First steps to my Zero Waste Business.

I have talked a bit about zero waste and how much I love this movement that is happening around the Globe. My interview with Bea Johnson kicked it off for me. 

Some say climate change is bull. Others claim that ditching wrapping won’t change anything anyway. Others preach that plastic helps the fight against food waste. And as with everything else, people have opinions and we don’t all agree. 

I do believe that I make the changes I can with what I have, this doesn’t mean you do the same as me. Maybe just feel inspired to take a look at the steps that resonate with you. 

Reducing my waste and CO2 trail makes so much sense. 

In the beginning of 2017 I declared this to be a buy-nothing-new. I haven’t - well that’s not true; I bought a bra. But I need mine specially made so that was a ‘had to’ to save my back. And twice something dropped into my basket at the store that was a thing, not food, and I wasn’t really thinking. So in 5+ months, 3 new things have been purchased - I say that is doing pretty good. 

An area where I have had to really make some choices and consider how to go about it, is with my business. How do I reduce waste in this area? 

Because clearly I HAD to have business cards, handouts, manuals, cd’s, flyers, prints for my bookkeeping, postcards, magnets, notes and the list is long. 

Especially business cards and flyers. Thinking about what I do with the ones I receive, it just no longer made sense to have my own. They go in the bin… 

When reminding myself of the enormous amount - of all of the above - I have thrown away, it seemed there was room for improvement. 

So I no longer order or print: 

• Business cards
• Flyers
• Postcards
• Magnets
• Hand-outs
• Manuals
• Cd’s (yeah who does that anyway... in our house we still dedicate a wall to this ancient thang)

That’s a huge amount of paper no longer coming in through my business. Not to mention money saved. I offer PDF’s. People can print them if they want or just write the points that matter in their journal etc. 

When I do print, I use the back side of my daughter’s school print outs (there’s enough to keep a few businesses running). My mom is a teacher and they print out piles of stuff for their students and often too many copies - she brings them home for me and I use those. 

Is there room to do more - sure. For a giant first step, I am pleased. I am implementing other things such as using recycled packaging to send out the herb products - that’s for another post. 

I know some will roll their eyes and think Jesus, a few flyers never hurt anyone. 

Well let’s play with some numbers: 

In Denmark alone there are around 125.000 solo businesses (2012) and that number is higher today. 

Let’s say each one of them buys 300 business cards and 500 flyers (what I did the first few years) that = 10.0000000 bits of paper are ending up in the garbage at some point and just for a one-off glance. Now bring that to a Global scale… phew, I wouldn't know how to calculate that. 

And this is not even counting the huge corporations. 

It no longer feels irrelevant to me. 

Fun fact - the business didn’t die out from the lack of exposure… Facebook, Instagram, talking to real people, fucking up and having wins have kept the wheels turning. 

Is this right for you. Maybe not, maybe flyers are the only way you feel you can get the word out. But are there other ways you can reduce your waste in your business? 

Would love to hear your ideas and thoughts. <3

My inner nature... on tracking your cycle.

One of my teachers once said ‘we can’t begin to understand, save or connect with nature, before we connect to our own’. Maybe a little mis-quoted, but this is my take away. Thank you Laila. 

This has been so true in my own practice. 

I have always felt connected to the wild though… I was born into the icy winds of the North. Fell in love with the mountains in Scotland. Teared up in the dangerous woods in Bosnia. And moved to the countryside in Denmark, which may not be as in-your-face breathtaking as the Rockies, but I am learning more and more each day from this gentle wilderness. 

But seeing myself as wild, as part of the un-graspable cycle of nature, never penetrated the surface.  

Until pregnancy. Until birth. Until I began to discover the power of my cycle. Until I became aware, really aware, of the force within that wasn’t in my control. It lived in me, but in many ways, a slightarrogance led me to believe that I was in charge… of everything. 

Growing and birthing a human and beginning to track my monthly cycle crafted me a new set of spectacles. This body is such a magical thing; not just a simple container to be unsatisfied with. 

And yes we know, we heard, the body mind thing. But it’s a meer tip of the iceberg. Getting intimate with my period, moon time, my monthly has uncovered a feedback system, like a truth coming from kids, drunk people and your cycle. It will tell you when something is up. We just need to listen. 

This is my invitation to you to - if never again - track your cycle for 3 months. 

You can use apps on your phone, but for this first 3 months I recommend you print out the Moon time track sheet (you can download it for free when you sign up here). Using the printable rather than an app gives you an easier overview. 

As you fill out the sheet over the next few months, certain patterns may begin to become clear: 

• certains emotions at certain times
• cravings
• moodswings
• sex drive
• energy levels 
• days when everyone is driving you nuts
• days when nothing can beat you down
• creativity
• and and and

There is A LOT to write, share, say. But this is where it begins. As the lovely ladies at RedSchool call it: Menstrual Cycle Awareness (MCA). This is where it begins to unfold. Just how intelligent, sensitive and responsive the body is. How the changes in us each month become our allies and not the shit that gets in the way. It resonates when the same wise women refer to it as our inbuilt spiritual practice. 

I see patterns in me be mirrored in the seasons outside. I see how this isn’t inclusive to me. But the cycle happens all around me. I see that there is the monthly cycle, the seasons, the life cycle, the night and day and how each have their teachings. 

I feel a follow up post in the near future. For now download the track sheet and each day (or as often as you can) make note of: 

• emotions
• body
• energy
• mood
• and what ever you feel is relevant

It doesn’t have to go all *dear dairy*; make it short and doable. 

Can’t wait to hear what comes up for you. <3

Day 9: What Mindfulness teaches me...

As a part of this challenge, and feeling challenged with it. I began to clean and clear out my computer. I found an essay I was asked to do for my 2nd mindfulness teacher training 3 years ago. 

It was just after my grandmother passed and I wasn't in the academia mindset. But I re-read what I wrote and thought it still fits like a glove. 

This is my response to the question Mark and Martin (our teachers) asked. 

What does it mean to teach with integrity and depth - for me. 

1st assignment Mindfulness TT. 

I had to go back and do this over. The past months have been filled with death and family issues that have taken me back to old stories patterns and anger. The past few days intensifying that and I felt like telling mindfulness to go fuck itself. Which is essential for me in how I can teach. 

I take it as a sign that as I sit a write this, the mist is so thick outside that I can’t see the house across the street. I feel a little clouded and this is my exploration of that. This is a step deeper into practice, teaching and how I define that for myself. 1500 words may fall short or turn out to be way too many... we will see.      

I am sorry for the delay.

Taking the seat or showing up these days is painful. It hurts. Rumination and self-pitty battle with wanting things to be different. Taking the seat is like forcing myself to re-live the grief from old stories and bliss seems to await in crappy TV shows and stuffing my face. And I have asked myself many times why would I want to put myself through that again. 

As it spins into a cycle, a dog chasing it’s own tale, what is my practice? In the light of this essay and training - is it mindfulness? No. And then again what is mindfulness. 

Even after years with a (mindfulness) practice I still don’t fully know what it is. It is a concept, an idea, a practice that is so many things that a one word label seems off. It creates resistance because I can’t grasp it, I don’t know it. 

So to get past being stuck on the word, what it has represented, the value or lack of, I have had to find a way of describing the meaning that feels aligned with me.

Showing up makes sense to me. Showing up means meeting my experience. Showing up means I am not trying to be the Dalai Lama, I am not aiming for enlightenment, it gives me breathing room and space for awareness. I don’t feel obliged to look like I have been touched by an angel or rebel against all of the above. The sense of showing up, opens me up allows me to be exactly as I am. I feel free’er. 

I have always been good at adapting language, dialects, styles. When setting down this route, that talent was very visible when it came to teaching. Following a teacher and finding my own style in that process didn’t come natural - to me. The more I taught, the more I was evaluated and the further I feel I have come from the integrity and depth of my own practice. Resistance builded and calling myself a teacher felt like a load of Bull Shit. I was an actor not a teacher. 

To begin to explore what teaching is I feel I should look at how I define a teacher - a master of mindfulness. The alter ego. The pruity of awareness and insight. Shoulder shrug - how the hell do you “live up to that”? A different approach is to look at what I feel a teacher is to me.

The last evening at Sharpham brought that forward. Not in your talks or meditations, but when we danced and you both joined. A teacher for me is someone who shows up, let’s go and moves. I am truly inspired by stories. By people who can let loose in a group. When I can feel their presence with me body and not my mind. That is what teaches me. 

If I could write out a wish list of what would to bring forward as a teacher it would be trust, letting go of wanting to fix, taking the seat, tapping into my own experience and letting go of what I want to be in that chair. 

And this is where I am stuck. I am in tears by my computer and I feel I am pushing myself too hard. My mind is with my grandmother and if I was to take any of my own advice that I would give to a student it would be to listen to that. Taking care of what is important and present is more important than trying to be good. 

I would allow myself to go home, crawl under the covers and feel through the sense of loss. Being held by my partner and drinking tea. I would allow myself to let go of shoulds and tasks and show up for what is here within me. I would move my body and connect to what body is in that moment. 

Because regardless of any agenda I as a teacher might have had, sensing what is here is essential. 

And yet I am not, I am trying to be a good student and get shit done. 

I am turning in these words with no clear direction no fine moral or punch-line. But for the past 2 days this is what depth and integrity meant to me.

Day 6: The 3's in my life..

3 girls. Lilli, Nola, Eivy, 7, 4, 1. My little pack. 
My wonders and my worries. My challenges and my smiles. The shitty diapers and the outfit picking hell each morning (the 1 year old included…)
The hugs and kisses. The missing teeth and gum in long tangly hair. The tears and victories. The pain of girl friendships and managing being a parent among other parents (not my fav). Colorful drawings and clay-blob-things.
And a heart that expands beyond what I thought was possible. 

With them came 3 births. These stories are powerful. 1 very challenging hospital birth, 1 home birth, 1 planned home birth gone hospital. Each had elements that needed working through and each brought a healthy beautiful child into this world. I want to talk more about birth stories in a later post. They stick with us. My mother in law gave birth to my man 38 years ago and that story still has its effect on her. Birth’s matter. Trauma of birth is real, even if the outcome is one of joy. 

The 3 pregnancies. I loved it. Being pregnant. Would do it again if I could stomach the thought of no sleep. But I really really REALLy can’t. No sleep has been torture beyond belief. I don’t know who I‘ve been the past 4 years. ZZZZZombie doesn’t cut it. 

3 dogs I’ve had in my life. One as a kid. Crazy Frida. I still have scars. And then our little gang of English bulldogs; Harvey and Norma. My man’s dream, not mine. I am learning to love them and the mess they make. Their smell not so much. 

And anything else I could think of came in larger numbers. I can’t find anymore 3’s. 

I have lived in 4 countries. Moved 20+ times in my life. Gone to 11 schools. Had 15+ different jobs. 1 love (Stig is reading). 4 siblings. 2 cars. 17 bikes. 1 of them stolen. 

But all good things come in 3’s and my list feels like proof of that. 

Prompt for January 7th: A tribute to…

Day 5: What she says

I have a girl crush on this woman. I also have 3 girls. I am saying what she says... 

I also want to do spoken word when I grow up. 

January 6th prompt: The 3’s in my life