Metamorphosis

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I feel like I’m going through major life changes.
Maybe actually the whole world does.

I feel like a caterpillar who needs to hide, to retire, to cocoon-in before turning out one day as a beautiful butterfly, inchaallah.
I feel vulnerable yet strong at the same time. Subhanallah. 

I feel evolving into a more mature version of myself.
Ready to learn through all the changes that happen inside and out.

Metamorphosis.   

Ten things that help me going through tough times:

  • Being gentle with myself.
  • Stop rushing around, holding still, reflecting.
  • Trying to live in the moment, totally conscious and present.
  • Honoring who I am and what I did and do, knowing that I was and am always enough, just as I am.
  • Stopping self-sacrifice, martyrdom, self-sabotage and self-criticism.
  • Seeing myself, everybody and all things with a holistic-eye (all is connected, all is adding to the whole and all is well) instead of the usual dualistic view (good vs. bad).
  • Really listening to my emotions and needs.
  • Finding ways to climb up the emotional-guidance-scale, towards the better feeling-place (more here or here).
  • Defining what I really want – how do I wish to feel? How do I visualize my future?
  • Giving myself time. Breathe. Relax. 

 
 
 

What are you actually going through? Any tools to share?
Wishing you a most wonderful autumn, full of color, letting go and getting ready to welcoming the new. 

 

…at the end of a beautiful summer…giving thanks.

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Looking back to a wonderful summer, alhamdulillah, enjoying the cooler early autumn air and the beginning of a new school year with a totally new rhythm and very new @C-times-rules and strange obligations…

I focus on the good and the blessings within: time with the kids, harvest in the garden, so much beauty and natural abundance all around, subhanallah! …and sometimes a quiet moment, simply me…

A wonderful time to count all these blessings, time for gratitude-lists and time to look at all the things I appreciate so much…this is how I recently go through my days, working on my inner balance, clearing my own energies, trying to spread only good vibes around, in the midst of all this unpredictable and uncertain worldy situation that is  still going on…

“If you give thanks, I will give you more.”  (Qur’an 14:7)

Allahu akbar!

“If you would try to count God’s blessings, you would never be able to count them all…” (Qur’an 16:18)

Imagine Utopia – a backwards forecast to May’21

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looking back into the future of now… you may (again) say, I’m a dreamer… 

 

Today I would like to take you on a journey to next year.
How will life be, how will the world develop and look like then?
Let’s dream, let’s imagine, let’s travel to Utopia – just for the sake of fun –

Imagine yourself eight months from now.
It’s May 2021.
The trees are in full bloom outside and I sit on my terrace, the mountain-air here is still a bit chilly and I hold a cup of comforting warm coffee in my hands.
It’s quiet, the kids are in school, just our little one is playing peacefully at my side while I am pondering about the past months and the last year.
Exactly a year ago, I sat at the same spot, the same quietness, confined.
It was May 2020,
lockdown-time and normal life took a huge break then.
Do you remember?
We all were locked up at home, each one, without exception.
The world was in sort of a paralysis, ridden by a feeling of powerlessness and uncertainty, influenced by the horror news of a so-called dangerous virus threatening humans. Horrible numbers and pictures were spamming the world-wide-web. Opposing expressions were not allowed.
Everything was on hold and more than five months, from March to August 2020, everything, the everyday-normal, economies, tourism, moving, social- and business-life, yes, even war seemed like on a huge break. Everything felt so unpredictable.

When school started again in September’20, there were so many new rules, obligations, restrictions to be followed and so many questions while facing this new “normal” with a face-mask in front of our mouths.


“the solutions of tomorrow are in today’s utopias” (Pierre Rabhi) 

 

But, alhamdulillah, everything turned out better since then, better than ever expected. Subhanallah.
If I look back on the last six months, I see the huge gift in everything and the beauty of the development that happened since then, and I see the positive impact of this incredible worldwide shaking, when everyone was forced to pause and think:

The people of the whole world became more and more aware about laws, about the abuse of power, about the influence of media and about the danger of blind following crowd-behavior.

The human species became conscious about their right to free-will, about the individual duty to form one’s personal opinion, to stand up and to take things into their own hands.
More and more people from different countries and backgrounds made themselves heard.
Country by country, people peacefully demanded and gained back their power.
They began to express diverse opinions, accepted different points-of-view, became less tolerant towards the threatening of their individual freedom, but much more accepting of diversity and other ways of life.
Through courageous, positively focused questions and a strong request for proven facts, reason and deeper information, the personal self-determination was established again, maybe now more than ever before.
Humanity evolved to a never-before-known level of mindfulness, growing a great sense of connectedness, despite differences.
The former social distancing and suspicious looking-at-the-other-as-a-possible-enemy turned into a deeper understanding of the importance of dialogue, communication and togetherness, even across borders and social classes.
There was no possibility for hasty action and running around to save the world. Connectedness happens now much more through benevolent thoughts and open hearts.  Compassion, empathy, donating, sharing and prayer became more important than the urge of being actively involved everywhere.

The discussion about a forced vaccination calmed down, and already in November’20 it was clear that there was no considerable danger of Covid-19 left, no “second wave” to be expected, the overall death-rate was surprisingly low and a vaccination was no longer needed.

The restrictions and severe hygiene-and-health-obligations offered several benefits to society and schools here in Morocco, but the obligation to wear a face mask was soon removed worldwide – free breathing was and is possible again!

The educational-system developed tremendously and worn-out curricula and content was repealed since autumn. The ministry of education recognized the huge potential of the newly-gained homeschooling-experiences, with all its good and bad.
New forms of teaching and different creative learning-methods are allowed since last autumn and a huge freedom of choice is given now to schools and even to each student, on how, when and on what they will teach and learn.
It seems like some long-needed changes have come much quicker than expected. A healthy balance between theoretical and concrete-practical learning, adapted to each student’s individual character and needs, is possible now – with the aim to grow responsible, self-determined and mature world-citizens.

The stopped travelling proved to be a gift not only to planet earth, but even to people.
Nature recovered in many places and even though tourism-industry first really went down, the national travel-market and homeland-tourism highly raised and opened new opportunities for all concerned.
Today, travelling is again possible worldwide, but people move much more conscious and environmentally-friendly.

Economy went never as down as predicted and the people in businesses and enterprises that really had a hard time or went bankrupt, soon found new, even improved and sometimes different ways to re-establish or positively change their former work.
Home office and flexible working-hours became norm.
Garden-centers, do-it-yourself-, hardware- and furniture-stores experienced a boom, because values like “family”, “home” and “creativity” gained new importance.
Urban-, community- and roof-garden-projects started everywhere, cities are really green now and even the poorest areas bloom now.
People began seeing “self, family, nature and home” as the most treasured things in their lives. Family-communication-skills developed for the better, relationships improved and the birth rate in Februray’21 already significantly rose. Domestic love visibly increased, drug-addiction considerably decreased and “Stay home and love your family” is the slogan since.

Contrary to the many negative prophecies for all areas of life, a deep longing for awareness and a feeling of inner peace and “happy frugality” grew in many peoples’ minds. The social trend of a conscious return to the essential things, towards a healthy and whole being, towards self-determination and self-sufficiency, back to the land and to real bonds with fellow-humans and nature, is noticeable since then.

So, I sit here on my terrace, sipping my coffee and being enormously thankful for all that developed over the last year. Many, many things changed, we went through ups and downs and a lot of uncertainty. But optimism and faith proved right: all is well in the world. Alhamdulillah!

This process is called “regnosis” – a backwards forecast, which is – not like a prognosis looking and prescribing the eventual (often negative anticipated) future – more like a travel into future and looking back on how the way was from now until then. It is a powerful tool you can use in any form and adapt to any personal dreams and situation. Just by focusing on possibilities, solutions and a positive future outcome, rather than staying stuck in actual problems. This method helps the brain to imagine a desired evolution of something and to see its achievement as possible.

I was inspired by Matthias Horx, who wrote a beautiful regnosis in March’20 (in English and German), and I really recommend doing your own regnosis if you want to achieve a better-felling place of attraction for your personal or for the world’s future – because I believe that only through good feeling thoughts, we can attract a better world beyond the actual:

“If we can dream it, we can achieve it!” Inchaallah.
Happy September, dear readers! Salam aleikoum.

 

 

 

 

Friday inspiration

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“You want to be a solution to this planet ?

Then don’t let anything you see in the world rob you of your smile.”

(Matt Kahn)

We are still on summer vacation mode. Bliss. Alhamdulillah,  enjoying the small beautiful world of ours, at home and a lot in the gardens.  Subhanallah, life is good.

Some two weeks until school should start again… but @C-times are still real out there and after the speech of our dear King yesterday, I see that all is still very unpredictable and there’s no “normal” yet.

I train myself to welcome the unknown with a smile. Taqwa, inchaallah.

There are always two sides to everything … positive and negative.

Let’s concentrate on the good. Let’s imagine the best. You may say, I’m a dreamer…. but I hope I am not the only one. Everything is going to be well. And even better, God willingly.

Summer break… pondering and being highly inspired by the teachings of Abraham (Hicks).

P.S.: …. I forgot: a very blessed new year Hijri 1442 to all the Muslim Ummah – full of ease and enlightening inchaallah. Salam aleikoum.

 

 

What’s for dinner, Mom?!

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… do you hear this question in your everyday?
living in a big family, alhamdulillah, means again and again, during the course of the day and the week, getting asked or asking myself “what’s for lunch / dinner?”

Preparing food, cleaning the kitchen, doing laundry,… are all tasks that fill quite a part of my everyday as a mother of five. I’ve learned to put limits and clear rules on it, for the sake of my inner balance and for the family peace. We established house rules and an alternating work plan for all the seven of us. But still, as a mother, I see it as my mission to care for the common good and I feel it is my job to ensure a general healthy food intake.
I could easily make a full time job out of this mission. But I still have other interests and priorities in my life, LOL. So, I decided, already during the lock-down, when work-life stopped and our maid/nanny couldn’t come anymore, that I will spend a maximum of three hours per day in the kitchen and with household chores.  And I include the kids as much as possible, although I sometimes really enjoy doing it quiet and on my own…
In this way, it works quite well for me and leaves enough time for other things, especially since I’ve trained myself to accept piles of un-done dishes or un-folded laundry until the next day.

Summertime makes things easier and also much more fun, because we live a lot outdoors and approach everything in an even easier way, doing a lot of BBQ, preparing and eating outside together, and eating lighter and also less cooked food, alhamdulillah.
A meal-plan also helps a lot, and that’s what I wanna share today with you.

So here you go, with our summer-favorite-foods:

  • barbecue, grilling and broiling (Rosemary and mustard marinated meat)
  • baked potatoes (on the grill or in the oven)
  • pumpkin soup with garlicky bread croutons
  • Moroccan Tagine in different varieties
  • Quiche (I often change the ingredients, some ideas here)
  • Salads! favorite: Tomato – Arugula/Rocket- Salad with onions (all fresh from the garden)
  • Moroccan Couscous 
  • Ratatouille
  • one-pan-oven-vegetables
  • Lasagne
  • Leftovers and easy-suppers (vespers with bread, sandwiches, cheese, eggs, antipasti)
  • Milkshakes
  • Pancakes, rolled, filled sweet and salty
  • Popsicles, Iced fruits
  • other ideas here, here, here and here.
  • enjoy – Bismillah!!!

and you! what are your favorite meals these days?

 

     

Let’s vibrate love!

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“I want to help us all feel better. As a spiritual activist I believe that my greatest contribution to the world is to help people reconnect to the power of love.
When we make this shift, we begin to vibrate at a new frequency.

When you change your frequency, your family, neighbors and friends reap the benefits. One person’s energetic shift has the power to create a ripple effect across the globe.

And as more and more people vibrate love, the vibrations of hate and judgment weaken.
The times we’re living in require our commitment to love.
We are divided, fearful, angry and traumatized.
The only way to survive these times is to change our frequency. 

The practices I teach are not just about feeling happier and attracting more – they’re about healing the world.“

– Gabby Bernstein on her facebook site, April 2020 see here : https://gabbybernstein.com/blog/ 

Raise your vibes! – the importance of altruistic selfishness

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Yes, you’re right when you call life right now “difficult” and these times “very challenging”.
I can empathize with you.

But at the very same time this world can also be seen as “wonderful” and these times as “blessed”.
It’s all a matter of focus, isn’t it?

There can always be found clouds on the sky, violence, poverty, darkness and suffering in the world
– but there also is always the sun (even behind the darkest clouds) and something good to be found everywhere, even in the deepest misery. Subhanallah!

There is not only one truth, nor only one reality.
Everybody perceives and experiences life in a very different way, and each one lives in his own little world. Even our closest friends or family members might sometimes seem far away in their own space.

I had to learn, especially during C-times, but also now in these after-C-times of a new normal, that my perception is just too different than that of some people.
And even if I strive hard to make myself understood or to help others see the world with more hopeful eyes, it sometimes just doesn’t work out.
I have to accept, again and again, that other people’s feelings and energy just are NOT my responsibility. And I cannot change them.

Also, I learned that we CANNOT help others by getting caught up in their drama, even if this seems to be serving and caring.
Nor can we change the world by forcing others into our own positivity – it will make us quickly feel exhausted, powerless and weakened.

Yes, we might wanna save the world and make it a better place – the human soul strives to be of service – but the “how to” is not so easy (I wrote about it already here).

I understand now, that is not helpful to undermine my own happiness and join in with the choir of moaning.
If we hide our own joy, if we call ourselves “poor”, to avoid jealousy, resentment or accusations of others, or with the aim not to be too different, riding the wave of complaining and pain, like the majority of people, we only add to the negativity of this world.

I come more and more to the conclusion, that the only way to deeply be helpful to others and the whole world, is by being ourselves the change we wanna see in the world, trying to be happy inside and to protect this happiness and our own positive-energy-field.

We can take responsibility. Yes, we can help the world by taking a more self-centered approach.
Because truth is, everyone is the center of her own little world. Every one of us is kind of egocentric and lives her own reality, might that be a happy or a sad one.
So, maybe the best thing we can do for others, is to feel good in this own little-bubble-world of ours.

Yep. Call it “altruistic selfishness”.

But this isn’t about an egotistic lifestyle, avoiding or neglecting world-problems or the hard living-conditions of others.
Treating others with empathy, respect and even kindness, trying to always be of service and the best version of ourselves and to interact according (Islamic) noble values, I see as a basic human duty – but that’s not the question here – the thing is, that we CAN help the world by being happy and leading a joyful, rich life ourselves.
We do not have to suffer!
We do not have to feel guilty, if we feel good, if we look after ourselves, if we have plenty, are happy and fulfilled, while so many others live in misery and pain.

In fact, when we are doing well, we offer a gift to the world. When we vibrate on high levels, we are much more in tune with ourselves and in flow with good things. If we feel good, we are not only good to ourselves, but we also have more capacity to be good to others, to inspire, to seek solutions, to serve, to spread love and kindness.
When we are excited, we elevate the energy inside ourselves, and we also light up the energy around us – and that shines bright into the world.

« Light upon Light! Allah guides to His Light whom He wills. And Allah sets forth parables for mankind, and Allah is All-Knower of everything. » (Qur’an 24:35)

We are powerful. Each one of us.
We can always choose how we handle a situation. No matter what.
We can choose to see things in light.
We can choose to trade fear for love, hopelessness for faith.
We can always choose understanding instead of blame
and we can take reasonability instead of seeing ourselves as a victim of others or the outer circumstances.
We can be positive examples for others and show that happiness, wellbeing and prosperity are possible.

“God is the protector of those who have faith: From depths of darkness He leads them forth into light” (Qur’an 2:257)

So, let’s be more selfish, to serve the world!

Let’s enjoy the good things in life.
Let’s be thankful for the blessings in our everyday.
Let’s make joy a priority, to feel good and to elevate the vibes inside and around ourselves!
Let’s give charity, offer a smile, share a happy story and let’s choose our words wisely. It all has a major impact.

I wish you very happy blessed days of Dhul-Hijja.
May Allah accept all our efforts and worship, and may your days be filled with light. Ameen.

 becoming a lightworker – spreading optimism, love and light!  

Lightworker – a definition: “The simplest way to describe lightworkers would be as beings who feel an enormous pull towards helping others and commit to serving humanity… In summary, lightworkers are awakened beings who bear the highest interests of all living beings and Earth in their minds. They hold a distinctive core of kindness within themselves and vibrate at a higher energy level that enables them to be positive and support others through their struggles.” link to source of the text  


early morning self-development-work in summer sunlight…. 

LIGHT = love and optimism

“Know that you are making a major contribution to the world by choosing to live in the light”
Gabby Bernstein in “Super Attractor” 

Some other thoughts of mine on the topic: “Bringing light”

And my actual list of wonderful inspiring books and a link on the topic of living in the light:

*The holy Qur’an

*Gabrielle Bernstein “The Universe has your back” and “Super Attractor” (also available in other languages)

*Caroline A. Shearer “Raise your vibration – 3 min-e-books on tips and tools for a high frequency life”

*Peta Kelly “Earth is hiring”

*Shakti Gawain “Creative visualisation” and “Living in the light” (also in other languages available)

*Laura Malina Seiler “Schön dass es dich gibt!” and “Mögest du glücklich sein” (also available in French)

(Note: I do read all sorts of books, no matter if the writer is Muslim or not, but I am always treating new content very critically and carefully, in respect to my religion, Islam. I take what matches my believes and leave out the rest).

6 Ideen, wie du dir den Sommer dieses Jahr schöner machst

 

 

Courage NOW! – Divine intolerance and being true to ourselves

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a new road to go

The severe lockdown is over in our region, people are free to move and life is quickly going back to “as before” (with some restrictions and the obligatory face mask).
Schools are still closed for pupils and will be until September – so we are still on homeschooling/unschooling-mode.
Administrations slowly go back to normal-work, and we as a school-direction have to finish now the current semester and planify the next.
But I strongly feel, that I don’t want and also can’t go back to life as it was before.

The C-times-break was a huge gift to me and accelerated change that was already on its way. The distance to “normal” hugely pushed my personal and entrepreneurial inner evolution.
And now, more than ever before maybe, I feel the absolute inner drive and the urgent need for re-adjustment, personnally but also work-wise.
I feel that it is so so important to make changes now, to take action before every-day-life caught me and us back again. I don’t want this whole C-times-experience to become just a fading memory or a dream-like-souvenir. I don’t want to fall into the trap of just jumping back on the usual train that begins to roll and run away so quickly again….

Note to self:
STOP! Hold on a moment! NOW!  

take an overview!

 

Having been led last week to the wonderful and absolutely encouraging book from Peta Kelly “Earth is hiring” (an absolutely worth-read during these times) I came to learn about the generation of “millennials”, about things like genetic “divine intolerance”(= God-given-intolerance towards old and worn-out paradigms) or about the “bullshit detector”(= a natural inner warning signal when authenticity or truth is in danger because you begin talking about or are listening to things that are just not congruent with your values).

Despite the language she uses, which is a bit too raw and fecal for my taste, the content is extraordinary and so empowering, and sometimes I have the feeling, Peta is just talking out of my heart, straight to my soul.
I am slightly older then the so called “millennial-generation” and I don’t think we can allocate people and describe their character by birth-years, or put a whole generation in one pot, but I feel confirmed and find huge parts of my own personality described in Peta’s book. I feel very encouraged by her thoughts and like the way how she shakes and awakes people.

So, talking in her words, my inner-feeling of “divine intolerance” (which can be also described as the islamic fitra) cries very loudly these days and my “bullshit-detector” is very much on alert recently – towards my own inside thoughts and decisions, but also towards everything that is said and happens outside.

I know, I cannot change anything until I change myself, and that’s why currently I am trying to totally (re-) define my many roles, my path, our school’s service and mission and my personal goals…

I journal a lot, I work on my longtime-vision, am planning and I am especially doing intense treasure-mapping. (link)

Also, I totally renewed the short-welcome-profile and the description of myself on my “about”-page here on this blog because describing myself helps me to have kind of a distant-outside-view on my own personality, on how I see myself but also on how I wish myself to be and become – (oooh, how many times I pressed the “save changes”-button these days to adjust the text – maybe you already recognized the different and constantly changing content there… welcome, go have a look, but know, it might change again…).

 

photocredit @writtenbybrittany 

 

The “I am”-definition and reorientation of my life’s direction is real work, it sometimes hurts, it takes courage and it definitely is my personal djihad. But I am so sure it is worth it.
As I said before, I find it so incredibly important to benefit from the break we had, to learn from those shutdown-experiences (good and difficult ones), to listen to the inner voice that was so extremely loud and clear during these past months, to follow the insights and inspirations that arose.

I want to take courage to make change happen.
The time is now. 

“Take the risk or loose the chance.”
“What do I need to know, to be, to recognize or to learn?”
“How can it become any better for the highest good of all concerned?”

Happy summer-solstice! wishing you enlightment and the courage for many beautiful changes in your world. xxx