey through motherhood. Feel free to share with others who might be in need of a little lightness in their life or comment below to share your thoughts or own tips. Subscribe for a exclusive book updates and free chapter excerpts! I N S T A G R A M & F A C E B O O K

How to be a rebel mama and create a life of freedom

This time last year, I quit my job. I had an 8 month old baby, a 5 year old and was about to go back to my career in fashion after a second maternity leave. The client I was to go back to was Britney Spears, and the work I was going to continue was design assistant and online marketing manager. I was working for Scandinavia's largest lingerie company at the time, and they had just taken on the American pop-star in an attempt to reach a younger target audience. I was reluctant to return and satisfy the demands of a company that had little investment in their employees but unrelenting expectations in their performance, so I went through the inner turmoil of figuring out what to do about changing my career, how I could contribute something more meaningful to the world my children would grow up in. We all know that feeling. Anyone who has ever worked in a company that puts profit before people knows the feeling. Anyone mother who is conflicted by their career knows the feeling. Priorities change when you have a child, but a workplace often doesn't, so we are left with this feeling of being yanked back into a box that no longer accommodates our new perspective. I debated looking for another job on my maternity leave, but I am a foreigner to my husband's homeland and it took me 6 months of free labour and intense language lessons to get this job after having my first child - so I was realistic about the opportunities I would be offered after having a second child. I had spend years trying to cut down on work hours to spend more time with my son and, as a result of the nature of my work, the debilitating stress and lack of creative flexibility in my office, I landed up going through a brutal psychosis - which happened to collide with an untimely existential crisis. This affected everything in my life to the point I gave up on any dreams of my own, any form of self-love and whatever I had left of hope - until I fell pregnant again. As the maternity leave came to an end, I was at a cross-roads in life where I was about to either continue on a path that I knew was harming to my mental health and therefor my young family - or take on the rebellious task of breaking cultural/societal/financial expectations that were demanding me out of alignment with the empowered person I wanted to be - and priorities I so wished to fight for. What I did next might inspire you towards your own rebellious act and I hope it resonates with those who seek a more unconventional life in motherhood. Now that I’m on the other side, I wish to empower every single struggling mother with the tools to create their own rebellious life, one that is unconventional, authentic and aligned to their own, unique inner blue-print of freedom. In the end, I have come to see my act of rebellion as really the ultimate act of self-care. It has been a journey of coming back to myself, regenerating confidence through the power of intentional living and creating an abundance of energy through simply letting go of what society/culture/work thinks my life should look like. 1. I talked to my partner about what we really wanted in life - and how we could afford a change. The first step I took was talk to my husband about how we could live without two incomes. My husband is Danish, and I am a little bit of everything that is not Danish - so we had very different cultural ideas of what is considered a 'normal' life. What we did share were the core values of family, travel and personal freedom so we were open to talk about those priorities. We had just signed for a house outside the city that required heavy mortgage repayments through both of our two, full-time jobs. When we sat down and looked at what this lovely bunch of bricks and mortar in the countryside would do for our freedom and realised it wasn't even our own desires that lead us to look for a house. It was a combination of family pressure, friends doing the same thing with their young families and a little bit of 'But that's what you do when you settle down, right?' So, we pulled out of the contract immediately and started looking for a more financially-freeing option of living. Create a little of your own rebellion - What has slipped into your own life, or has been normalised without your consent, that is not by choice? Shine the spotlight of consciousness onto all areas of your living conditions and see what has not been intended by your own desires and core values. Consider how you could live differently to free up the costs that go into living traditionally. 2. We moved into a commune and built a cabin in the wilderness. There are many ways to make passive incomes these days, but sitting in a house for 20 years, working the best years of our life to pay it off - and eventually selling it for a pension did not make sense to us. We wanted to live for now and to experience life with our children. So, we sold our apartment and moved into a communal living apartment in the city centre. In Denmark, you are able to share a mortgage with other tenants as well as live in a small apartment yourself. It requires being on an impossible-to-get internal list that is usually passed down through the generations, and luckily my husband was unknowingly on one from an old Aunt who signed him up at the age of 3 years old. We now share working days in the communal garden, grow our own vegetables and sometimes we eat together. Our children go to the same school and play together in the evenings outside, and we help each other out with tasks. The sacrifice we made to live here was space because we now live in the attic apartment at the very top of the building and climb 5 flights of stairs every time we forget a diaper- but the benefits outweigh the challenges, to us. We needed to stay in the city because of work and the international community but at heart we are both farm-children. While my husband grew up on a Danish crop farm, I grew up on a Southern African peach farm in . So, our need for nature was imperative. We used the last bit of money from our apartment to buy a piece of land in North West Zealand and built a cabin on it by hand. We now drive every Friday out to the little wooden cabin and spend our weekends immersed in creativity, wilderness and peace - and have even automated it through Airbnb recently, so we make a little money on the side too. It takes sacrifices to make a change but when we realised it wasn't actually a sacrifice and more a deeply ingrained habitual attachment to what we knew, we began the process of de-cluttering what was left of our unconscious life, like getting rid of the t.v, the attic of unused clothes and the excess of toys. Create a little of your own rebellion - Take a look at your living space and see if everything in it holds a purpose or passion. If you love your home and all your possessions, are you happy to work the rest of your life for it? Or could you live alternatively, in a tiny-house, in the wilderness, in an intentional community that would provide more financial freedom to do what you love? Could you start today by getting rid of your 'unconscious' items that clutter your wardrobe or kids' room? 3. I quit my job and started writing books. I asked the Universe what my purpose in life was - to which she answered, 'Go ask your journal'. After days searching through my 15 years worth of journalling and poetry books, I found nothing. Until I realised that the actual books could be my purpose and spent the following 6 months condensing these spiritual-nomad-turned-mother notes into a 80k word, non-fiction book, which is being traditionally published at the end of the year. I wrote the first book with the prioritisation of spending more time with my kids, healing my mental health, taking care of my physical fitness and reuniting with my husband through a deeply loving and growing relationship. I wrote the second book of poetry in 3 months and published it myself so I could own the authority to give the audiobook away for free. This was a way of contributing to something soul-crafted and selfless to the world without asking for a return. I have learned quickly that being an Author and poet is the greatest act of spiritual freedom I have ever experienced. I suddenly realised that life is meant to be this way and not the way I was about to 'settle' into. Life is meant to be Creative. Purposeful. Introspective. Calm. Slow. Passionate. Rewarding. Patient. Giving. Joyous. A constant process of learning - and could see that suffering was caused as a result of being out of alignment with all that which makes life beautifully unconventional. And yes, quitting my job was one of the most satisfying and petrifying experiences of my life. Create a little of your own rebellion - If you want to work differently, have more control of where your energy goes, be a more present parent in life, then perhaps creative entrepreneurship is journey worth considering. You need only overcome the dominant authority that is yourself, which is an act of liberation in its self. Your sub-conscious is the steering force to your life's direction, but it can be taught how to achieve anything you dream by beginning to be more conscious to more of what you think, say and act. Learn more about how to empower your state of mind through meditation and reconditioning. Incremental changes are the most powerful to make, so do something today that will inch you towards your dreams and learn how to enjoy the process of challenging yourself. Small changes, made consistently over a period of time have the power to transform your life as you know it. 4. We started travelling again Travel used to be the main priority in my life but it suddenly became a void among the responsibility of motherhood. I was brought up in 3 different continents and moved over 7 times in early childhood, before continuing to live around the world as an adult, so travelling has always been home to me. While I was working in the traditional sense, I felt like I was constantly juggling life with my young child, as well as struggling to settle into a culture that only supported me as a full-time contributor. This meant holidays were spent recouping in all-inclusives and places that had daycare facilities. This had never been me or what I enjoyed most. I lived on remote islands and in jungles, on secluded mountain ranges and in solitary ashrams. I lived for adventure and had always wanted my children to know the awe that comes from standing on the salted earth on the Etosha pan in Namibia or the feeling of expanse from watching the sunrise over the Horton Plains in Sri Lanka. So, when I had more mental bandwidth from the changes we were making to our life, suddenly wanderlust showed her wings again. We complied all our leftover holidays into one travelled solidly for a month around Sri Lanka and now have an abundant travel budget from the savings of our minimalist life. The experiences we have gathered from this year's adventure alone has been compiled into a full wall of photos to where our TV used to stand. It has every memory of exquisite scenery, every smile under night's star, every surf's wipe-out, every friend we made along the way on a mural dedicated to our uncharted escapade. Adventure does not disappear with responsibility; it just becomes a different type, a slower type, a more present type and a shared type. Create a little of your own rebellion - Choose experiences that bring your family together under adventure, rather than the 'usual' chartered destination.. It does not have to be expensive or exotic, but hold space for experiences that offer more than just comfort. Weekend breaks spent camping, long afternoon's walking in a part of nature that you've never been, or even watching a documentary instead of a film can all be these incremental experiences that create for an adventurous motherhood. 6. We kept realigning, kept going. Along every step of our journey, we have been met with some resistance. Not only from friends and family but from the culture we live in and even our own doubts. It is hard to go against what is collectively accepted as 'normal' and you can almost fear from a lifetime of being conditioned. But what may feel like comfort, knowing and familiarity for a few days can quickly become an un-lived life. And before you know it, you are wondering how it got this boring, or how life became this lost, or how you became this sick. It has taken resilience, but mostly discipline to consistently come back into alignment with our dreams. Distraction comes in many forms and dilutes your intuition from the outside in - and what we realised was that the more we sought only ourselves for guidance, the more empowered we became. We sat down often and talked about how to keep going, how to keep on this path, how to overcome our fears, how to keep inspired but we never questioned what we were doing or why were were doing it - only how to continue. We spent more time with our children, less nights arguing about money, more evenings watching the sun go down, less mornings waking up to the robotic routines, more time laughing, less Sunday's dreading the start again... we never needed to be reminded of why this was right for us. Being rebellious is a test of resilience. It requires boldness, confidence and a determination to act in accordance with what you know is best. And keep going. Create a little of your own rebellion - How do you align with yourself every day? Consider how much the world around you affects your ability to be true to your own needs and see how you can create more time spent being yourself. Get rid of activities that do not serve you and take time from these activities to put into your own grounding. In the end, rebellion is simply an act of rising against a dominating authority - this comes in many forms such as over-cultures, oppressive societal structures, possessive partners, friends or family members - but it also comes in the form of our own sub-conscious which makes sure we fear deviation in favour of safety. But safety does not ensure a long, fulfilled life, nor does it reflect the authentic person that you really are. Rebellion is about being you, with all your unique nuances and shades. It's about singing aloud with your child as you walk under bridges without caring what others think. It's about getting on that swing and having a go because it's fun, even if it feels embarrassing. It's about standing up for the way you parent your child, even if it is unconventional. It's about keeping your dreams alive rather than settling for 'good enough', even when it seems easier, safer and more comfortable to just be 'normal' - and it's about taking incremental steps, consistently, towards a dream that you are uniquely aligned with - because it is a truly exceptional life that awaits you there. ❃ New Book - Healing HER - available HERE ↠ Join us on Instagram - HERE ♥ Get the newsletter - HERE

What is a spiritual advisor & do I need one?

Sometimes we all feel a little lost in life and need a little non-bias help from the outside. Other times, we can feel completely isolated from experiencing extreme anxiety or even go through an existential crisis that leaves you tattered and disconnected from your sanity... In these cases, we have a lot of options – we can turn to a lifestyle coach, to a psychologist or even to a friend to lend an ear and provide some advice. And even when life is going well, having someone that you trust and someone with good emotional intelligence can be a great help to ensure that you continue to make the right decisions and help take some of the burden off. But psychologists and lifestyle coaches aren’t the only option out there, and more often than not, they do not provide you with the spiritual, energetic element that aligns you with universal nature. Something you might not have considered is a spiritual advisor. Read on and we’ll take a look at what this term means - and whether it’s right for you. What is a Spiritual Advisor and Why do You Need One? The term spiritual advisor is not one that fits neatly into a box for a simple definition. After all, the term ‘spiritual’ itself is somewhat abstract and can mean different things to different people. To me, spirituality means to find guidance - and that is something I have seen people want most in life; clarity and confidence in their choices. In general, you can think of a spiritual advisor as a coach, as a mentor or as a friend, who will listen to your questions, concerns and situations and help to offer guidance from a spiritual perspective. This can sometimes be exactly what you need in order to make life that little bit easier and more manageable and you’d be surprised what a long-lasting impact a spiritual advisor can have. Psychologists can be great and they have their place – but they’re also very expensive and deal very specifically with psychological problems like anxieties, phobias and depression. The same goes for counsellors. If you don’t consider yourself ill, or are mostly feeling detached and uncertain about the world, then you might not like the thought of seeing this kind of professional. Likewise, a lifestyle coach can tell you how to stay fit and how to dress right but that’s from a surface-perspective. A spiritual advisor on the other hand can help you from the soul outwards, to make the right decisions from your own, aligned intuition. They can help you to see more clearly when your judgement is clouded by stress and everyday concerns and they can give you insight based on your unique situation. What Does a Spiritual Advisor Do? A spiritual advisor may be a guide or a person with an extensive history in spiritual practice, combined with medial gifts and a deep knowlege of the human condition. A spiritual advisor can also be a psychic and might use divination and psychic readings to help you make difficult decisions and to give you some clues as to what lies around the next corner. What a Spiritual Advisor is Not But perhaps what is most important to understand is what a spiritual advisor is not. A spiritual advisor is not someone, for example, who predicts the future with accuracy. It’s important to recognize that we all have free will and we can all influence the outcomes of our fate. Our energy is what holds most importance in life and how we direct positive or negative energy is what makes up for our manifested lives. A spiritual advisor knows that you are the creator of your life and does not advise you on what you want to hear - but what is necessary for your personal spiritual growth. And for the same reason, a spiritual advisor should never tell you what you should do and they should never try and influence your beliefs. The person who believes that they are right and you are wrong, is the person who is too arrogant to be useful as an advisor. Someone with real wisdom will recognize that we all have different temperaments, different ideals and different beliefs – and these will suit our personalities and match our experiences. As soon as someone starts telling you what you should think, you stop being honest with yourself and you start making mistakes. “A good spiritual advisor tells you where to look, not what to see.” Ultimately, the spiritual advisor is someone who can help you to be better in tune with your heart and your feelings. Finding an Advisor If you’re in the process of finding a spiritual advisor, then it’s important to spend some time actually speaking with the person you hope to learn from and work with before you make your decision. Very quickly, you will find that you can get a good feel for what that person believes, who they are and what they can offer you. It’s crucial that you get a good ‘vibe’ from this person, as you’ll be talking about personal matters and you need to feel you can trust them and be open with them. There are also some other characteristics that are important. You must feel for instance that the advisor is very sensitive and in tune with you and their surroundings. Likewise, you ideally want someone who is knowledgeable and broadly experienced with both Eastern and Wester thought – and especially if you’re seeking guidance in a religious context. If you choose your advisor wisely, then you can feel as though a great weight has been lifted in your life. You’ll have more confidence in your decisions, more idea of what’s important to you and more trust in how you feel and in what you believe. It may give you confidence you never knew you possessed and "brainwash you into believing in yourself". It may also give you that lift in life that often makes us stuck for years in repeating habits and unfulfilled relationships. I spent years in Sri Lanka studying under spiritual figures, but when I got home, I could not fit these valuable practices into motherhood, a full time job or the contemporary world. In all religions of the world, fining an advisor is of highest priority to keep you on track with your personal growth - but in Western culture, we often lose touch with ourselves because we do not have the means or availability to afford these vital guides. We also don't know where to start looking for one, or if these guides are genuine, experienced or can offer you exactly what you need. This is why I became an author and developed my own spiritual consultation practice - to help others get the spiritual advice they need. Whether it is an ongoing consultation that checks in every month with your development - or simple a deep question you need help with - Book a consultation with Sez and get the spiritual direction you are looking for. All consultations are personal, confidential and uniquely tailored to you and your story. You don't pay until you know that I am the right person to help you and all consultations are made according to your calendar. ✣ I offer a safe environment, where I am able to hold space for all people, from all walks of life, with all different stories and guide without judgement, prejudice or bias. I am a child of the universe and so are you ✣ FIND A PACKAGE THAT SUITS YOU

Poetry is the new minimalism

How condensing our thoughts into short, potent sentences can help heal us. I have spent the better part of my life intimately journaling my life. Books and books stacked my cupboards from my nomadic childhood, to my spiritual path, to settling down with a husband from a different continent. My life experiences were written down and then later self-analyzed, giving valuable introspection to who I was as a person and how I saw the world. But then I became a mother and no longer had the contemplative hours to spend on self-reflection, and resolved to get back to this invaluable tool later in life, when the kids grew older and I had more time. A few years passed and I had another child. The when I have more time card was extended a little longer to accommodate another soul I was responsible for and began to fall into a pattern of motherhood/work/motherhood/sleep (sometimes)/repeat, and in those early years of figuring out my new identity, I managed to lose myself completely. I didn't lose myself to the demands of early parenthood, the stress of a full-time job in the fashion industry, nor did I lose myself in the challenges of living in a vastly different country to the one I had grown up in - I lost myself because I lost vital time with myself. As a result, I struggled through a crippling psychosis in my children's younger years and put it down to the many factors of my unique genetic makeup, the stress of balancing demanding work and young children, and having lived a highly mobile life. After a few months being anchored to sick-leave, I intended to get back to some part of myself that had never changed and that made me feel most me again. This came through discovering myself again through my journaling practice. After a few determined weeks spent writing late into the evenings, I had no choice but to give up. The sleepless nights, the long days, the work load, the tantrums, the laundry... I simply couldn't fit me into my life again, and it was not because I didn't have 30 minutes at the end of the day to self-reflect, it was more because I could not articulate a clear-headed biography I used to be able to confess onto paper with. My mind was an exhausted bog with little reflective qualities. In resolution to simplify my act of regenerative self-care, I sat determined at my journal one night, staring blurry eyed at the blank journal. As my pen inked the page, I began to condense my words into short sentences. Boiling down my emotions into simple statements, confining my thoughts to only the most contrasting and expressed my inner world in a pint-sized portion of poetry. The freedom I suddenly felt was inexplicable. After a few days of writing short, condensed poetry, I started seeing a lift of weight occur in my emotional world and began to view everything in my life as having the potential for de-cluttering, condensing and making more potent. To say writing poetry was the start to a few minimalist efforts would be an understatement. It changed my entire life, my livelihood and how I am able to heal myself through this tool. It was exactly one year ago (6 months after I started writing poetry) that I sat down with my husband and decided to condense our life with intention. I realized I would never have more time and it was, in fact, this way of destructive thinking that lead me to give up on myself, put everything meaningful on hold for the hope that time would become more abundant with the lessening of responsibility and commitment. Having met in the middle of two very different worlds, my husband and I went about the de-cluttering of our life to only focus on only the three most important values we shared; family, travel and freedom. - I quit my job in the fashion industry to spend more time with our children, and became an Author. - We sold our large house that came with a restricting mortgage to live in a commune in the city of Copenhagen and used the remaining funds to buy a piece of land in the wilderness, to which we hand-built a small cabin on. - My husband moved into the green energy industry and we took our children travelling for a month to Sri Lanka to revisit a country we had spent many years living in before we married. These are just a few of the ways our life has recently changed from boiling our priorities down and honoring a simpler, more potent way of living. It feels like time has expanded and that the hours are filled with newfound energy from the space we have created in both our minds and physical lives. I am reminded constantly of how incremental changes are the most powerful ones, and that by making the simplest one you can think of today, you are setting forth a motion of energy that has the power to create any life you dare dream. Life simply does not get more spacious as your kids grow, or your work load lessens, or when you buy a bigger house, or when you move to another country - because you will always find a way to fill the voids with more to desire. Time is more a matter of creation than a seeking, and that can only ever be achieved once we learn to hold more space for our own self-care needs and realize that less really is more - in words and in life. ❃ New Book - Healing HER - available HERE ↠ Join me on Instagram - HERE ♥ Get the newsletter and free audiobook (limited period only) - HERE

How to be a rebel mama and create a life of freedom.

This time last year, I quit my job. I had an 8 month old baby, a 5 year old and was about to go back to my career in fashion after a second maternity leave. The client I was to go back to was Britney Spears, and the work I was going to continue was design assistant and online marketing manager. I was working for Scandinavia's largest lingerie company at the time, and they had just taken on the American pop-star in an attempt to reach a younger target audience. I was reluctant to return and satisfy the demands of a company that had little investment in their employees but unrelenting expectations in their performance, so I went through the inner turmoil of figuring out what to do about changing my career, how I could contribute something more meaningful to the world my children would grow up in. We all know that feeling. Anyone who has ever worked in a company that puts profit before people knows the feeling. Anyone mother who is conflicted by their career knows the feeling. Priorities change when you have a child, but a workplace often doesn't, so we are left with this feeling of being yanked back into a box that no longer accommodates our new perspective. I debated looking for another job on my maternity leave, but I am a foreigner to my husband's homeland and it took me 6 months of free labour and intense language lessons to get this job after having my first child - so I was realistic about the opportunities I would be offered after having a second child. I had spend years trying to cut down on work hours to spend more time with my son and, as a result of the nature of my work, the debilitating stress and lack of creative flexibility in my office, I landed up going through a brutal psychosis - which happened to collide with an untimely existential crisis. This affected everything in my life to the point I gave up on any dreams of my own, any form of self-love and whatever I had left of hope - until I fell pregnant again. As the maternity leave came to an end, I was at a cross-roads in life where I was about to either continue on a path that I knew was harming to my mental health and therefor my young family - or take on the rebellious task of breaking cultural/societal/financial expectations that were demanding me out of alignment with the empowered person I wanted to be - and priorities I so wished to fight for. What I did next might inspire you towards your own rebellious act and I hope it resonates with those who seek a more unconventional life in motherhood. Now that I’m on the other side, I wish to empower every single struggling mother with the tools to create their own rebellious life, one that is unconventional, authentic and aligned to their own, unique inner blue-print of freedom. In the end, I have come to see my act of rebellion as really the ultimate act of self-care. It has been a journey of coming back to myself, regenerating confidence through the power of intentional living and creating an abundance of energy through simply letting go of what society/culture/work thinks my life should look like. 1. I talked to my partner about what we really wanted in life - and how we could afford a change. The first step I took was talk to my husband about how we could live without two incomes. My husband is Danish, and I am a little bit of everything that is not Danish - so we had very different cultural ideas of what is considered a 'normal' life. What we did share were the core values of family, travel and personal freedom so we were open to talk about those priorities. We had just signed for a house outside the city that required heavy mortgage repayments through both of our two, full-time jobs. When we sat down and looked at what this lovely bunch of bricks and mortar in the countryside would do for our freedom and realised it wasn't even our own desires that lead us to look for a house. It was a combination of family pressure, friends doing the same thing with their young families and a little bit of 'But that's what you do when you settle down, right?' So, we pulled out of the contract immediately and started looking for a more financially-freeing option of living. Create a little of your own rebellion - What has slipped into your own life, or has been normalised without your consent, that is not by choice? Shine the spotlight of consciousness onto all areas of your living conditions and see what has not been intended by your own desires and core values. Consider how you could live differently to free up the costs that go into living traditionally. 2. We moved into a commune and built a cabin in the wilderness. There are many ways to make passive incomes these days, but sitting in a house for 20 years, working the best years of our life to pay it off - and eventually selling it for a pension did not make sense to us. We wanted to live for now and to experience life with our children. So, we sold our apartment and moved into a communal living apartment in the city centre. In Denmark, you are able to share a mortgage with other tenants as well as live in a small apartment yourself. It requires being on an impossible-to-get internal list that is usually passed down through the generations, and luckily my husband was unknowingly on one from an old Aunt who signed him up at the age of 3 years old. We now share working days in the communal garden, grow our own vegetables and sometimes we eat together. Our children go to the same school and play together in the evenings outside, and we help each other out with tasks. The sacrifice we made to live here was space because we now live in the attic apartment at the very top of the building and climb 5 flights of stairs every time we forget a diaper- but the benefits outweigh the challenges, to us. We needed to stay in the city because of work and the international community but at heart we are both farm-children. While my husband grew up on a Danish crop farm, I grew up on a Southern African peach farm in . So, our need for nature was imperative. We used the last bit of money from our apartment to buy a piece of land in North West Zealand and built a cabin on it by hand. We now drive every Friday out to the little wooden cabin and spend our weekends immersed in creativity, wilderness and peace - and have even automated it through Airbnb recently, so we make a little money on the side too. It takes sacrifices to make a change but when we realised it wasn't actually a sacrifice and more a deeply ingrained habitual attachment to what we knew, we began the process of de-cluttering what was left of our unconscious life, like getting rid of the t.v, the attic of unused clothes and the excess of toys. Create a little of your own rebellion - Take a look at your living space and see if everything in it holds a purpose or passion. If you love your home and all your possessions, are you happy to work the rest of your life for it? Or could you live alternatively, in a tiny-house, in the wilderness, in an intentional community that would provide more financial freedom to do what you love? Could you start today by getting rid of your 'unconscious' items that clutter your wardrobe or kids' room? 3. I quit my job and started writing books. I asked the Universe what my purpose in life was - to which she answered, 'Go ask your journal'. After days searching through my 15 years worth of journalling and poetry books, I found nothing. Until I realised that the actual books could be my purpose and spent the following 6 months condensing these spiritual-nomad-turned-mother notes into a 80k word, non-fiction book, which is being traditionally published at the end of the year. I wrote the first book with the prioritisation of spending more time with my kids, healing my mental health, taking care of my physical fitness and reuniting with my husband through a deeply loving and growing relationship. I wrote the second book of poetry in 3 months and published it myself so I could own the authority to give the audiobook away for free. This was a way of contributing to something soul-crafted and selfless to the world without asking for a return. I have learned quickly that being an Author and poet is the greatest act of spiritual freedom I have ever experienced. I suddenly realised that life is meant to be this way and not the way I was about to 'settle' into. Life is meant to be Creative. Purposeful. Introspective. Calm. Slow. Passionate. Rewarding. Patient. Giving. Joyous. A constant process of learning - and could see that suffering was caused as a result of being out of alignment with all that which makes life beautifully unconventional. And yes, quitting my job was one of the most satisfying and petrifying experiences of my life. Create a little of your own rebellion - If you want to work differently, have more control of where your energy goes, be a more present parent in life, then perhaps creative entrepreneurship is journey worth considering. You need only overcome the dominant authority that is yourself, which is an act of liberation in its self. Your sub-conscious is the steering force to your life's direction, but it can be taught how to achieve anything you dream by beginning to be more conscious to more of what you think, say and act. Learn more about how to empower your state of mind through meditation and reconditioning. Incremental changes are the most powerful to make, so do something today that will inch you towards your dreams and learn how to enjoy the process of challenging yourself. Small changes, made consistently over a period of time have the power to transform your life as you know it. 4. We started travelling again Travel used to be the main priority in my life but it suddenly became a void among the responsibility of motherhood. I was brought up in 3 different continents and moved over 7 times in early childhood, before continuing to live around the world as an adult, so travelling has always been home to me. While I was working in the traditional sense, I felt like I was constantly juggling life with my young child, as well as struggling to settle into a culture that only supported me as a full-time contributor. This meant holidays were spent recouping in all-inclusives and places that had daycare facilities. This had never been me or what I enjoyed most. I lived on remote islands and in jungles, on secluded mountain ranges and in solitary ashrams. I lived for adventure and had always wanted my children to know the awe that comes from standing on the salted earth on the Etosha pan in Namibia or the feeling of expanse from watching the sunrise over the Horton Plains in Sri Lanka. So, when I had more mental bandwidth from the changes we were making to our life, suddenly wanderlust showed her wings again. We complied all our leftover holidays into one travelled solidly for a month around Sri Lanka and now have an abundant travel budget from the savings of our minimalist life. The experiences we have gathered from this year's adventure alone has been compiled into a full wall of photos to where our TV used to stand. It has every memory of exquisite scenery, every smile under night's star, every surf's wipe-out, every friend we made along the way on a mural dedicated to our uncharted escapade. Adventure does not disappear with responsibility; it just becomes a different type, a slower type, a more present type and a shared type. Create a little of your own rebellion - Choose experiences that bring your family together under adventure, rather than the 'usual' chartered destination.. It does not have to be expensive or exotic, but hold space for experiences that offer more than just comfort. Weekend breaks spent camping, long afternoon's walking in a part of nature that you've never been, or even watching a documentary instead of a film can all be these incremental experiences that create for an adventurous motherhood. 6. We kept realigning, kept going. Along every step of our journey, we have been met with some resistance. Not only from friends and family but from the culture we live in and even our own doubts. It is hard to go against what is collectively accepted as 'normal' and you can almost fear from a lifetime of being conditioned. But what may feel like comfort, knowing and familiarity for a few days can quickly become an un-lived life. And before you know it, you are wondering how it got this boring, or how life became this lost, or how you became this sick. It has taken resilience, but mostly discipline to consistently come back into alignment with our dreams. Distraction comes in many forms and dilutes your intuition from the outside in - and what we realised was that the more we sought only ourselves for guidance, the more empowered we became. We sat down often and talked about how to keep going, how to keep on this path, how to overcome our fears, how to keep inspired but we never questioned what we were doing or why were were doing it - only how to continue. We spent more time with our children, less nights arguing about money, more evenings watching the sun go down, less mornings waking up to the robotic routines, more time laughing, less Sunday's dreading the start again... we never needed to be reminded of why this was right for us. Being rebellious is a test of resilience. It requires boldness, confidence and a determination to act in accordance with what you know is best. And keep going. Create a little of your own rebellion - How do you align with yourself every day? Consider how much the world around you affects your ability to be true to your own needs and see how you can create more time spent being yourself. Get rid of activities that do not serve you and take time from these activities to put into your own grounding. In the end, rebellion is simply an act of rising against a dominating authority - this comes in many forms such as over-cultures, oppressive societal structures, possessive partners, friends or family members - but it also comes in the form of our own sub-conscious which makes sure we fear deviation in favour of safety. But safety does not ensure a long, fulfilled life, nor does it reflect the authentic person that you really are. Rebellion is about being you, with all your unique nuances and shades. It's about singing aloud with your child as you walk under bridges without caring what others think. It's about getting on that swing and having a go because it's fun, even if it feels embarrassing. It's about standing up for the way you parent your child, even if it is unconventional. It's about keeping your dreams alive rather than settling for 'good enough', even when it seems easier, safer and more comfortable to just be 'normal' - and it's about taking incremental steps, consistently, towards a dream that you are uniquely aligned with - because it is a truly exceptional life that awaits you there. ❃ New Book - Healing HER - available HERE ↠ Join us on Instagram - HERE ♥ Get the newsletter - HERE

The manifestation minimalist

How to keep your life simple and your manifestations potent. Something strange happened to my manifestations after I moved to Scandinavia. I started being met by more opportunities, was given more guidance and was put in situations where I was able to meet the right people to help me grow my dreams. In other words, my intentional manifestations were coming to life quicker than I imagined possible. Why? Well, before I lived a very cluttered life. I never had goals but held tight to dreams I believed were supposed to come true. I filled my head and my living space with all kinds of memorabilia from my travels, filled hundreds of journals with my thoughts and had a well stocked wardrobe of disposable fashion. I lived as a nomad, from a duffle bag, going from one country to the next, one job to the next - and kept the baggage (including emotional) with me. Despite my entangled way of thinking, acting and living, I honestly would have told you that I was a free woman not even 6 years ago. And I was heavily into manifestation, the law of attraction and the law of vibration. I wanted to manifest my dream beach life with surfer-husband, grommet kids and matching rustic million dollar home on the ocean. I pinned cut-outs on my visualisation wall that made the cork-board fall off due to the weight of 'dreams'. I signed up (and uhum...paid for) many online courses (including some of the most famous ones) that set out to solve my abundance blocks, manifest my dream life in less than 24 hours and create a life I loved by journalling/visualising/live as if you have it even more. But I got no closer to what I wanted - and instead got what I needed. A Viking by the name of Mads, who bundled me (and all my belongings up) and took me back to his rather frozen home. I didn't intentionally become a minimalist, because I am bohème at heart and didn't think the two could go together... but by some form of cultural osmosis, I started getting rid of everything that didn't hold a purpose or that I loved immensely. That happened to be more than 80% of my stuff. I began on a spiritual cleanse that lasted 4 years and shifted my mindset from messy and passionate to focussed and passionate. I began being guided by a clarity that I had never felt before, even after a year in a Sri Lankan nunnery during my youth. After two kids, we started intentionally co-creating our life again together because we were tired of working full-time and living a predictable life. We wanted freedom, the kind you get to choose what kind of life you get to live and without worrying about who you might offend. So we went travelling with our young family and spent a while figuring out our core priorities in life, returning to Denmark to put it into practice. With this clarity of mind, clarity from living small and experiencing big and this focus of living according to very few, but very potent priorities, I started intentionally manifesting my life again. But this time on a very clean slate... With a minimalist approach to how I manifested, how I focussed, how I visualised, how I meditated, how I was guided, how I let go...I manifested my dream of quitting my job in fashion design and becoming an author in just 8 months. Within these 8 months I: Quit my job Wrote 2 books Signed a deal with my favourite publisher (Intentional manifestation book coming out Autumn 2019) Self published a poetry book (AMAZON) Bought a property by the ocean and hand-built a cabin on it (INSTAGRAM) Spent more time with my two young children than I ever have Signed up for the Stockholm half-marathon (that's something I never thought I would do...) It may not be what freedom looks like to some people, but it is my definition and of my own making. It is the most empowering journey I have ever been on and I would love to share the tips on keeping life and manifestation simple with you via my Facebook page or let me know how your life has been changed through intentional manifestation or what your definition of freedom is in the comments below!