It happened today around lunchtime.

We had our Monday-Shared-Silence Session in the park. The weather was beautiful, the sun was shining from a blue sky, birds were around, people were eating, chatting & enjoying the sun.

It was four of us, two each sitting on a picnic blanket, I brought my dog & she was playing with her tennis ball.

As usual, our sign and arrow were present, so that any stranger could join us.

At some point, my friend tapped on me & made me look into a certain direction, indicating that a person was circling around & checking our sign, but he never joined. Who knows, maybe next time :).

Then I suddenly saw a dance acquaintance of mine, an older gentleman who is always happy & smily, same this time too. He was looking at me, waving and starting to come towards us.

My friend that shared the blanket with me moved to the other blanket, since he realized we know each other. So Emil came & sat down, smiling all over his face, happy to see me & asking how everything is going!

I smiled at him as well & said that we still have a bit of our silent hour left, that he could join and we could have a chat afterwards. I know he knows about it, since he saw me posting it on my social media.

He answered, that he is just on his way home, and then suddenly, he broke out in tears, crying, he lifted his sunglasses and shared that he just had a big operation, where they removed an almost tennisball-sized tumor from his neck (I noticed the plaster he had).

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He said that he just wanted to share this, to let it out & that it was so difficult for him & I immediately came closer & gave him a hug & listened and talked to him. No matter our silent session. The three others were sitting close to us, being present too.

We had a short chat about it, exchanged words of consoling, caring, he shared his fears, emotions and struggles of this situation and we agreed that it is so important to let those things out of our system.

And then he continued home and we sat for 10 more minutes in silence.

It was a very moving moment, very beautiful, vulnerable and deeply connecting.

Something similar happend last week, where another friend of mine who knows about these sessions, joined and we spoke about death, his mom passing away recently & him now not having any parents & an older, disabled sister living far away. It was a very vulnerable moment too.

We need THIS. All of us.

We humans need other humans. The presence of another soul. Just being there and witnessing us, seeing us, listening to us and connecting.

In a world were everything moves so fast, stress is chronic, depression is everywhere, disconnection & technology are driving us crazy, we need this! What happened today!

It is crucial for our life, surviving and thriving.

So, this means: never underestimate your being, your presence, your sitting somewhere, smiling at someone, creating a place to do something together, or just sitting in silence.

Your whole being, the person you are is so powerful! Beyond what you can imagine! You mean a lot to many people, more than you might think! Whether it is family members, friends, acquaintances, strangers, work colleagues, partners, siblings, grandparents, animals: YOU ARE IMPORTANT!

We never know what others go through. Sometimes it just needs to be said out loud, shared, being witnessed and thats it.

Today humbled me, it made me feel very grateful and thankful & honored and I will keep on going and sitting in silence every Monday.

No matter if it is fully silent, or with small chats in between.

What is important is, to create space for human-ness and connection. Always & forever!

Thank you all for reading this & thank you to all of those amazing souls that participated!!

Love,
Daria

The smell of turpentine, oil paints and pipe tobacco are still very vivid in my memory.

Whenever he painted watercolor landscapes on smaller canvases, he did that spread out on the living room table.

And my dad painted HUGE paintings, sometimes several meters big! Sometimes he also painted outside.

Somehow it was normal for me to see that & experience that. Maybe this is still why I love to paint at home on my kitchen table, even though I have a whole room I could make into my Atelje.

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I decided this year to take the opportunity & get a studio spot in town so I can put all my large canvases and acrylic paints there and not worry about dropping paint anywhere.

It was a big deal for me to do that & three weeks ago I moved in & documented the whole process.

I will share a short 3min-video with you that I made, to remember this big moment:

Somehow this feels strange, but also very normal. I cannot quite explain it very clearly.

I really like going there and painting on my largest canvas so far (90x90cm) & I recently primed two new ones, one of which is a commission for my auntie.

It feels very good to have space, not feel bothered to be messy & drop paint or make any other stain. It is also so nice to be surrounded with this artsy-athmosphere, since many other artists have their painting spots there too.

Yet, I am usually there alone, which I enjoy a lot as well.

For today this is it I think :).

I will keep you updated on what I created on that big canvas. I first added a base background layer with my favorite colors & then, we will see what emerges from that :)

Thank you so much for following along & reading my artsy endeavours! It means a lot to me!

Love,
Daria

I have been painting daily since months, so I thought why not, I am on a run already. And I thought I can expand on it & every 7 days I will focus on something different.

Either a different medium or art supply, or a different object or whatever else.

I started with oilpastels, since I have been loving them & continued with landscapes.

In addition to that, I also decided to actually put up my paintings & creations for sale.

Yes, the first time ever that I would create a series & put it up for sale… the thought of it makes me a bit nervous to be honest, but there is no way to grow without pushing our boundaries, right ;)?

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I thought, before I put the painting up on my webpage, I will first share it with all of you here and see if anyone of you is interested in those pieces.

They are all landscapes from around here the North of Sweden or from India, some also from New Zealand.

Their size is A6, painted on watercolor paper with high quality, artist grade oil pastels. I will sell each piece for 77 Eur on my webpage, + shipping. If anyone of you is interested in a piece, you will get it for 70 EUR + shipping.

I am also open for commissions, so if you have a special place that you would want to be painted, let me know and we agree on size, medium and pricing.

But without further ado, here are the landscapes I painted in the last weeks:

I would like to especially thank you Miriam for connecting me with your friend! This is why I was able to paint these beautiful fall landscapes in New Zealand and we are in discussion about how/if/when/what to send them over. THANK YOU soooo much!!

In case anyone of you is interested in my process around oil pastel paintings, I might write about it in more detail in another newsletter. Since I just started, I have no idea if the way I go about it is the best way, even if I like the outcomes so far.

I surely learned some lessons when it comes to their messiness: you wont get out of the painting process clean, neither your art supplies or papers :D. It is a juggling and awareness training to make sure that everything that should stay clean and white, stays that way :D

Other than that, this is really it for today. I wish you all an awesome week and thank you for reading and following along!

Love,
Daria

Last week, my online Mantra meditation group class ended.

Done, over…

Since around 6 years we have been meditating together in this setting. Sometimes three times per week, twice, once, or for short periods of time, even daily.

We met in the mornings or the evenings, with 2 or 3 people, or 8 or 9.

On the weekend or weekdays. On Full Moons or special birthdays.

We sang mantras from all cultures, sat in silence, we chatted, shared stories, we opened up and shed tears, together or alone, being witnessed by others. People came and left & new people came.

I was feeling held, seen throughout all those years, and a strong bond of togetherness was formed amongst all of us with time.

Now, the setting is not there anymore, but the connection & togetherness is still there. Only time will tell what this will become, what it will merge into & how we will continue.

If you would have asked me in my first or second year, that our class will end one day, I would have been in shock, devastated. Impossible to believe it.

Now, last week, when we spoke about it, I felt okay. Not devastated, neither shocked, I think I felt it coming.

There is a type of sadness inside of me, I had to go on a longer processing-walk afterwards… yet, I feel fine. I feel connected & held, still. I do not feel left alone, at all. I know that I am not, never will.

And this is a sign that our group & the connection we built is larger and stronger than any certain, set group setting. We managed to create true soul connections.

Today I felt like writing about what I learned throughout all these years & my experiences and how they shaped my life and me. And also ,how they will continue shaping my life.

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I was convinced that I was incapable to meditate. I had a certain belief about it & thought I am not made for it, it never worked.

One day, while I was considering a change and to finally try something new, a friend of mine asked me if I want to join him for Mantra Meditation classes. I trusted him & I felt that this was the right thing to do.

So I joined. And here we are, 6 years later.

I am so grateful that he introduced me to Elizabeth, who officially was our teacher, but with time, she also became my friend, a member of my soul family and someone who I value so much in my life.

Through her & her class setting I became who I am today. Another fun fact is, that throughout all these years, we have only met once! In India, for a 10 days mantra meditation pilgrimage with our past teacher. It was magnificent.

Anyways, I wanted to share with you all that I learned and the changes that happened in my life doing Mantra meditation so regularly. I am not sure if I manage to list all of them, but it also doesn’t matter. I will keep it short as well.

So what I learned and how I changed, incoming:

• I learned to let go of my grudges towards the catholic church.

• I started to feel comfortable with the words “God” and “Jesus”

• I got to know people who are very similar to me in their depth & how they see the world and the universe, with all the miraculous things happening and I learned that I am not the only one who is “so weird” ;)

• I learned to speak up louder, set boundaries and I learned to be comfortable with my voice and who I am.

• I experienced what it means to cry in front of someone else and be held in a space that is pure & that it is possible to be seen deeply.

• I had many moments of clarity, confusion, difficulties and I learned that there is comfort in sharing, even the difficult emotions that I used to suppress, like anger and rage and shame and guilt and blame and judgement.

• I sharpened my intuition and my spidey-senses, SERIOUSLY much! I cant emphasize that enough.

• I learned to trust myself even more.

• I became much more kind and loving towards myself, less critical and harsh.

• I also became more mindful about how I am in the world and to who.

• I learned to say No and distance myself from what is not serving me.

• I learned a lot about hinduism, buddhism, christianity and all types of gods & goddesses.

• And then I learned how to throw all of that knowledge away again and start from scratch :D

• I experienced changes in group dynamics, people coming and connecting and leaving for good.

• I learned what it really means to meditate (spoiler: its not what you think it is ;) )

• I managed to sit still for hours at once.

• I got into spaces I have never been before, mentally ,emotionally, spiritually. Without any drugs or mushrooms or such, just through sound, breathing and silence.

• I finally managed to do and enjoy silent meditation. I love it!

• I realized that it is possible to stick to habits, be consistent and show up.

• I also learned what it felt like when I did not show up for my practice and that I felt much worse.

• I experienced conflicts between people and myself and that healthy resolutions are possible, that we can reconnect & re-trust & that we are all human in the end.

• I realized that you can easily trust a stranger you have never met & build a connection with them. Its not as scary.

• I witnessed people crying, breaking open & sharing vulnerable moments of their lives and I felt the honor to be able to participate and hold space.

• I learned to be the person who is witnessed in these moments myself as well.

… I think I made my point… I learned a shitload of stuffs!

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And I have not even explained all the extra healing sessions I had with Elizabeth that shifted so much in my life… I cant even describe all of that.

And I also think, that I have not even shared half of all that happend, all that I learned. Because usually other people see us and how we changed much more… but in the end, it doesn’t really matter.

What matter is, that I changed so much, that such a drastic change in my life makes me stay stable and grounded. It doesn’t throw me off balance.

I give a lot of credit to our classes to this, the strength that has been built over the years inside of me. Without making me rigid and stiff, but make me soft at the same time…

I know this sounds weird, but I really feel like that: I am much stronger in so many ways, but also so much softer and kinder, especially to myself…

And for that, and all the other things, I will always be grateful for Elizabeth & her Mantra Meditation classes.

And you know, I know that this doesnt really mean “end”, we are still in the same world, connected via our souls, in touch because we are human beings on the same path, walking this earth together.

But in my world view, not even death means “end”, so in a way, it is just another step of evolution that is happening.

It is just a change. And changes always occur, no matter what. If you want it or not, if you life it or not, if you fear them or not.

We therefore might just as well get along with them, and embrace every change we experience. Instead of trying to avoid what is unavoidable.

So for today, that is it. I felt like writing this off of my chest & honor these last 6 years in this way.

I know and feel that my heart is more grateful and excited about all of it, compared to any words that I could possibly write down.

It is just the usual inadequacy of words and language compared to feelings, emotions and connection and bodily perceptions.

And you know, I also feel changes in my life, in my writing, in this newsletter… since a while already I am feeling that something is shifting, or needs to shift… I have no clue yet what and how and when and why though…

But one thing I know for sure, cos I learned that as well: to trust & surrender and go with the flow of life and the Universe and whatever any creator or God or Higeher self has as a plan for my little soul.

It will all be fine!

Love,
Daria

Five weeks ago, a friend and I started this Monday initiative of sitting one hour in silence, in the center of the city.

We wanted to create this space of just being a human, no need to talk, perform, do, do & DOOO… more, more and MORE, optimizing, explaining & all the performative acts we are forced to do these days.

Very seldomly do we allow ourselves to just be, and do nothing. And also did we forget, that we can still connect to people through silence. Deeply.

So these last five weeks we have been doing that. We were this amount of people: 3, 3, 7, 4 and 2.

We were also at least one person with us every time, remotely, or let’s say: telepathically, and today I found out that another one who joined once, but got sick afterwards, joined us in spirit every time as well, doing her own alone-lunch-Mondays.

This is just brilliant! I love it a lot & appreciate every single person who joins, weather physically or in spirit, because I do believe that this is possible.

I feel very grateful to have started this and I am looking forward to it every week.

To me, this is an hour where I can just sit & be. No need to do anything but drinking tea, listening to the sounds around us, exchanging smiles about the birds surrounding us, looking around, closing my eyes & just simply be.

It is almost like a little sanctuary that we create together, where there is absolutely no need for words or any wordy-exchanges, we signal “Hi” and “Bye” in any other ways, and they are always very connecting moments.

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Generally, sitting in silence together creates a type of bond somehow, a deep connection that has no words, needs no words and is quite strong.

I also don’t feel any expectations around it. I was happy that other people joined, I am equally fine when we were just two of us, it strips away any want or needs or pressure or rules. They dont exist somehow.

And all that brings a type of ease into my body, mind & soul.

I also am learning to just let my thoughts be. I dont condemn them, I dont tell them they are bad, they shouldn’t be there, cos I want to have silence in my mind as well.

No, they are welcome, I like observing them & it is actually ridiculous if I follow their way of appearing & dissapearing & becoming one thing, then the other. It is like as if they are tiny little entities that jump around & have fun.

And in a way, I enjoy watching them & I learned by now, through meditation, that there is no need to have as an aim, a quiet mind.

It will calm down sooner or later, sometimes easier, sometimes it’s more tough. These moments of sitting in silence and just being are very meditative as well, but I dont want to call them meditation. Cos it brings some type of certain vibe or connotation with it.

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To me, meditation can be all kinds of things, recently I even embraced the fact that feeling my feelings of anger and rage & letting the flow through my body instead of repressing them, is a type of meditation too.

So in a way, thoughts can be meditative as well, or the observation od our own thoughts.

And yes: I have been in moments of mind-less-ness and thought-less-ness & those are great. But they are not THE only thing that is worthy to achieve.

Sitting in silence with people, conencting on a subconscious level is equally rewarding & important.

Cos you know, I could throw all kinds of science at you as well, neurological facts, brainwaves synchronizing, energetic balances, mirror neurons, how we become each other whenever we spend time with each other, how nature changes us & grounds us etc. All that is happening just while we sit together in silence.

Sooo, I will continue, we will continue! And if anyone of you wants to join, physically here in Umeå or telepathically from wherever you are right now: yo uare more than welcome!

Let’s create this pockets of peace, silence & connection together. We do need more of those in the world!

Love,

Daria

It usually helps me to digest what happens in my life & maybe it will help me with a decision as well.

So here we go:

Today I visited a “konstförening” here in Umeå. I am not sure about the english translation, it’s like an “art association or union”.

I saw that they posted to have free ateljer spots in their studio & that it is possible to visit them. I immediately emailed them to check out the space.

Because so far, I paint at home. And I do like it. But even though I have a big guest room that I tried to make into a studio: I don’t like to paint in it. I always choose my kitchen table instead, here you see it, after I recently cleaned it:

Plus I feel that I need to be very careful to not splash paint around, cos I am renting, so its kind of inhibiting me.

And in that atelier spot that I visited today, I would have space to put my easel, use a table & go crazy. It is not a big spot, but I don’t need a huge room for myself… yet :D.

So I am currently wondering, should I do it? Do I really want it? My brain is going ballistic with all its thoughts, the pros & the cons, the time, the space, the commitment, the logistics…

It is making me a bit crazy, cos it is distracting me from my decision. It also is distracting me from thoughts like: “I could just try it out”, cos the monetary investment is not a big deal. & the freedom I would gain might be super worthy.

Plus I would get in contact with other artists, in real life, not just online & digital. I also will join exhibitions…

And in the end: I do want to make more analogue art & sell it & start making a living from it. So somehow, I need to start somewhere.

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So you see, it is like my mind & logic and thoughts are trying to distract me from what I truly want to try & give a shot.

Maybe they try to warn me, protect me, keep me the same, cos it might be dangerous to try, what if I fail? & what if I succeed & will have fun?

There is no logic that needs to be applied here, whatsoever, yet, my brain tries to throw logic around…

If I would go with my intuition, I would just try it & see, because I didn’t even hesitate to email them & ask to meet me & check the spot. It was an automatic action, where I thought: “Oh cool, I wanted a little studio spot, so I should check this out”.

Whatever I think now, is secondary. What I feel is more important.

& I do feel a bit discomfort, insecurity, a feeling of being unsure… yet I know & feel, that I need to start somewhere… I would even have a painting to paint there already, a commission for my auntie, that is waiting to be re-started.

And I am of the strongest conviction, that we need to take even the smallest steps towards the direction we want to develop, so the Universe knows we really want it & takes us serious & throws more miracles at us :D

For that, I need to take myself serious, & my dreams as well. Cos you know, in the long run, I would love to have a huuugggee space to paint!

A space that serves as my studio & as a gallery, a space that has a corner with sofas & a table to have tea & coffee, and another corner that is open for the public to come & join & paint ,draw, craft & be creative.

Ideally I would also organize events for children to be creative, but also for grown ups to connect back to their inner child & creative power.

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You know… & that needs steps towards that idea & plan & mission, I need to take those small steps, even if it is just a tiny studio space in town, it is not JUST, it is actually a big step to move towards…

It did help me to write about it, to process all that & I do think that I will give it a shot! I will write that lady & say that I would like to take the studio space & then see where it will lead me!

Omg, it is kind of exciting… let’s see what tomorrows-Daria will think & how she will process all that in her dream world!

Oh, and just for the fun of it & to keep it real & not perfect & idealized, here is my kitchen table before I cleaned it & reorganized everything:

That is it for today, thank you so much for reading & listening & being there for me to let out & process all my thoughts. It means a lot to me!

Love,

Daria

I have been late with my weekly Sunday post, because I am in a painting swamp. I am kind of obsessed with oil pastels right now and am spending every possible minute painting with them.

Or making a folder with references of collected photographs to paint, or taking pictures of my creations, or arranging them in potential sticker sheets. Or making small videos to post about them…. Generally documenting my process, cos I love seeing the progress.

So yeah, this time away from the screen became kind of priceless for me, as in my day jobs I am dependent on computers, laptops, tablets and online softwares. Oh and zoom.

While I have tons of ideas what to write about, that means that I will have to sit down in front of the screen… and then I feel like I rather want to paint with my oil pastels…

You know, I even ordered more! And I started to ask people I know for beautiful reference photos that I can practice on.

In case you have a beautiful picture and want to share it with me, so I can paint it, feel free to do that & I will share the final outcome with you of course as well & send you a picture of it!

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So now, this means, today I will write about my recent painting process and share some pieces with you. And my thoughts behind, and the developments I feel that are happening.

I am not so sure how to do that best, if I should focus on one piece and how I develop it, or share the whole process with several of them?…

What I can tell you is, that oil pastels are a mess :D, they are difficult to control, very smudgy & easy to smear around by accident.

Yet, they have a certain charm and addictiveness about them, precisely because of these same reasons: they are perfect to let go of control and just trust the process.

I started out with basic Faber Castell oil pastels to try them out, this was the outcome, very basic, very unsatisfying and quite frankly, not very beautiful:

Strangely enough, these tries hooked me on them; I like the meadow the most, so I decided to paint things I love and try to see if I can improve.

Next up a nature reference, where I took a photo of Cloudberries, growing here i nthe North of Sweden. I decided to try the whole scenery: meh. Then I extracted the plant itself: yay! & then an abstract version of it: meh. Here they are:

What I found out is, that I like to sketch the outline of the object first, very rough, with a black brush pen (the middle example), so I wanted to expand on that & decided to pick objects I really like: my own earrings & jewelry, here we go:

Next up, I decided to try a landscape again, one that is less busy & has nice colors & I got going at it with also outlining with black ink. Here you can see the whoel process of how I went about it: first a graphite sketch, then rough colors, here I used watercolor pencils, then more details, then black ink sketches, then watercolor brush pens & then the first oil pastel layers, continuing until I was happy:

I was afraid to mess it up & also to waste my oil pastels, so I decided to pre-color the piece before to make sure to ease into the process. And al lthis kind of hooked me into this medium.

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By that time I already got some more professional oil pastels from Sennelier and the difference is HUGE! Insane, and it makes the whole creation process so much more enjoyable.

I am also slowly learning to let go & not be precious about my art supplies, after all: if I create beauties like that, its all worth it! here a close up:

Soooo, I got hooked on landscapes & plants and decided to continue exploring them. Next one was a close up of a bumble bee and a lupine and so far, one of my favorites. While painting it, I realized I had no purples… I tried to mix & blend them on the paper & it kind of worked… but not really…

So I ordered new oil pastels, but then got inpatient, so I took the car & went to our local art store & stocked up on new sennelier ones again… I couldn’t wait for the others to arrive. I know I know, I might have an issue around accumulating art supplies :D, but here is the beautiful outcome with the right colors:

Can you see how it doesnt matter that nothing is clear and sharp? That tehre are no outlines and edges? I also did not pre-sketch that before, just went for it directly with the oil pastels and I really love the outcome a lot!

Next up, some more landscapes, on the left you see how I tape off the edge to get a clean border and the right one is based on a photo my friend Dan took:

And last but not least, I started to experiment with smaller pieces of paper, a bit of crazy architecture and painted backgrounds and tricky white flowers to get some nice color variations & learn how to handle white objects in oil pastel:

Each one of them had its own challenges: the house was tricky to get the dimensions and the depth & the foreground bushes & few leaves. The caterpilalr was tricky cos the format was half A5, so very tiny & details are difficult to paint in oil pastel on such a small surface. The poppy flowers were tough because they were white, I am still not 100% happy with the outcome, but I learned to have a colored background is great!

Sooo… this was an insight into my artsy explorations these days and weeks. I love the whoel process of it.

And if I am honest, which I usually am, I really find a lot of joy in doing that, much more than in illustrating digitally, any science related stuffs…

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I have no idea where and how this is going in any direction, but I know that I want to continue doing it and I would love to share and sell my art as well. There are sooo many ways to do it these days, I will have to figure out a way I like that makes sense, so I do not loose myself and stil lcan create value and make people happy with beautiful creations.

I can of course sell my originals, I can make prints, I can make stickers (oh, I also tried that one this week, it worked ;), at least the digital preparation), I could start a mail club, I could open a Shopify (again) or an Etsy store… or put everything on my website… there are tons of options.

Maybe I just need to start and try it out. Either way, I feel like I am slowly but surely forging a new path for myself and I cant wait to see how it will evolve!

If you have any valuable tips or tricks to share, feel free to let me know! Or if you want to get any original artwork from me, or prints, let me know as well!

For this week, thats it! See you next week & enjoy all days until then!

Love,

Daria

Could you sit down and stay silent for 5 minutes?

Not do anything, no phone, no computer, not even music? Just sitting with yourself, in silence.

This is something that is very difficult for many people. I used to think that I cannot meditate, because in my mind, meditation meant to sit silently, not move and have an empty head.

I couldn’t have been farther from the truth. By now I manage to meditate regularly and get into a meditative state in many different scenarios of life.

Through years of mantra meditation, I also finally managed to get into silent meditation. You know, the sitting in silence and not moving part ;).

But I will not get into the details of meditation now, what it is, what it is not etc… I would like to put the focus for today s newsletter on the action of silence.

I have been craving silence since quite a while. The world and society seem to noisy to me, too much stress, turmoil, words, sounds, disturbances & mess all around everywhere.

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And I notice it even more, because I work from home, alone and then it becomes even more noticeable when I am outside of my place.

I mostly see people walking around with earphones plugged into their ears, music blasting their brains, or being glued to their phones, even in company, or talking for the sake of taking, even though it passes the person they talk to.

We are deeply disconnected from ourselves and others these days and while one reason is surely all the technology & tools we get bombarded with, I still think we can all choose with our free will & decide against all of these. At least in certain situations.

Because constant overstimulation is making us sick, disconnected, stressed, burned out & completely out of balance. It also isolates us.

And what we need these days is: connection, togetherness & support.

But then also: we can’t connect to others if we are disconnected from ourselves. And how do we connect to ourselves?

By being with ourselves, alone. Without music, phones, entertainment… you get the gist ;), the circle is closing.

Here is the thing though: it can be scary. Because what if suddenly these intrusive thoughts come up, that you hate your job! That you are unhappy in your relationship! That you want to move… they can become unbearable, depending on how long you have decided to ignore them & distract yourself from them.

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So ideally, we take regular mini-time outs throughout our days and weeks to reconnect to ourselves and potentially course correct. This takes a while to get used to, but the second you get into it, you will feel a big difference.

The other option is, to be silent together. With others.

This is something I started last week: a shared silent session in the town I live in, for one hour sitting together and just being.

We were three people, one friend that I knew would join and a complete stranger! A lady that got to know about it & decided to join us!

You know how happy I got when I saw her approaching us & sitting next to us on a bench? My heart exploded out of love for her, because it was just so amazing that she came, She stayed the whole hour and loved it! And she said she felt the love I sent to her as well! (because this is how the universe works, just saying ;) ).

It was a beautiful experience and tomorrow will be the second session. I made an arrow to put next to the sign I did, to indicate where we sit & who knows how many will show up tomorrow!

If you are in Umeå, feel free to join us, we will sit at the big bird in the central part in town, from 12:00 - 13:00. And if you are not from Umeå, you can join in anyways, remotely works just as fine.

The point is to be in silence together, no matter where we are and create a pocket of peace for this one hour of the day.

So, for today this was it. I would love to hear your thoughts and experiences around silence! I am sure I am not the only one craving it!

Love,
Daria

And I have decided to go for them, no matter what. Today I will bring you along my most recent creative outbursts.

It all started by finding watercolor brush markers in a random store.

Usually, I only get high-quality, artist grade art supplies, especially paints. I don’t want to be bothered by having sub-par materials, cos they will create sub-par outcomes.

I also decided, to be stingy around art is not what I want to be, especially not when I want to sell my artworks. I feel it is almost an insult to sell art so someone and not make sure that I created it with the best quality supplies.

It also trains me to see all parts of the artistic process as worthy, valuable and special and not be cheap about it. I think it is important to think about what we want to create, how we want to live and what we value. Cos it creates a whole other energy, compared to being cheap, stingy & constantly worried about quality.

And yes, I think and believe that amazing artworks can be created with very simple supplies, you will see in a second. But the purpose is key. If I want to practice and have fun, I wont take my expensive paints; if I want to create something to sell, I go for those more pricy materials.

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Anyways, I went to a random store, not even an art store & saw these watercolor brush markers and immediately wanted to have them. Mainly to take with me to paint anywhere and also because I wanted to try them as a tool.

And I love them for playing around and having random ideas come to live. Because I have the aim to “play and enjoy” the process, I don’t worry about the outcome, either the used up ink or any smudge or imperfect line.

And the more I do it, the more freedom I feel, and the more daring I become. Maybe you will see it throughout the development of the pieces I will share with you here.

I started with simply testing the colors & painting some snails. Looking back at it, the outcome still feels a bit controlled, a remaining try to be “correct” in some way:

You can see that even though I decided to use crazy colors, the outcome is neat & controlled. Just like the first butterfly in the next piece.

The insects after that, are more free and I decided to go messy & crazy. I love to have graphite lines shine through when I sketch my objects. But here I often decided to start with color first, then I missed the graphite lines & added them afterwards, outcome:

And then, I felt sciency again :D. For those of you who know, I am a biologist and did my PhD in Plant physiology. So I love all kinds of science and because I love art too, I became a scientific illustrator.

I felt like I wanted to paint something sciency in an analogue way, with my new markers, so I picked microscopy pictures of the embryo development of the infamous Arabidopsis thaliana… at least for plant scientists :D.

To make it more happy & colorful, I went for a warm color palette et voila, some artsy-fied science:

By that time, I was hooked on these markers.

At the same time, the feeling of retrieving came up. Also the feeling of getting back to the basic roots of what it means to be a human. Making this type of art is soooo rewarding, on all kinds of levels. It is different from all the digital art I make and the current AI-this and AI-that, improving, polishing, perfecting and optimizing makes me go nuts.

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It is insanity because it makes everyone go nuts. And disconnect from themselves and each other. Sooo, upon the inspiration from a friend Mark McCartney, I decided to initiate a “Silent sitting” hour in the city I live in. I thought about the spot and went there to paint it, so I could use it for my announcement. Here it is:

This piece means a lot to me, because it is part of the city I call my home, it reminds me of just going out, being present, look, see & capture what is around me. This really connected me to myself and the present moment and I hope tomorrow some souls will join me from 12-13 at this beautiful spot; sitting and just being.

Drawing and painting and creating also deeply connects to the feelings we have and feel and process. While I was working at my technical editor job, I suddenly felt the urge to paint. And during that process, some type of frustration came up, an annoyance and I decided to let it flow & it clearly shows in the outcome:

The last thing I want to share with you today is, that my brain suddenly started processing words and language in a specific way… in a type of visual way…

I don’t know exactly where this came from, but as I don’t watch TV, I don’t listen to news, I don’t listen to lyrics music at home, I am not sure of the source.

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I think that when we take the time to listen to our bodies, thoughts & mind & emotions, when we connect to our intuition, things come up. Maybe its from my soul, maybe its from a greater source, I dont know.

What I know is that these thoughts about words were so much fun, that I decided to draw them. Here comes the first one, the beautiful butterfly:

I wonder: why have I never before thought about that word: butter-fly? I dont know, I guess we sometimes take for granted what we see, know & use and dont reflect upon it. But the second I thought about it, I immediately tried to find many more words like that. And here are the two last ones, arguable a bit more tricky to draw:

So yeah, these are the crazy thoughts of my brain.

And before anyone might ask: I did not use any AI, I did not use any ChatGPT or other LLM tool, I did not google for references on how a butter-fly could look. My own little brain had the ideas, I looked at a fly, a butter design, a penguin. Thats it. Then I sketched it with graphite & added the colors immediately.

You know, this makes me very happy. Because I notice that I start to remove myself from any of the crazyness around AI & technology & tools that society and humans supposedly HAVE TO use.

No, we don’t have to do anything. We have to die, at least our physical bodies will pass away, cos our soul will keep on living.

But we certainly do not have to use and succomb to any tools that degrade our way of thinking, being and creating. We do not have to automatize, perfect & efficiency-fy every freaking second of our life and work and everything.

It’s enough, for real.

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I am convinced that people would do much better, mentally, emotionally, physically & spiritually if they would write themselves. Even if its five minutes, with a pen and paper.

Or draw or scribble something. Go out & capture your favorite spot. Look around, notice the tiny things & even if you just pick an interesting stone you will draw: you win at life, because you are suddenly present!

Without earpods blasting music onto your brain, sunglasses blurring your vision, the phone occupying your hands.

I am very grateful for life, people, yes, also technology, because it enables a lot of great things.

But I have had enough of this digitizing of human beings and the disconnection it causes. So I will keep on painting & scribbeling & if anyone of you would want to join that. I would love to do it together!

Love,
Daria

I recently felt that I want to retrieve, get some quiet time and a digital-detox to get a bit back to myself, reconnect & see how it feels to just be by myself, for myself, in the middle of nowhere.

It was awesome! Imagine you stop walking on the snow, and you hear nothing! Absolutely nothing! Complete quietness, calmness…while you are surrounded by wild forest. I loved it so much, even saw Northern Lights, cos guess what: no noise also often means no light pollution & the sky is as clear and bright as it could be.

Wonderful, absolutely wonderful!

So today I will take you with me on a little travel journal, which will be lots of sketches I made into my tiny sketchbook while I was walking around. I only met ONE cross-country skier, in the two days I was there.

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Anyways, I stayed in a tiny house which was just soooo cozy, I loved to live in it:

My view from the window was to the main house of the owners of this campsite & tiny house, who were just super lovely! Amazing hosts! I decided to draw their house & gift it to them as a present to show how grateful I was for these couple of days with them.

I felt very inspired to draw and paint a lot somehow. I usually am not drawn to architecture or buildings, but somehow this one was so lovely to look at, here a close up of it, with proper lightning (I still need to figrue out how to take proper photos of my drawings in different conditions, not as easy…):

While I was walking in nature, I also had my mini-sketchbook with me &felt inspired to draw some sceneries. Some of them were again quite surprising to me.

Somehow in those moments I felt like I wanted to capture them, partially because they felt surreal and partially because I felt like I wanted to honor these spots.

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Let’s start with the first one, a random shed, covered in snow, completely distorted and broken on all ends. Yet it was still standing, no matter what.

I wondered when it would fully collapse and become a pile of old wood tha twould rot away…

Behind this shed, was this super cute, surreal and funny looking old, rusty tractor. It made me smile because it looked like it had jumped out of a kids movie, with its lights serving as eyes, looking curious into the world. One eye with the lamp still inside, the other one without it.

It had this baby-blue color and light pink writing and together with the rust all over everywhere, it had a very strange flair of old and new. Young and aged. Funny and sad.

I am not a fan of motorized vehicles, at all. Any of them. Yet, somehow this old little charming, rusting tractor made me feel something, a type of sympathy towards it. I cant explain it better, here is my drawing of it:

Further down the road, I heard water splashing around & when I turned around a corner, there was this little opening of a river, looking like a pond. Surrounded with snow and ice and bend trees spanning from one side to the other.

It was a very tricky perspective to draw, still not sure if I managed to capture it. I also wondered how to depict the water, as it was brown, but actually water is see-through, and actually often painted in blue… the dilemma of an artist :D

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In the end I decided to make a mix of blue and brown and a bit of white. Et voila:

When you walk around in the wilderness here, you might often encounter these very old, broken and distorted sheds. Every time I pass one, I wonder what it has been used for in the past.

Someone build it there for a reason and somehow over time, it has been left alone, living and rotting away. I guess still being a shelter for animals during the whole year.

Here the second shed I found, it somehow fitted perfectly into its surrounding and this tiny tree on the left, breaking through the snow was an interesting counterbalance to it. Or there was something about it, that I needed to draw it too. Because you know, these drawings are not anatomically correct, obviously… I hope that is visible :D

But the point to make them is, to capture the flair and soul and moment of a scenery and situation. It doesn’t have to be perfectly correct, the amount of trees, branches, the angle of the shed etc. are just a rough estimate. What I want is to capture the essence of what I see, in the easiest way.

So here we go again:

Last but not least, we have a snowed in car and a bridge that looked so cute and ridiculous at the same time. It was made 12 years ago and the signs were really cute, embellished with drawings and decorated very pretty.

The car just looked ridiculous, it was standing in the middle of a field, surrounded by snow, looking like it was floating there. Again, I am not a fan of cars and such, but I really had to draw it, because it made me smile :D

These were my impressions of my two days get-away. I loved it!

I also loved the disconnection from the digital world, the online fuzz, the screens and just be in nature, walk, play with my dog, read, take naps and paint.

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I will try to take more often time-outs from the digital space, not sure yet how to do that best, cos I also think social media are great for certain aspects of my life.

We will see, time will tell.

Another thing I wanted to share is, that I learned to embrace my drawing and painting skills a bit more. In the past would have been ashamed to show these scribbles. Not anymore now. I love them, each one of them.

Even though they are not perfect, even though they have objects I am not a fan of, even though I see flaws in them: all that doesnt matter. What matters is that I connect a happy & grateful feeling with them & that they make me remember a precious time.

I really feel a lot of value doing that and I wish more people would dare to embrace this type of a activity & feel how well it does them. All it needs is a pen and paper. And looking at your surrounding & picking something to draw. Thats it.

There is no need for perfection. Those scribbles I made are more than good enough!

Would you want to do such drawing activities together?

Love,
Daria

It has also brought very big lessons for me; one in particular, that showed me how much I grew in the last 8 years of having my own company.

I decided to share it with you, in a way to show how important it is to listen to our intuition, our basic instincts & to trust them. Even if we don’t logically know why.

In the eight years of running my business and creating scientific illustrations for researchers, companies, journals & more, I have had 95% amazing clients. I can truly say that I am definitely spoiled in that matter and I wouldn’t want it any other way!

But of course, nothing is always 100% in life, so also me, in my client-spoiled world, had to learn a lesson. It came last week, after 7,5 years into running my company.

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Just as a side explanation: I had projects that were tricky; either because they turned out more complex than anticipated, or because I undersold myself, or because I didn’t have the courage to ask for more money (hello scope creep) & clients that turned out stingier than they could be, for the small amount they paid.

But all of them were decent and kind people. The circumstances and my own inability to set boundaries were making it a tricky project, not the people and their attitudes themselves. Because many people still don’t know the time, effort & detail it takes to visualize a scientific concept. And many have never worked with someone like me.

However, last week was different, as the client was highly inappropriate.

As a summary of the whole situation and to mentally & emotionally process it, I drew the essence of the interaction and in the end, it made me laugh. I hope it brings a smile to you too:

It all started off with a DM & a question to meet up, very short-term, but I had time, so I thought “Sure, why not?”. The meeting was exceptionally short, 10 minutes, a bit rushed, with a promise to send files and asking about a quote, company details & a contract.

We continued via email. I usually don’t send contracts, I have a professionally made one, done by a lawyer, adjusted to swedish standards. But I operate on trust and it has always worked that way.

As my client wanted a contract, I send it to them. I also told them the short timeframe they wanted to won’t work, I need 2 more days. They agreed.

I also set a decent price tag, because I have not seen the files yet & I added a 50% payment up front & 50% at the end upon delivery.

I never do that. Ever. Not even with clients that I don’t know. As I said: trust. Unless we decide upon a fixed price and the budget is high, then the client usually suggests to pay directly. They are the most serious, professional and amazing clients to work with! And I agree with these terms, its’ good for my peace of mind :).

But this time, my intuition told me to do a 50%-up-front.

Back to the story: that client agreed to the upfront payment & asked to confirm when I receive it. I also send a summary of the questions I have about each figure, and what I need from all of the authors to be able to complete the task.

We signed the contract & my client introduced me to the two coauthors & stated that I will coordinate from now on what I need so we finish everything.

Then, I received the final manuscript and 30!!!! AI generated graphs, models, visuals, some excel sheets with columns of numbers and the statement that “Some of the AI generated figures “surprisingly” survived into the manuscript” and “…that I should feel free to create any type of other visual that would be suitable.”

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This was the first biggest red flag. Because I already did not understand two of the models that were included & I realized why: because they were AI-slob, absolutely bullshit & impossible to understand. And to me: unacceptable as any scientific visual.

I openly communicated about everything. I send the document with the questions I compiled to all the three authors, so everyone was on the same page. I stated clearly what I needed to be able to fix their figures. I also said that I was not hired to do more figures, but improve those they gave to me.

My questions were ignored. All of them. The files I received were incomplete, I had to re-ask several times. I re-formulated my questions, asked for feedback & clarification: nothing.

So I moved on anyways. I just decided to re-sketch the crappy AI models into something that is actually understandable & scientific and asked for feedback again: NOTHING, again.

The excuses of no time, no need for a meeting and “…that you should just go on with what you received.” were what I got.

After the weekend, I emailed them, sent all I was able to do, on my own initiative, without knowing if that is the message they wanted to communicate and even suggested to them, that we can stop this interaction if they want. I would send them all the files I was able to complete & they wont have to pay the remaining 50%.

In the last moment possible, I finally got a reply, saying I was unprofessional & a lier, delivering unreadable sketches & they would take it from there.

I replied that it was a very unpleasant and unprofessional interaction for me as well & that it was the first time for me in all my years.

The END.

If this would have happened in my first two years of having my company, I would have been smashed. Totally done. Wrecked for weeks, emotionally & mentally exhausted, felt stressed & beaten myself up over having done something absolutely wrong.

Not now. Not last week.

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I was surprised, I felt confused, while at the same time glad & proud that I asked for 50% upfront & received the payment. That I listened to my intuition. At least I was properly compensated for the hours I put in.

I was really confused because to me this behavior and interactions were absolutely not understandable. Completely illogical and unprofessional and unscientific… everything that does NOT belong into a business interaction happened.

The moment when I got frustrated and slightly angry, I went out for a walk, stumped on the ground, grunted a bit, threw swearing words out into the nothingness and then drew the illustration above.

I somehow needed to get out the anger before I wrote an email, suggesting that thay could stop our interactions and not pay.

Not once did I have the feeling I messed it up, was unprofessional or did something that wasn’t agreed upon. I have no problems in admitting mistakes, but this situation was just not acceptable at all.

Looking back on this, the years of other business interactions helped for sure. The learnings I had, my confidence that grew, the pricing I dared to adjust and my observations how important this work is helped a lot.

What also helped is, all the things I did around self-development: my regular meditation practice, my deep-dives into suppressed emotions and behaviors that I learned and had to re-learn, my disappearing people-pleasing tendencies, my increased capacity to set boundaries, my higher self-worth and value I gained, my capability to not take responsibility for others and let them be the way they are, without trying to fix them.

And so much more.

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Life is not split into: / WORK/ PERSONAL LIFE / HOBBY / PERSONALITY A / PERSONALITY B / TASK C / TASK D / etc.

Life is EVERYTHING! It is all of you, the whole mess and chaos that you are, that I am.

If I am incapable to set boundaries and respect myself in friendships, I wont be able to set boundaries and respect myself in work relationships, or romantic relationships.

We cannot split ourselves. We need to see ourselves as ONE creature, with capacities, incapabilities, gifts, talents, traumata, flaws, amazingensses & all of that, and know that all of them influence ALL other parts of our lives.

So! If I develop and change in one part of my life, the other parts of my life will improve too.

Working on my intuition and improving to listen to myself was a big goal of mine, it still is. And this situation showed me, that I was able to listen to this quiet intuitive hint, act upon it & ask for the upfront-payment in a business situation.

My aim was never to improve my business-intuition, but my Daria-intuition! And then it does its thing in all realms of my life. And I freaking LOVE it!

So this is it for today, I hope you could take something valuable from this weeks newsletter!

I wish you an amazing start into the week!

Love,
Daria

I am a mess right now! A big, fat, huge, creative, chaotic mess. All over the place! I started tons of different artistic and creative projects and I keep on starting new ones, without finishing the old ones.

It is insane. And I don’t really know what to do about it. Or maybe I am not supposed to do anything about it?

Maybe that is the way creativity works?

Maybe I need to explode & go crazy & just do what my mind comes up with?

Or what my meditation-self is telling me to try?

Or my inspiration that got sparked yells at me to do?

I really reached a point where I just have to laugh at this ridiculousness of mine. I am currently thinking to tell my inner crazy-person to restrict herself to ONE creative project, at least for a week, and then I can switch. Maybe that helps.

At the same time, I love to be able to do different things, all at once & switch between them. I can get lost in just creating and being in that flow of creation, painting, cutting, glueing, drawing, illustrating…

And mind me saying: all this usually happens in the evenings and on the weekends, because I still work on doing scientific illustrations for clients and technical editing for a scientific journal.

Well, sometimes, when I need a creative break, I paint something small inbetween, or glue a couple of things together, or put gesso on a painting ground I decided to paint on…

… and if I am honest, these activities bring me the most joy! Even more joy than doing scientific illustrations… and especially because I know that creating things with my hands is the purest & best antidote against all the tech & AI-crazyness that is out there right now. I will keep on refusing this technology in the space of art & creatin as long as I can. I promise that!

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All these projects & doing these creations feels like my inner creative soul & little Daria are trying to take up more & more space, like they are exploding out of me and trying to find any second to be present and make me create stuffs, feel joy & play.

It feels much much better than sitting in front of a screen or illustrating on a digital surface.

As all this is such a big part of what I do right now in my life, I decided to write about it and process it, as usual. And then send it out into the world, to all of you. Because in the end, maybe it helps you? Somehow? To see that we all can create beauty in the world!

Maybe one of my crazy ideas or inspirations sparks something inside of you? Who knows what this chaos is worth for :D

So here we go, I will now share pictures and explanations of all my creative projects going on recently, in no specific order:

1. Watercolor paper glued on woodpanel:

I LOVE the structure of watercolor paper and obviously, I also love abstract art & colors. But somehow I was missing a better base for my watercolor pieces.

So I decided to go to Bauhaus & try to find a proper base. Found a woodpanel & asked them to cut it in smaller pieces & took them home.

Then I used my sanding machine to sand them all, then I grounded them with Gesso, added glue on them, glued the watercolor paintings on top, turned them around & pressed them with a heavy book over night et voila: I have a watercolor painting on a strong, solid base! I still have five to go ;). Then I will put them online for selling, but in case you are interested already, let me know :)

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2. Painting into books

What a sacrilege… I used to treat books like holy things. But with time I realized they need to be used & instead of letting my biology bibles wither around, I decided to paint them and like that, honor their existence.

3. ACEOs (Art Cards Editions & Originals)

I saw this on TikTok and thought: “WHY have I never come across this?!” I LOVE tiny art! Always have! My family used to make fun of me about this.

So I decided to make a bunch of ACEOs, one set I even finished, the second one is on its way, as I re-painted the cards:

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4. Sketchbook paintings

I manage to regularly paint & sketch into my sketchbook. I use it as play-time and trying out different things. This is my most recent spread, where I added collage pieces & circle cut-outs I use for the next crazy idea:

5. Hole-punching & creating circles

I have absolutely no idea how to describe that, nor do I know what this is or will be fore. All I know is that I love to hole-punch my old paintings, collect these tiny, bend circles & create those beautiful & cute glued round bigger circles. This is just so meditative, I can only recommend it :)

6. Large acrylics on woodpanel

I have a comission that I am supposed to paint. I got stuck with it, because it does not look like the reference I paint it from. I did that one with watercolor & markers & now, acrylics on canvas just dont crate teh same effects… I got frustrated, until I saw a video of a Golden product that makes acrylic paint flow like watercolor! I got it & will soon be able to continue on the piece. The other two are paintings I crated as throw-away panels along the commission :)

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7. Painting stones

I love stones.Always have collected them. Not just gemstones & crystals, but also these types of stones! And painting them is A LOT of fun, have done several presents painting them with flowers & as you can see here, just one is done. Bu tat least the stones are ready to be painted ;)

8. Fabric on paper & coloring it

I saw this net-like curtain in the second hand store & thought: “I need to get it & cut it in pieces, glue it on paper or wood panel, get awesome structures & paint on it. Here you see the initial try-out in my sketchbook.

9. Artist cards I made a while ago

These are technically done, all of them… yet they still sit on my kitchen counter, cos I forget or dont dare to spread them… They have kind sentences written on them & a link to my webpage & I already spread them around for people to find & make their day. Once I even got an IG DM because someone found it & scanned the QR code & put the effort to message me! Made my day!

10. Card-deck sketchbook

I saw this on TikTok and had to try it, immediately! And of course: I love it! Its a perfect take-away format & I feel absolutely not precious about it ,as its not high-quality material, just a card-deck. So I feel much more free to paint in it!

Okay, that was it for today. I really hope this email is not too large, got a warning, but it dissapeared :D

I wish you an amazing week & lots of creativity! If not in form of art, then creative thoughts, actions, decisions, meals cooked or time spend feeling as the amazing creation that you are!

Love,
Daria

It has been a long time since I wrote about disabilities, so I decided to throw out another piece about it, with the specific topic of weather it is okay to ask someone about their disability or not.

As an example & to illustrate the complexity of this topic: if you would ask me, I would be happy to explain you about my disability.

If you would ask my dad, he would brush you off, mumble something about the Vietnam war & potentially get very irritated. But also, you might not even notice his disability, cos he generally hides it ;).

There we go! The answer to this question is: it is complicated :D

Buuuut, and there is a big BUT, because it doesn’t mean that you should never ask someone about their disability. So I decided to provide some nuances and potentially guidelines about this whole, sensitive topic.

I will not dive deep into the official diagnosis of what “disability” is. Because if you would ask me, who is officially 50% disabled, I would say that many people with crappy behaviours, an immense ego & shitty attitudes are more disabled than me.

Neither will I debate weather the word “disability” is insulting & should be “differently-abled” or some other type of nit-picky word-reframing. I am convinced that words are important and matter, but there is a boundary which I will just not cross.

Instead, I will speak from my own personal experience of what disability is. So you will get my perspective on the topic & can decide what you want to do with it, or not :)

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I have what is called Ectrodactylie, or Split-Hand & -Foot malformations. Its a dominant, genetic mutation on chromosome 3 and I inherited it from my dad. It is a very visual disability, because my hands look like that:

I also have differently formed feet, with a big toe and a small toe on each foot. Soo, it is rather obvious, because I look different from every 10-fingered human being on earth.

Now, can you ask me about it? Hell yes! I will gladly explain you the whole story around it, because there is actually a lot to tell! I see it more like opening peoples eyes to a different world and teaching them about what other things exist. It is quite fascinating to be honest. And I also don’t have a problem with my disability.

Would everyone explain you their disability story? Nope.

Why could that be the case? Because they feel shame, discomfort, guilt, don’t care about it or don’t know you enough.

Also: because maybe you feel entitled to do it, maybe you ask in a rude way, maybe you laugh and ridicularize them. All this can be felt & perceived ;)

If a random stranger on the street or in the train would blurt out to me: “YO! What’s wrong with your hands? Why do they look so weird?” I would laugh & say something along the lines: “What is wrong with your head? Have you lost your mind?” and move on with my life.

If someone who is more self-conscious about their visible disability & feels ashamed about it, they might feel really hurt and bullied.

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While no one should ever deliberately hurt other people, we can’t control others behaviors, so the only thing to do is to work on our self-confidence and stand above such people.

I told you to share some guidelines and thoughts about this whole asking-a-disabled-person about their disability, so here they come:

• Consider how well you know them & what type of relationship you have

• Think about a calm & polite way to ask them

• Reflect upon your reasons why you want to do it

• Find a suitable moment where both of you feel comfortable

• If it is a stranger: pay very close attention to their body language, mimics, gestures, overall movement and behavior. If they seem shy or insecure, its better to not even ask. Check it on google or discuss with your favorite AI tool ;).

• If it is a stranger & they seem open & not bothered by their disability, you got some eye contact & smiles, they might be fine to share their story with you, if you ask in a respectful and kind way.

I think that is it for general guidelines.

If it comes to the specifics: for example, if you are a parent with a disabled child and you see someone with a similar disability, this could be your connection point in asking & expanding your network of people who potentially know something else than you (doctors, carers, tools, tips & tricks), or are part of a community you would want to join.

Then you could also be a co-worker, a friend, a romantic partner etc. All what I said before applies to these types of connections too: the quality of your relationship often determines how far you can go. And the intent on where you want the relationship to develop into also counts a big deal!

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I will share some personal, very surprising facts with you: I was never bullied on my disability and barely anyone asks me about it. From all kinds of relationship-states.

What I hear the most as reasons for this is:

“I didn’t even notice!” (and we worked close to each other in the lab for 2 months. She then didn’t even bother to ask anymore, would have felt weird to her. I also am not bothered by my hands & behave normal.)

“It doesn’t matter to me.” (all kinds of people, friends, coworkers, partners)

Those are the two most common reasons, but the majority of people doesn’t say or ask anything, ever.

Those that ask most often are children :D. They also touch my hands, ask why this is & move on. Or they just look and touch. Parents that notice it, often get uncomfortable, but I love to explain to the children why this is. I usually try to pick up on something that is the same in them and one of their parents and tell them “It’s like you got the blue eyes from your dad, I got these fingers from my dad.” Done, case closed.

If it is strangers that ask me, or regular people I dance with, I will give them the short version of the reason. No need to deep-dive into it. Well, unless they ask and show more interest.

The longer version and story about my disability is much more fun & my family knows it, my high school teachers and also some of my friends. Oh, and whoever read two of my early posts that I wrote here on Substack :)

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In my life, there was usually not much that bothered me around my disability, apart from that I felt ashamed of my feet more than my hands. But one bigger thing was, when my boyfriends didn’t ask me about it.

In my past, I almost felt hurt and felt that “they don’t care about knowing it”. Which in a way is a great thing, because they never cared. It simply didnt matter to them and this is just brilliant, because it shows that these things truly do not matter.

But in my head, on the other side of things, I felt that they were not interested in that part of me, in that part of my life-story. And it is an important part of my life story, just knowing it.

Once, one ex of mine and I sat on the porch and talked about something I don’t remember anymore. Somehow the topic turned towards children and my disability and he said something like: “Well, I talked with my mom about it and we figured that one can always consult doctors about it and do surgeries.”

Boom!

This was not the main reason why we broke up, but this type of a statement was a great representation of the miscommunication issue we had.

Not once did he think to talk with me, his girlfriend about it; neither did he know about my story with surgeries in my life, nor my take on it; neither the risks and benefits, nor the potentials and pitfalls. Instead of asking me about this topic & get to know my experience and this part of my life-story, he came to this absolutely ridiculous conclusions with his mom…

SO! Romantic relationship fact: ASK! Ask the person you are romantically involved with everything! And I mean it: EVERYTHING!

Because asking means being interested, wanting to know about the other person you share your life with, even if it is for just a while.

There is a very clear differences in my perspective weather you are best friends i nthe word & know each other from childhood & never asked this, vs finding a potential life partner and never asking this question.

It is about getting to know the person you want to spend your life with, as best as possible. We all have experienced tons of things in our lifes and they shaped us, all of them. And if we want to know someone, its best to ask and show interest and not just assume that they will randomly tell you whenever they want to.

Even if we ask a question, or get asked something, we have the choice to refrain from answering. We have free will to do that and the other person can choose how they react to this as well.

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From what I observe in the world, people and relationships, I have the feeling that asking, true & deep listening, and processing all that is something essential for a thriving relationship. And unfortunately, often not happening.

In this disability case for me & my family, I know my dad has an issue with his disability & that he inherited it to his children. He doesn’t want to talk about it, he avoids it. If he is asked about it, he brushes it off.

This shows a lot about him and who he is and how he feels. Same for me: I am fine with telling you about it when you ask, which shows I have no obvious issue with it.

…I somehow feel that I deviated a bit from the topic of disability and diving into interpersonal relationships… but it is connected!

Because the closer you are, or let’s say: the closer you want to be with someone, the more asking and listening and sharing is important. About everything!

And no, we don’t immediately have to dump all our emotional issues on someone we get to know. But a slow building of a relationship includes opening up with time and asking and sharing. To get to know each other and connect on a deeper level.

You know, if I look at it from the outside: it is very vulnerable to be in the world and look different. It can shape us in all kinds of ways and wanting to get to know about this aspect of a person who is close to you is nothing bad. On the contrary, it shows emotional maturity, care, compassion and trust.

And honestly: we need more of that in this world. A lot more!

So, I will end with: if you ever meet me in person, in real life on the street, or online: never hesitate to ask whatever you want to ask about this topic! I will be happy to share with you & give you tips on how to handle a situation like that in your life, if you wish so!

I hope you have a wonderful Sunday!

Love,
Daria

Let’s get it straight from the beginning: there are viruses that makes us sick, as well as bacteria. I know that. I am enough of a biologist to be aware about this.

But! And this is a very big BUT: these are not the only reasons to get sick.

The reasons I personally get sick are various, sometimes a combination of many, and very different symptoms occur too.

I have collected many datapoints, aka. being “sick” and mostly actually not being sick and connecting the dots why that is the case.

And generally speaking, I don’t like to say “I am sick”, neither do I like to take any pills, unless extraordinary circumstances occur. I like to give my body the opportunity to go through whatever it goes through & become stronger.

And no, I don’t think everyone should do what I do, neither do I think that what I observed on me, happens to everyone else. But it does happen to some others too.

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Before I dive deeper into all of it, a more long-term thought I have: I am convinced that many diseases we get as humans start very early, because we disregard our mental, emotional and spiritual well-being, causing us to develop physical sicknesses.

Anyways, back on track again, why I get sick (maybe you too ;)?):

1. temporary, bad sleep habits. 2-3 nights can cause me to develop a cold-sore

   —> this is my bodies No. 1 sign to tell me to pay attention to my life.

2. sudden stress or extreme light-exposure: same here, hello cold-sore.

3. too much unfulfilling or uninspiring work aka. 2-3 hour meetings several days in a row, where my thinking capacity is knocked out cos my brain gets fried

4. changes on the planet we live on, either planet earth or human collective stresses we are going through

   —> I mean magnetic field changes, solar storms, fullmoon/newmoon (?) not completely sure yet about that one), wars, catastrophes etc.

5. healing sessions I go though & my body needs to release what got uncovered and reorganize itself

   —> usually emotional and subconscious pain has been revealed, I cried, something shifted inside of me, some trauma got released, beliefs got loosened, etc…

There we go. I said it, wrote it out-loud.

I guess the last two, No. 4 & 5 might be the most woo-woo to read. Not really for me, cos as I said before: I collected enough datapoints in my life to confirm that this is the case for me. I am scientist enough to trust these data AND my intuition AND my body.

I already have a post in mind where I will explain why the earths magnetic field has effects on us human beings! I will share the science, so that its actually understandable, in a fun & visual way! Stay tuned ;)

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But let’s start with the first two reasons I mentioned, they are the easiest to fix:

What will fix issues No. 1 & 2: a proper sleep schedule, reducing sudden stressors, slow exposure to sun, stop doing what I was excessively doing, AND the magical salve I discovered years ago on a Christmas market.

I swear to whatever is holy for you who have cold sores: this is the only thing that works to make them heal & disappear within 5-7 days. Before I discovered it, it took weeks. For me & many of my family members.

With this salve: cold sores even get stopped almost immediately. If you want to know where to get it, let me know! Its a local lady here in the north of Sweden who makes them herself! It would surely make her happy to ship it to other countries than Sweden, Germany and Poland :D (oh, no paid advertisement btw :D, just genuine admiration for this miracle salve!)

Now off to point of sickness No. 3, unfulfilling work tasks or meetings: this is usually not something that happens often, because I actively choose my professions and I do not work 8 hours per day. Ever. I am convinced it’s impossible. And I can manage the same amount of work, in a more healthy way, in fewer time. I am efficient enough.

So when it happens & I have too many meetings, or projects & workload at the same time, I get overwhelmed, my system can’t handle it, I get stressed, my brain shuts down, I get headaches & I get a cold. Boom, there we go. Then its about time to employ all the home remedies I have, take hot baths, sweat it out, snot it out, cream my rudy-nose & recover slowly..

Wha talso helps me when I start noticing it, is to take a break and paint. This always relieved pressure fro mmy brai nand mind & I can relax again.

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Let’s get going to point No. 4 I made, where sickness caused by earth/planetary changes occurs. This is usually something that comes in combination and also something I cannot do much about. I need to just deal with the consequences.

They can be headaches, dizziness and such, but usually they are not very strong and only when it is very bad. So I can handle them quite well. Painting & taking my day easy helps :)

Healing session is where I am properly getting knocked out quite often, the infamous last Point No. 5, the most controversial, but most logical, in my experience at least :D

I don’t even know how to properly describe it to you, how to start…

I could go about it logically, scientifically, psychologically, physically, emotionally, throw stuffs at you like emotional stress that gets stuck in our bodies, organs, postures, fascia; memories and thoughts that create our habits & behavioral patterns and make us miserable; years of relational issues we have around trust, opening up, being disregarded etc…

Simply put: everything we experience in our lifes has an impact on us. And depending on how we learn how to handle it, or not, THAT has a big impact on us and our health too.

Oh, and then lets not forget our innate protection mechanisms and our Egos which really want to help us to not get hurt again: they can be sneaky to overcome.

Oh wait! I also forgot societal conditioning! What we are made to believe, do, act, react and be, taught from our surrounding… if you convince a fish it needs to be able to fly, it will be miserable it’s whole life & never see the amazingness of swimming in the water (or something along those lines… I can’t recall sayings very well :D)

HA! And then we have genetics, more specifically: epigenetics and all that we get encoded into our genome, metabolome, transcriptome etc. from our ancestors: it sits inside of us!

Now… Did I make it all more clear? Why healing sessions can cause me, or us, to get sick? At least at first they can make us sick, cos after a while we usually get better.

I mean, on a smaller scale: I bet we all experienced that a good cry made us feel miserable first, but relieved later on. It’s the same with healing session, just on a bigger scale.

Now expand on that & imagine: if you were never allowed to cry & show weakness, your whole life, 30, 40, 50 years: what do you think those bottled up emotions will do to you? Make you feel great? Happy? Sickness free? Noooo… they will stay stuck in your body, one way or another and sooner or later manifest into more serious sicknesses…

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Buuuttt, if we get ahold of them, either early or later in any type of healing session, they might get released and our body will not develop a certain sickness.

I have tried many different healing modalities, many different spiritual approaches, breathing, I meditate daily, talk to the universe, myself, my body & my soul and all these things make me feel better.

I recently did a Hakomi healing session with my trusted teacher Elizabeth, it was in the weak I experienced stress at work. I strated to feel weaker already.

Then the session was quite intense, lots came up, lots of feelings, tears and releases occured & then my body basically broke down & had to clear out all the “trash” I managed to discover and release. I basically got a cold, a snotty nose and was weak for a couple of days.

When I told a friend of mine who has kids, she funnily said: “Oh, but where could you get sick from?”, cos I work from home mainly, I go to dance quite regularly, bu tits grown ups & with kids its a different story.

Anyways, as I made the point in the beginning: its not just bacteria or viruses that make us sick, or specifically: me :)

This was something I felt a strong urge to write about, because a lot of little puzzlepieces and conversations around sickness have accumulated recently & I am also reading/listening to different audiobooks of experts on past life regressions and hypnotherapy. There are brilliant modalities out there to help us to get ahold of all types of soul-work we can do and illnesses of our soul & subconscious mind.

And I don’t care about anyone saying these things are woo-woo or not scientific. Cos in my world that is a wrong statement. If peoples symptoms dissapear after certain sessions, while they have never been able to be healed by the conventional medical system, those are scientific datapoints and valid outcomes.

I mean, we just have to look into the placebo effect & just open our minds a bit to other ways of seeing, feeling and thinking and BOOM! We can fix a lot that is thought to be un-fixable ;)

I would love to hear from your experiences around this topic. It’s something I always loved to hear and read about and the more experiential knowledge I accumulate and the more I hear from people, the more optimistic I am becoming about how amazing and capable we human beings are! Its fascinating!

Love,
Daria

I used to live my life in accordance to this sentence.

To not want to hurt you, or you, or for that matter: anyone in my life.

And I am not speaking about physically hurt, I can’t even kill a fly. I mean, I never wanted to emotionally or mentally hurt anyone.

Did I succeed?

Of course not. I hurt many people in my 38+ years.

Deliberately? Nope, not at all.

Because you know, it’s supposedly a noble and very admirable goal, at least it sounds like it: “I don’t want to hurt you”.

Unfortunately it’s a promise none of us can give, to anyone. Neither can I.

I was equally hurt by other people in my life, plenty of times.

Were they all evil? Hell no! I am fortunate enough to not have gone though crazy and insane moments of hurt that are out of the ordinary.

Here is the thing: we are all humans, so we will sooner or later hurt another human.

Let’s take it to the extreme: I bet your mom felt a bit of pain when she gave birth to you, right? ;) In a way, you hurt her, but of course you didn’t want to, you didn’t mean to, but the process of giving birth involves pain, naturally so.

…well, let’s set aside those examples where women share that birth was their biggest orgasm in their life; I don’t know how much pain they felt then… but thats not the point with this newsletter today :D

Because, on my noble way of living my life, trying not to hurt anyone, can you guess who I hurt the most?

Myself.

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Every time I didn’t share my truth, every time I felt like I need to step back, put myself on the back-burner for someone else.

It could have been a friend, a parent, a partner, a sibling, a colleague, a boss, a client, a random stranger on a bus…

I have very early memories of having the urge to say and express something and suppressing it, feeling like crap and regretting it afterwards.

Why? Because I did not want to hurt anyone.

I needed a while to learn that other peoples emotions are not my responsibility to handle. They are theirs.

And if one of my parents got upset cos I decided to do something else other than what they recommend, its on them.

If a friend got sad cos I didn’t want to join a gathering, its on them.

If a romantic partner got upset because I set a boundary, its their responsibility to deal with it.

Because each time I did that, I hurt myself, my truth and who I was and wanted to be.

It made me a people pleaser and the fact that I am quite empathetic and feel other peoples feelings, doesn’t make that easier, trust me on that.

In a way it’s a balance between who I should honor in the first place: myself or the external world.

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Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think we should ever deliberately hurt anyone; physically, emotionally or mentally, neither spiritually (hello gossiping!)

But I have hurt other people too, without wanting it! Why? Because of my own pain and my inability to regulate my feelings.

When I got emotionally upset about what a friend told me about the family of her partner & I could see her sliding into troubles, that surely did not make her feel comfortable.

When I told a fried that I feel like a drug, I need to have space from our friendship, that must have felt not very nice either.

When I broke up with a boyfriend, I bet that caused a lot of pain. And we know how heartbreak can feel even very physically painful. I think there are studies out there about that…

What I noticed though is, that slow, unaware actions cause most of the hurt. A supposedly sudden heartbreak for one person, has been a slow heartbreak for the other, for quite a while.

At least that is the case for me.

Same for friendships that broke. With time, no communication, no clarification, no asking and disregarding my heart gets micro breaks and hurts, so that in the end, a big hurt is inevitable.

Here is the thing: we cannot avoid hurting people, or being hurt, but there is good news too:

We can try to repair! & it is ALWAYS worthy to try to repair what and who we hurt.

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It might not end up in a perfect relationship, but it might ease the pain, or ease the hurt feeling after the breakup.

It is also a chance to connect deeper with the person that experienced the pain. So we can get out of hurtful situations with an even more strong relationship!

I have had experiences like that, with my mom, with my first boyfriend, with friends in my life… just like those experiences that lead to breakups and distorted relationships with people in my life.

What I wanted to share today is: you are not a bad person when you hurt someone, neither am I. You are just human.

And it actually might be more painful for you, and me, to try to avoid hurting.

Instead, we can walk the earth with an open heart and mind, be aware, reflect and openly communicate with the people we love, and sometimes say: “Sorry, I messed up!”!

Let’s throw away “noble sentences” like that and instead embrace our humanness & walk though life and our relationships to others and ourselves as open as possible!

What are your thoughts about it?

Love,
Daria

It is very difficult for me to admit, and in my past I would have never admitted it… so I take it as a growth spurt when I say this:

I love it when I am right.

And I hate it at the same time.

Because I know that it’s not correct. It is wrong.

Well, let’s say the 10 commandments of the bible have a point: you shall not kill, steal etc. It’s good to stick to those basics to be able to live a decent life, in a decent society. If harmlessness is one of the vitues we live by, all will be well.

But other than that, there is no “right” or “wrong”.

• It’s not wrong that I first went into science & now am slowly turning to art. It is pointless to say “I should have done it earlier.” Cos trust me, it was impossible.

• It’s not wrong to live in another country than my parents & the majority of my family. Neither is it right.

• It’s not wrong to have a house, or not have a house.

• It’s not wrong to eat meat, and only right to eat plants.

• There is nothing wrong in working for someone else, or working for yourself; money is neither good nor bad; nor is any relationship status better than the other.

So then: why the heck am I even writing about this? If none is true… well, here we go again, what even is true or false :D

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Aannyyways, I write about it, because even though I know these things and believe these things, I don’t always manage to act upon those beliefs.

Cos I can sometimes have very strong opinions about what is right and what is wrong, then I over-identify with them and then I can become judgmental about others, who do not do/think/are the same way.

And it sucks! Because I know that it is wrong to do that!

Like a recent example, where I had to really control my thoughts was, when I saw friends mindlessly sinking in front of the TV, letting themselves be floated over with some bullpoop movie, while partially also scrolling on the phones.

I have a very hard time to not judge this behaviour. Not so much the people, but the action… and then it IS difficult to not let it float over to the people.

I know why this is such an issue for me as well. I grew up with a parent doing that, constantly. For me this is a type of imprinted “bad-behaviour”, where disconnection, disinterest & just simply numbing-down is happening.

So I can’t handle it. I don’t want to. I don’t do it myself either. Because I don’t want to & because I feel its a waste of time. But it is not like that for everyone…

What did I do instead? I painted for myself. For me that is much more fulfilling.

But here is the thing: maybe someone else considers painting a waste of time! (And trust me when I say that: for the majority of my life I considered painting for myself as a waste of time too! Still fighting with this limiting belief today…)

So in a nutshell: there is nothing “wrong” with watching TV, neither not watching TV... same with painting: nothing wrong in doing that, or not doing it.

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Another aspect of these wonderings is, that I can get triggered by something, or someone, especially when I am in a vulnerable place…

Then when I get triggered, I get upset at the person, at their words, something got poked inside of me & then I turn into that side of me that I don’t particularly like, where I judge and basically show very similar behaviors of what I get triggered by.

I have learned by now to not emotionally explode & say things I might regret, so I usually clearly say that I need a break, cant talk anymore & then I go into processing mode.

In my past I might have reacted very strongly, quite openly & I know it has cost me some friendships. At the same time, I also have friendships that lasted throughout this more explosive phase I went through.

…but again: do you see how sneakily a judgement is trying to make its way in here? Like saying that some friendships were weaker than others, or not true friendships… which is not true, cos I value every friendship I had, consider them as important parts of my life. None was bad or wrong, ever. We do have people entering our lives for just a short while, others for longer. Just like I am part of other peoples life for long, or shorter…

Anyways, I deviated :D.

When I get out of a situation that triggered me, agitated me or poked me in any way, I usually start reflecting upon it. From all kinds of perspectives, mostly trying to see what this was supposed to show me, why I reacted that way… little evil thoughts might try to come up then too, & I gently push them aside.

Instead, I try to listen to my intuition & my feelings, cos they will tell me that something was off. I might also get to a point where I am stuck, don’t know anymore how to go about it… I usually call my teacher Elizabeth then & describe her the situation.

And I am a lucky one, having her showing me exactly what she sees, in my behaviour & putting up a mirror where my true issues could lie. We don’t usually call them “issues”, just these reactions that I described & their root cause.

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I am also convinced that whatever I get triggered by, or poked at, that causes a strong reaction, is a reflection of something inside of myself that needs attendence…

And with this whole topic I finally came to the realization, that it is something around being judegmental towards myself. Not allowing myself to do or be certain ways and then it turns into me judgeing certain behaviours as “wrong” or “right”.

Now the question is: what am I going to do about this?

I just booked a Hakomi healing session about this topic with my teacher Elizabeth. Because I know its pointless to think myself to a solution, or talk myself into one, or even write myself into a solution.

It won’t get to the root cause. Cos the root cause is something subconscious, something that sits in my physical body, in my inner child, or whatever you might want to call that.

And this is the exploration I will go on to finally resolve this wrong-right-judging-thingy.

Oh, and, just to make it even more complex, because why not, after all, living a human life is the pinnacle of complexity: sometimes I just “know” things… you know, premonitions & stuffs, perceptions, intuitive hints… about myself and others.

And THAT makes things even more complex. Because there it is not about what is right or wrong and I dont judge those, but it is about acknowledging that my intuition is getting sharper and is picking up on very subtle things in my life and surrounding.

How I decided to go about it is: to take it as a guiding light when it is about me. Whenever it is about other people, I keep it for myself, as a datapoint collection and compass of the sharpening process of my intuition.

Now, that is it for today, for real… a bit of a convoluted & complex assay. Bu tas I said before: being human is not always so straight-forward.

What have your experiences around this been like?

Love,
Daria

Today’s post comes a day delayed.

Why?

Because I planned to finish my initial idea yesterday, but then I went for dancing & encountered a situation that made me fall into deep processing…

So today I decided I’d rather write about that, as a part of my digestion basically :D

I also like the fact that I draw inspiration from my daily life, something that I personally value when others do it.

If you are interested how dancing can help setting boundaries, and how big of a deal that is, feel free to continue reading :).

So here we go:

I started dancing Bugg & modern Fox last summer & started going to dance socials.

If you have never went to an event like that: it’s basically a bunch of people who gather cos they love to dance.

Certain dance clubs exist & they organize such socials. Usually someone is responsible for making a song list, others for having Fika, aka. cake & coffee & then we just go there for 2-3 hours and dance & socialize.

Since I am dancing since many years, I got to know people in the dance community & we switch learning different dances regularly, a type of dance-friendship builds with time.

Of course there are always favorites to dance with, that each one of us has. I have elaborated in a past post of mine about the chemistry between people when it comes to dancing.

With some it just works, with others it doesnt.

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There are also certain “rules” to stick to. In West Coast Swing, another dance I am dancing, one dance equals one song.

In Bugg & Fox, one dance equals two songs. Also only here in the North, cos in the South its 1 dance=4 songs… you better make sure to get a great dance partner :D.

And there are also rather subconscious, unspoken rules… of course you can say “No thank you” when someone asks you to dance, but it is somehow not that common and many people feel discomfort doing that.

Including me.

And I know that this could be due to conditioning, wanting to be polite, not hurt anyone etc etc.

You also should actually say when something is uncomfortable, because you can seriously get damaged during dancing.

Another one of those factors, that many people do not dare to speak up. Including myself. Again.

The first time I danced with someone where it physically hurt me, I was so overwhelmed that I didn’t know what to do… I will never repeat that experience anymore. I can tell you that.

So I know exactly who that person is, and I avoid dancing with them.

In any way: it doesn’t have to be that extreme. Sometimes its the scent, sometimes an uncomfortable feeling, a weird look… you can have many reasons.

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However: saying No is the last resort… where it actually should be the first thing to do.

So what I usually do is, I avoid the people. I have pretty good peripheral vision & the dance rooms we are in, are not super large. It’s possible to sneak away, get my water bottle, or leave the room for a rest, or snatch someone I like to dance with.

I can tell you though: it is exhausting to pay attention & find avoiding strategies & constantly be aware.

Yesterday, I finally couldn’t avoid it anymore.

I just finished a dance & stepped aside, immediately felt being focussed on & for about to be approached & that person was so close, that my usual avoidance tactic didn’t work. I basically got trapped.

I saw the gesture, heard the “Do you want to dance” and then surprisingly I reacted by grabbing my water bottle & saying “No, I need to rest now.”

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And swooosshhh: a crazy feeling inside my body, while I also realized that while saying that, I repelled another person who had focussed on me close by, who I also usually avoid, and someone else close by.

It felt basically like a magic spell, repelling everyone who I did not want to share my personal space with.

It was a big thing for me. Physically & emotionally.

I left the room & stood at the water filling station, processing…

Feeling my feelings, observing my thoughts, looking around, processing my physical sensations…

The best description I could come up with is: it felt raw. Very vulnerable, while very needed.

Of course I don’t want to hurt anyone, I dont want to offend people, neither do I want to hurt them on a soul level, where I know we all want to connect…

At the same time, I have spend a big time of my life restricting myself in what I want to say or do, I was super shy when I was little & always felt regret when I suppressed myself.

I also know & strongly feel that we all have the right to decide who comes close to us, who touches us & who we touch. And in dancing there is inevitable physical touching involved, its couples dances after all.

So these two worlds collided inside of me. Opening this very raw space, trying to hold them al lat once, not overreacting or collapsing, just feeling it all.

It took me a while until I went dancing again, asked a nice person who I never danced with before but felt a good feeling & then went on.

I then decided to share this situation with my meditation teacher, just to let it out of my system.

And all that took a while, I subconsciously kept on processing it. I knew I acted right, just the fact that I finally did that, with so many “things” and “arguments” and “conditionings” speaking against it, took some energy from me.

Thats why I couldn’t finish the actual newsletter topic for yesterday ;). And thats why I decided to write about that instead.

Because you know, this has much deeper roots, and very important points to consider. Cos every human being has the right to autonomously decide over their body, mind, emotions and also energetic sphere. Cos we often share many of these spaces with others:

If we stop allowing that, this is an easy entry point for abuse, loosing ourselves and letting others decide over our lifes. And if you know me a bit, I am a big fan of self-responsibility & the right to decide what to do, not to do, how to do or how not to do in our own lifes.

Even if that means, living very different lifes. Free will you know.

But that free will seems to need to be practiced sometimes :D Cos its not always easy to act upon it. Especially in social settings and when deep conditionings are set inside of us.

Anyways, this is it for now :)

Let me know if you want to know more about that, or I would love to hear your own experiences!

Love,
Daria

Today I came back from a longer weekend trip with friends and my sister, doing a little winter-adventure.

I decided that I will be the one to pick people up if poop hits the fan on the winter hike, so I was basically on-call :D

Thats why I also brought some work and my painting equipment.

Since two weeks I somehow, magically managed to get into a daily painting habit. My suspicion is that it started with a challenge my sister, a friend & I initiated.

I wanted to be more present while I cook and eat & do not distract myself from it with noises or series.

Somehow this had a snowball effect with other mini-challenges I added & along the way, this painting habit popped up.

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Being five days with people, going on adventures & socializing is a lot for me, because I really value my alone time & it is tricky to get in such a setting. I still did my best & managed to paint every day.

And here comes one realization that hit me, around my art & people: I still feel like I need to justify my artistic choices…

I was sitting at the kitchen table, all my painting supplies were spread out & a new friend who stopped the hike & I picked him up, joined me in the living room area.

We had a chat & he came over to me, looked at my sketchbook & paints & asked me something about painting.

It was absolutely nothing bad, nothing inquisitive, neither very outrageously excited, just simple, pure interest.

I felt a weird feeling creeping in, cos I was just starting a painting & it was in this ugly beginning stage, where nothing is anything yet…

Then I heard myself explaining that I like to paint abstract art, just patterns, shapes, colors & scribbles, because it calms me down. It relaxes my brain & compared to all these accurate scientific illustrations I do for clients, its a very relaxing procedure.

I really love it a lot.

While I was speaking, I was observing myself, seeing & realizing that I seem to need to justify & explain why I paint what/how I paint… and it felt ridiculous somehow, yet I couldn’t stop myself.

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Because the thing is, I KNOW I don’t need any justification, any explanation, reason or such. I know that I usually love what I create and I don’t care much if others like it or not.

It has not always been that way. I always had the feeling my love for abstract art is somehow “less”, compared to representational art. Why? I could throw out lots of theories, its a combination of many reasons. It doesnt’ matter here though.

This new person that joined our group, was even a complete stranger, it was the first time I met him. And yet there I was, justifying my art…

It made me realize that maybe there is still something inside of me that doesn’t fully accept this part of me.

A part that thinks “this art” is better than “that art”, especially when I look at myself. If I wanted to, I could paint a realistic tree, a naturalistic animal, a beautiful landscape or a still life, I do have the technical skills for that, maybe they are a bit rusty, but it would work.

The thing is: I dont want to. Not in the slightest. I don’t care about drawing, painting or illustrating anything realistic for myself (for my clients its a different story, that is fun somehow).

But me? I want to throw out all there is inside of me, on a piece of paper or canvas, full of color, shapes, patterns & feelings.

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In a way I thought that I overcame this, seems like this is not yet fully the case yet & in a way, I am happy about this realization. Cos it means I have room to grow & develop & then continue seeing where it takes me.

Cos you know, I would love to paint all day, every day.

Be creative, spill out my inner world & create beauty into the world. I have the strong feeling we need that, especially these days.

I used to think art is a pointless endeavor, impossible to make a living from it & not a “real” job.

I don’t think like that anymore, at all. There are too many examples of people who manage to do it as a real profession, maybe a passion & if I look at myself, I also managed to make a living from art, cos I do scientific illustrations for others, which are art too.

So you know, this development I went through until today is quite an inetresting adventure & realizing that there are still parts of me, not fully embracing it, maybe even fearing judgement from others, is great.

If I know that, I can actively resolve this issue & move on, the first step is always to realize & then take action steps to face those fears or overcome those limiting mindsets.

Somehow, this whole self-development thing is never ending… or maybe its not so much “self-development”, but rather growing and becoming more who we really are, fully & no matter what, even if some people do not understand our life choices

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They dont have to. I dont need to understand anyones life choices either. Most of us are here to do the best we can & maybe sometimes we need to also acknowledge how far we have come, even if we still have some stuffs to unravel :)

I hope you all had an amazing weekend & I wish you a great week ahead!

Love,
Daria

P.S.: in case any of you is interested in what art supplies I used: sennelier gouache paints & lots of random markers, colored pencils, watercolor pencils, graphite & black ink. Oh & of course glitter & shimmer pens too! I love to have shiny parts in my paintings!

One said 0, the other said 110 :D… there we go, I am not closer to an answer.

Why did I ask them? Because I got one of my insane-moments again. & we usually share all kinds of things with each other.

It happened last week during meditation class.

Suddenly I had this idea popping up, that I should make art with those mini-circles from these hole punchers we use to make holes into paper sheets.

Don’t ask me why, what, or anything, it just came up. And I decided a while ago, that I wont question such random ideas, no matter how crazy they seem.

I also did not have any idea what I should do, what type of art etc… my head was empty apart from this idea. So I let it be & simmer & then it came up, that I should just use some of my mini art pieces to try it out first.

So I did. I couldn’t find my hole puncher, so I bought a new one & decided to start with this piece:

You know, all kinds of thoughts were going through my mind while I was punching holes into this piece…

Its like life basically. We have a certain picture of our life in our mind, how it went, what we experienced, the people we know, the sorrow, the joy, the love…

All that could be made into one painting of your life. We often also settle down for a certain perception we have.

That ONE traumatic moment at school that shaped how shy you became.

These moments where you fought with your first boyfriend or girlfriend, that felt terrible.

The accident you had, and since which you are afraid to bike downhill a gravelroad…

All these moments we experienced make a whole life-picture.

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BUT… what happens if you tear them apart? Like I was doing, punching holes into the painting. Separating all the memories & moments.

Can we make them into something else?

That school moment & your shyness could have made you much more observant about people, knowing who to open up to & who to stay away from.

The fights you had, the adrenalin that rushed through your body taught you that when you repair after fights, it strengthens your relationship.

And so on, and so forth… this destruction of my painting I decided to do ,was a perfect analogy to life.

This is what it turned out into after I was done:

You know how much fun I had doing this?! INSANE amount of fun! I liked it so much, seeing all these tiny, glittery, colorful little confettis, that used to be my artwork.

I felt care for each one of them, cos I created them and was planning to make them into something beautiful.

After I decided I like the arrangement, I also decided to make it my first page of my new paint-sketchbook. And this is the outcome:

Now… you might think that that’s it… well, its not…

This is why I asked my friends about my insanity level, cos of course I kept them updated, as I did this until very late at night.

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When I get moments like that, I forget time & sense & even that I am tired. Often enough my dog Buffy needs to remind me to go to bed :D

Soo, the madness continued, cos I felt like doing more. So I took another painting of mine I did last year & thought it was a bit boring:

So then I started the hole-punching process & it was quite fun, here the progress of it:

And on my way doing that, I decided to not flatten the circles, I liked how bend they were & decided to use them in their original shape. Next stages:

First I thought it will be tricky to use these bend circles, with a bit of learning & try-&-error I ind of found my process & on the way, I decided to make it into a circle again.

Here is the final piece, I have to say, I really like it a lot! Way less boring than the initial piece :D

And here we go, the outcome of my insanity 0 or insanity 110, you can decide :D

One very big lesson I learned, once again, is: take pictures during daylight. Its kind of crucial to capture the colors properly.

It also is a bit tricky here for me right now, as here in the North of Sweden it is getting brighter each day, but the evenings are still dark & I tend to do art in the evenings during the week.

Soooo, this was it for this weeks Newsletter. I hope this little creative tour was interesting for you & maybe you feel less insane with your ideas.

And if you ever inhibited yourself because you thought your idea is stupid, or ridiculous or crazy: you get a permission slip from me to go for it!

Let’s all be a little bit crazy & get lost in creative tasks!

Love,
Daria

“What is an energetic balance” of dancing? Sure, dancing needs balance, but what does energy have to do with it?

In my opinion: everything! Just stick with me, its quite an intricate system!

This weekend I participated in a dancing event; starting on friday with an open workshop, social dance till after midnight, continuing on Saturday and Sunday with three workshops each day, given by professional, world-wide known dancers, and social dances on both evenings.

Now writing this on Sunday evening, I am smashed. My body feels tired, but my brain is even more tired and I feel the need to retrieve and re-charge myself, cos in this whole amazing process, some of my energy got lost. While I also gained energy ;).

So whats that thing now with energy & dancing?

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First of all: you dance to music all the time, you physically move. Kinetic energy non-stop.

Second: you listen to what the teachers tell you, so you receive their words, actions & energy & your brain processes it all. AND translates it into physical movements, WHILE thinking, listening & adapting. Making you learn all the time.

This gives you energy, cos you get excited, but it also eats energy, cos you focus & move & your brain is firing all the time.

Third: you interact with hundreds of people. Some known well, some known from dancing events, some new ones. The dancing-interaction between two people is also an energetic exchange, oon all kinds of levels.

You need to tune into each other, try to harmonize & communicate with your bodies to music. Maybe you don’t know the person, you don’t know the song, you don’t know any movements the leader will make: a lot of unknowns, which make your brain be alert & in receiving, transforming & giving mode. ALL THE TIME.

And then you have the emotions connected with it all: the joy & euphoria when a dance is amazing, the laughter when you messed up, the discomfort of someone stepping on your toes cos the dance floor is packed etc etc.

All these give energy AND take energy. Again: on a physical, mental, emotional and I will say that too: yes, on a spiritual level too.

Cos in the end, we are all electro-magnetic beings biologically speaking, and that is energy, nothing woo-woo about that.

We also know, that emotions, movement & learning fire up our hormonal metabolism which is also connected to all cells, tissues, organs, our brain etc & then again: to our energy in our bodies.

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And we all have souls; I am sure you have met someone in your life, where you immediately hit it off! The chemistry was aligned, you got along amazingly well & felt like you knew each other your whole life. sounds woo-woo, but its not.

Your nervous systems were maybe aligned (electromagnetism & energy again), or more deeper, your souls just aligned & you had this instant, more spiritual connection.

To be honest, I have a hard time to separate what we call spiritual and what we call science these days, because to me, it goes hand in hand.

The same goes for the word “energy”. Many might feel its a woo-woo-word, but it really is not, cos everything is energy, even if we cant measure it. Like I said before: you & your whole body are an energetic being. I am the same. We vibrate certain frequencies, all the time.

We are basically energetic balls floating around & meeting each other.

And when we dance, our energies meet as well & we perceive each other. Even if we cant always explain it.

I can feel the other person I dance with & what they emanate. Their insecurity, their confidence, if they are sad or not etc. And I am sure they can perceive me as well.

So then, in the end of three intense dancing days, it is quite normal to be energetically unbalanced, at least for me.

And I don’t mean that in a negative way, at all. Cos I think its important to act & interact with the world & people & the exchange of energies is a normal thing to happen, in every single day of our lives.

(I mean, if energy stops moving, we are dead. Soo….)

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Because three such days are very intense, it is just an intense phase and needs to be digested properly & I need to get back to my normal energy balance again. Ideally with an upgraded knowledge of certain dance moves & technical details ;)

This is why I decided to skip the social tonight, I needed to rest & take care of my dog and myself. And also write all of that down :).

To me, dancing is one of the most fascinating activities we can do as human beings. I is very healthy on all kinds of levels and quite an all-rounder when it comes to life as a human being in society.

You exercise, you learn, you train your confidence, you expand your comfort zones, you get to know people & socialize, you learn to set boundaries, say No, your mental, emotional, physical and spiritual body is involved on sooooo many levels... I could go on & on… Its fascinating, really.

So if you have ever considered or wondered if dancing is something for you, I dare you to try it out! There are so many different types of dances & you might as well fall in love with one, or three & then have your life changed because of that!

In case you need any infos about dances, feel free to ask me, I have tried many, I could give you some insider tips, other than that: it depends a lot on your personality. But I am convinced that there is a type of dance for everyone who would like to explore it!

That is it for now :) I wish you an amazing start into the week!

Love,

Daria