Meet the New Addition to Our Little Family!

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FINALLY, the time has come and I am now the proud owner of dog… well, it’s probably more the other way around but, you know what I mean. :)

As a teenager I had my first experience with having a dog join the family and I was hooked. I fell so deeply in love, not just with Arthur, but with all dogs.  From that point on I was a staunch dog-lover.  After I moved out of my parent’s house the hardest part about leaving was saying goodbye to Artie!  I even sent him postcards.  For years I moved around a lot, which made it hard to justify getting a dog, but I did foster one for a time and I was the go-to dogsitter for all my dog-owning friends. I just never became a full-time dog mommy- that is, until now!

Last Saturday R & I made our second trip to the local dog shelter where we were given custody of the most precious little 2 yr. old male Tibetan Spaniel (or they say he is, I think he may be a Pekingese) whom we have named Bodhi.  With each passing day our bonds with him have grown stronger and he has already brought so much joy and excitement to our lives.  Here’s the first pic we took of him while still in the parking lot of the shelter last Saturday:

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Is he not precious?  The first day he was here he kind of just sat by the front door, confused. He whimpered a little and wouldn’t eat much of anything.  By the second day he was a little more comfortable.  He came away from the door and quickly warmed up to the cozy laps of friends who came by to visit and meet him.

On Monday R went to work and it was time to introduce him to his new weekday routine.  He gets 4 walks a day- lucky dog!  He LOVES walks.  We only saw him get excited when he saw us grab his harness & leash.  When R came home from work I told him Bodhi still wasn’t eating his food, only treats.  When we sat down to eat our dinner R suggested we bring his bowl over to the table.  Turns out Bodhi just wanted to eat meals as a family!  This has now become our routine for breakfast and dinner.

When he begs for food, which is usually when I am in the kitchen preparing a meal, he stands on his hind legs and looks up at me with this pitiful look in his eyes:

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It is very difficult to not give in!  Just look at that face.  I will often give him a treat at times like this but we have agreed to never ever feed him from the table.  We find he is a pretty smart guy. He immediately took ownership of the bed we designated for him, snoozing in it often, as well as a blanket that is all his own.  We tested his ability to be alone the other night when we decided to go out for dinner.  We first sat outside on the steps to see if he would cry or yelp loudly which could disturb our neighbors.  Nothing.  When we returned after about 2 hours it seemed as though our entry had awoken him from undoubtedly much needed slumber and there was nothing destroyed or peed on in the house.  Score!  But the best part was seeing his excitement upon seeing us again.  We hadn’t seen that yet, and at that point we knew we all agreed that we make a pretty sweet family.

For the first few days he would always start pulling back at the tail end of a walk when he realized we were close to home again.  We started rewarding him with a treat immediately after we enter the house.  We now all but race him to the door!  That didn’t take long.  Bodhi is smart and he learns fast.  He hasn’t barked much at all, except in the beginning when he was anxious and wanting attention.  One day, I think it was Tuesday, he heard a neighbor’s dog crying and he started howling back at him.  It was the cutest darn thing I had ever seen or heard.  I’d never witnessed such a tiny dog howling like a wolf before!

Other than that, I’d say he has made himself pretty comfortable in his new home:

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I’m very happy to have Bodhi as a sweet companion each and every day as I work from home, previously all by myself.  It’s amazing that I already feel more relaxed since he’s been here. Moving and starting a new life definitely brought on some unwanted anxiety the last few months.  Bodhi’s presence has helped me feel more calm and I know it will continue to do so. It also gets me out of the house more as I take more breaks to walk him and in doing so get to know my new surroundings better.  We’ve been discovering the beauty of Tübingen together and I am really coming to adore this area where we now live.

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Do you have a pet?  How does he or she add joy & health to your life?

Be you and enjoy it!

Why Are People Mean on the Internet?

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I read a lot of blog posts and articles published on the internet.  I have a lot of interests so I enjoy reading posts on the various topics that I want to know things about.  These include politics, natural health, fitness & others.  I also like knowing what is going on in the world and so I read a lot of news articles.  An aspect of reading articles on the internet is that at the end of nearly every one you reach the start of what can often end up being a rather long stream of comments from readers who want to share their thoughts and opinions on what they just read. Fair enough. I like knowing what other people think.  The problem is that the well thought out, constructive, & thought-provoking comments that I might be interested in viewing are usually smothered somewhere in between comments that seem to me only to be thoughtless, first reactions that in real life would be put through a process of consideration and refinement for the sake of being, let’s say, nice or respectful.

Sure there are times where someone says something to me and my first thought is, “is he friggin’ kidding me?  That is the most absurd thing I’ve ever heard.  He can’t be serious!”  But I might reply with something like, “well, that’s an interesting perspective but I can’t say I agree.  I tend to see it more like this…”. Except on the internet, people see fit to lash out & call names & insult the characters and intelligence of people they have never even met.  And why is that?  Surely they would not have the same response if the person were standing right next to them and they were having a face-to-face encounter (well most of them wouldn’t, some would I suppose). Why are people who would not be willing to be rude, disrespectful or inflammatory in person be so willing to be that way on the internet?

While the internet is a thing, it and the content on it were produced by actual human beings. Yes, the same human beings we stand in line with at the grocery store and say excuse me if we bump into them.  The same human beings who when we see they’ve dropped a glove, we pick it up and run up to them saying, “excuse me, you dropped this.”  These are the same total strangers that if they sneeze, we say “God bless you.”  These are the same people who when they take our money at the register and return our change we say, “thank you, have a nice day.” So why is it that when we can’t see them and they can’t see us they are no longer worthy of kindness, consideration & cordialness?  Is it because now we know they have a different opinion than we do and so we no longer see them as being worthy?  I think not.  Certainly we all have people in our lives who see certain things differently than we do, but we still extend respect & kindness to them.  We don’t treat them like bad people all of the sudden, do we?  So why do it on the internet?

I read an article yesterday where a doula was sharing her experience with tricks to having a boy or a girl when trying to conceive.  Some commenters were grateful for her article because they have a preference for whatever reason & liked what they read.  Others were infuriated that a person could even have a preference, never mind write an article about how to try for one sex over the other.  Whatever their opinions, they all have the right to them.  But what I don’t support is the name-calling and character bashing that came along with their comments.  This poor woman was labeled a “nutcase”, her article was called “disgusting” and she was said to be “self-serving”.  Now if this woman had been meeting these same people for the first time and was discussing her article with them over coffee, I am sure their reactions would have been much different.  I was imagining how it must have made her feel to read all those comments. My heart ached for her. It really did, as it often does for many authors of various posts & articles after I’ve gone through the comments. I could envision her sitting at her computer reading them and having to try not to take them to heart.  I suppose many writers expect that these days, but isn’t that sad?

This all left me wondering, are most people only kind because of how it makes them look &/or because they want to be liked?  I suppose many people don’t care very much what strangers on the internet think of them because they don’t expect to ever encounter them in life outside the net. Is identification the thing that often motivates kindness?  And as long as people have a measure of anonymity, is kindness no longer seen as important?  Are a good number of people not kind for kindness’ sake?

What do you think?  Why are people mean on the internet?

Be you and enjoy it.

Life in Tübingen Has Begun

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Right now I am sitting at our patio table in the dining room of our new and rather empty Tübingen apartment.  Two weeks ago I crossed the bridge between visitor and resident when I signed a lease, together with my husband, on this place and then drove to the city center to officially register as a resident of this town.  As opposed to occupying a room at my in-laws, I now have my own home here in Germany and therefore can formally proclaim that I live in Europe.  That’s a great feeling, seeing as how I began dreaming about having this European experience about 15 years ago.  And here I am.  Another dream realized.

The whole process hasn’t been that dreamy though.  We got here in the dead of a very dark and dreary winter.  We spent nearly 4 months living with R’s parents who I barely knew before we arrived.  We didn’t have jobs lined up or an inkling about where in the country we’d end up, or if we’d succeed at ending up here at all.  Add all that to the inherent stresses and anxieties that naturally come with moving to a new country with a new culture and a new language.  Yeah, there was some stress.  There were even some fights, as my husband and I were having two totally different experiences in this process; him as a native returning home and me moving to a whole new country.  We definitely struggled to understand each other along the way here and there, and that was hard.  Still is.

But here we are, our destiny being Tübingen for the time being, which sounds all too much like ‘to begin’ not to notice.  I happen to be a sucker for new beginnings, and I am not going to waste this opportunity to have me yet another.  A new place, a new country, a new home, a new marriage (we celebrate our 1st anniversary next month!), a new job, new friends, new favorite places, a new routine.  I love change.  I always have.  And as I am moving and starting over yet again in my life, I have to wonder- will my love for change ever change?

Either way, I think it’s good to be a welcomer and lover of change.  Change is the only constant, after all.  Some of it has been up to me, some of it hasn’t.  In any case, I’ve found adventure and excitement in it each and every time.  A challenge to shift gears and embrace the opportunity to create, once again, the circumstances that I want for myself.  It’s pretty empowering.  I had a friend tell me how much in awe they are of my ability to just pick up and go someplace new at the drop of a hat because the idea of it terrifies them.  This stunned me. I’ve never felt scared.  A little anxious and excited maybe, but not afraid.  I’ve never doubted for a second that things will always fall into place.  And they always have.

I’m happy to be here in beautiful Tübingen and I look forward to experiencing the beauty, the culture and the people of this incredibly charming place.

Some photos:

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Why We Should Seek Positivity With Caution

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For about a decade now I’ve been involved in some way with the idea that focusing on positive things and looking for the good in things is for sure a way to experience more happiness and joy in life.  I do believe that being very pessimistic is not good for anyone. Nobody wants to be around, much less be, a debbie-downer.  And so I had embraced the idea that encouraging people to be more bright-sided could only lead to good things.  I jumped right on the band wagon to spread good cheer and try to make the world a better place.  In my own journey toward being more positive I recited daily affirmations, made gratitude lists & vision boards & always tried to see the good in any situation.  I even believed that I could “attract” anything I wanted in my life just by thinking good thoughts and feeling good feelings.  Then some things happened that brought my quest to a streaking halt.

I quickly realized that what I had gotten myself involved with, while having some great attributes, could potentially be very dangerous.  I began noticing that a lot of people who were into “being positive” ended up actually being delusional.  I realized that many of them had totally disconnected themselves from reality.  The reality that the world is full of both love and hate. That there is both joy and suffering.  That just as it is no good to be a total pessimist, it isn’t any good to be so positivity-seeking that you refuse to or can no longer see things as they really are. I started realizing that messages like “avoid negative people” were really hurtful in many instances. For example, if a friend is going through a hard time and needing someone to talk to, was I to tell her to see the bright-side of her situation and then write her off as “negative” if she didn’t conform and still wanted to cry on my shoulder?  Were all human feelings that didn’t “feel good” now to be viewed as negative and therefore something to ignore and shun at all costs?  Scary.

Or what about the news?  So many people I know refuse to watch the news because it is so “negative”.  How can a person be informed in order to act as a responsible citizen if they refuse to know what is happening in their communities and around the world?  Ignoring bad things or pretending they don’t exist doesn’t make them disappear.  It scares me to know that so many people are actively choosing to live in ignorance because they believe this will make them happier!  Living in a bubble and relinquishing a connection to fundamental facts in life don’t lead to happiness.  If they did, we ‘d be getting happier and happier as this positivity movement has been around now since the early 19th century beginning with New Thought.  But we aren’t happier.  In fact, we’re becoming more anxious as a result of our obsession with happiness, according to this NYT article.

And not just happy, but how can a person be compassionate & empathetic if they spend all their time and energy trying to avoid feeling half of all human emotions.  How can one be compassionate if they don’t even allow themselves to see the pains of others?  And worse yet, how can one be compassionate if they actually believe that the suffering of others is what they “attracted” to themselves?  And what kind of world would we have if it was devoid of compassion?  Being a positive person is a good thing.  Being upbeat, optimistic & grateful are all excellent pursuits.  But not at the expense of our humanity & our ability to think rationally.  We are whole human beings with a range of emotions that can ALL have positive effects.  Even anger has a strong potential to lead to actions causing great change.  Studies have shown that there are plenty of beneficial outcomes of feeling sad.  And I don’t believe there is good in every situation.  Even if it leads to good things.  The loss of a child is unspeakably horrible. Cancer sucks!  Rape is terrifying and despicable.  Death is sad.  You can be a positive person and see that life isn’t all butterflies and rainbows.

We need to accept that we live in a world that is both wonderful & awful.  Great things happen & so do catastrophes.  I believe that a truly positive person will not try to avoid the facts of the less pleasant parts of life or try to explain them away with pseudoscientific nonsense. Rather, they will embrace all of life- relishing in the beauty of the world and reaching out to mend the parts that are broken, using their positivity to build the confidence that it is possible.  I also believe happiness is elusive for people who become so self-focused that they are always analyzing their own thoughts and feelings, working hard to dismiss negativity or transform it into positivity.  I actually think this is a perfect recipe for misery.  Neuroscientists have shown that joyful feelings come from giving and contribution.  People reach a state of flow when they lose self-awareness, not when they are trapped in it by obsessively analyzing themselves.

So go make your gratitude lists, remind yourself that you are wonderful, seek the things you desire, but don’t forget that in reality the world is a mixed up place with wonderful and terrible things.  Suffering is real, and many of those who suffer need others who are willing to see them and to see their situations and to be positive enough to believe they can help, but not so positive that they refuse to.

Be you and enjoy it!

Stop Thinking That the Good Things in Life are Meant for Others and Not For You

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Happy lady

I say this because I used to think that.  I used to think that the good things in life were meant for others and not for me.  I didn’t see myself as someone who could be loved by a wonderful man.  I didn’t see myself as someone who could, say, travel the world or live in a beautiful place of my choosing.  I didn’t see myself as someone whose opinions others wanted to hear.  I didn’t believe I could live a life where worrying about money wasn’t the norm.  When I was younger, I didn’t want to go to college.  I didn’t want to go because I didn’t enjoy school at all (though I really enjoyed learning and spent hours upon hours at the library) but I also didn’t think college was for me, I thought it was for the other kids.  I didn’t see myself as someone who was fit for something such as higher education.  I never even considered that success of any kind was an option for me.

I have no idea why I saw myself as less important and less worthy than others.  I’m sure it had to do with a number of things, including my growing up in a home tainted with the horrors of alcoholism, religious fundamentalism & other stresses.  But whatever the reason or reasons, the fact was that I didn’t expect much for my life. I didn’t expect much from myself.  My early adult life was comprised of low paying jobs, dysfunctional relationships & an overall theme of merely surviving rather than thriving. Luckily for me, somewhere along the line that all changed.  I came in contact with books, people & situations that influenced me enough to cause me to see myself differently.  I started to value myself more & that made me seek better circumstances for myself.

Sometimes I forget about this transformation as I now live comfortably & happily in my day-to-day life.  But the other day I was riding in the car with my husband in southern Germany just a few hours after signing a contract on a new flat and this one song came on the radio.  I had never heard it before, but the chorus lyrics were “Don’t let go, never give up,  it’s such a wonderful life. Wonderful, wonderful, wonderful life…”  Those words reminded me of that time when I had no idea that a wonderful life was perfectly appropriate for me.  I had in a sense given up when I had accepted the idea that my life would always include lots of struggle, turmoil, drama & not much more than the basics.  And now here I was, alongside my handsome, sweet, smart & loving husband cruising through the rolling hills of southern Germany at sunset while my mind juggled decisions about how to furnish our beautiful new flat in Tübingen, reflecting on my earlier conference call with my business partner & wondering if my best friend received the birthday gift I had sent her.

I have a wonderful life.  It’s more than I could have ever hoped for but I didn’t always believe it could be like this.  That made me think that maybe others are out there believing as I once did that they are unworthy of love, happiness, comfort & amazing experiences. If this is you, know that it isn’t true.  You are worthy.  You are enough.  You deserve everything you need & desire. Start believing that because that is true, and watch your life change.

“Don’t let go.  Never give up, it’s such a wonderful life.”

Be you and enjoy it.

Say Hello to Shop Conscious!

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Shop Conscious

As many of you know, I quit my real estate career a while back and have been on the hunt for a new, more meaningful path.  I am happy to say that I have finally discovered something that really gets my blood flowing.  A good friend and I have started a non-profit organization called Shop Conscious.

Shop Conscious has a simple mission: To educate & empower consumers, connecting them to conscientious retailers supporting ideal products.

As a consumer who cares about the purity and quality of the products I buy I have become more and more frustrated with the contamination of foods and other products on the market. I’ve been just as frustrated with the lack of transparency- and also at times the blatant misrepresentation- of what exactly is in the products on the shelves in the stores.  It just isn’t right.  And so we began realizing that the best we can do to protect ourselves and demand better options in the marketplace is to be informed and to inform others.  And that is exactly what we are doing.

If you want to know your products please check out our blog and our website!  We at Shop Conscious will work very hard to bring you trusted information about what is in the products you choose, how these products affect the environment, how transparent companies are & how fair the prices are among other things.

Be on the lookout for that little magnifying glass in our logo.  Whenever you see that you’ll know we’re close by, investigating & educating.

Our focus at the moment is on fish oil.  Go check it out on our website!

You can also find us on twitter @shopconsciousus and on Facebook.com/ShopConscious

a Tuesday in Tübingen

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My husband announced that we were driving to central Germany for a job interview.  Normally I am all about a mini adventure, but this time I wasn’t as excited.  I’ve been busy and I worried that a mid-week trip would mess up my new schedule.  But we need a job, and an interview is a big step in the direction toward gainful employment, so I packed an overnight bag.  I didn’t really know where we were going.  I just got in the car and off we went.

When we arrived in Tübingen on Monday evening it was just before dark.  We were in search for the Hotel am Schloss (The Castle Hotel).  We drove up a very narrow & steep cobblestone street.  At the end of it, the hotel… and wow, was it charming!  Love at first sight for yours truly.

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Suddenly, I was excited to be here.  After check-in we freshened up for dinner and I managed to sneak in a few minutes of research on this little town.  I normally do this in advance, but again I wasn’t really feeling it. Turns out Tübingen is a historically rich and remarkable place. The Altstadt (old town) here was just the kind of European village I used to daydream about strolling through.  It was exactly the kind of place I always knew would nurture & coddle the old soul the lives within me.  I couldn’t wait to explore.

After dinner we decided to mosey through the old town and get some air.  (We’d been in the car for 5 hours before arriving!) The air was brisk as we strolled hand-in-hand along the narrow, curvy cobblestone roads.  Only a few passerbys-by crossed our path & the village was mostly quiet & still.  This was a dream that I had dreamed long before; to walk through an old village in Europe with the man I love just as we were- holding hands & happy.  It was a perfect surprise.

The next morning we got breakfast at the hotel and then he left for his interview.  I, along with my camera, journal & pen, ventured out to explore Tübingen in daylight. In light rain mixed with sunshine, I meandered for hours in a total state of flow.  I happened upon a bench along the river that seemed to exist solely for the purpose of my coming along and sitting down on it to write.  The experience of this is what I live for- to be totally immersed in the awe of my surroundings.

Here are some captured moments of my Tuesday in glorious Tübingen:

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Be you and enjoy.

Shall We Develop the Skill of Happiness Together?

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Recently I received an invitation via email to join a new website community.  I clicked the link and began to explore what it was all about.  Happify was the name, and well, I kinda love happiness and the idea of it so… I couldn’t resist.  The next word I saw was science- my other love!  The drool began to seep from the corners of my mouth like a dog being taunted with a pixie cup of peanut butter.  I’ve done a lot of learning about the latest research regarding human happiness. I find it very comforting to know that I do in fact have a pretty good amount of control over how happy I am and all I have to do is take note of the actions they’ve discovered start releasing all those good feeling chemicals in my brain, do them, and I’m well on my way.

It also helps to stop doing all the crappy stuff that I’ve been programmed to believe will make me happy but actually makes me more miserable (buy stuff, measure my success by comparing myself to others, have the latest & the greatest, get noticed).  Seems simple enough.  But, for some reason I put the good stuff off.  As many of us know, forming new habits can pose quite a daunting challenge.  And then I feel crappy about my procrastination & difficulty to break old patterns and so naturally, for an instant pick-me-up, I go shopping for a posh new handbag. Because of course that will make me feel better!  Or so I forgetfully believe at the time.

If only I had a motivational tool to help me remember all the scientifically demonstrated things I can be doing everyday to stay on track with what will REALLY get that dopamine flowing (meditation, gratitude, savoring, togetherness, self-nurture, creativity, giving).  Maybe even a little community of people who I can do my activities with so we can cheer each other on?!  Too much to ask?  NO?!  There is such a community?  There is indeed, and somehow it found me. Now it’s finding you, as I invite you to join me there.

Click here for instant access to Happify.

See you there!  Be sure to search for me: Dara Horstkemper

Be you and enjoy it!

To Hel and Back in 4 Days

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Helsinki

That’s Hel as in Helsinki, Finland.  Not to be confused with Hell, of course, because Helsinki is pretty fabulous and I’d like to go there again.  In fact, I may be going there to live.

That’s right!  You read me correctly.  Hubs is considering a job offer that would require us to relocate to Finland.  A bit off the path we set out on when we left the US and planned to reside in his native Germany.  But sometimes life steers us in a direction we did not plan on, doesn’t it? Are we willing to be open to a new unplanned & unanticipated direction?  I wasn’t at first, but I am shifting my thinking and trying to be open to something unexpected and different.  After a weekend visit to Helsinki, I am starting to feel a bit excited about the possibility.  We should know in about a week or so if we’ll be going. Continue reading →

3 Things You Can Do To Make This a Transformative Weekend

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The weekend is here- hooray!  Now how can we make sure we get the most out of it?  Well, all it really takes is a little intention.  Maybe we have  some plans already.  A birthday party, a trip to the cinema or a long jog.  Additonally, here are 3 more things we can add to our weekend agenda.

Wherever you are, be only there- Vow to be in the moment this weekend.  Having a conversation at a party?  Give your undivided attention.  Listen closely to the person while they are talking to you.  Look them in the eyes.  Appreciate the opportunity, truly and deeply, to be in their presence and to have them to converse with.  Do this for all of your interactions throughout the weekend.

Take a media fast- Shut down your computer for a bit, shut off the TV, lay down the ipad.  It could be for a few hours, an entire day or the entire weekend.  I try to do this for the day on Sunday.  Instead, spend time doing an activity  you sometimes neglect because you ended up squandering time perusing the web or channel surfing.  I usually choose to read a book, take a walk or write in my journal.  Pick up the phone and call someone you haven’t spoken to in a while.

Self-nurture- Take the opportunity to do something good for your health and well-being.  It could be something as simple as taking a walk through the park (can you tell I really like walks?) or going to that yoga class you keep putting off.  You could take a nice hot soothing bath to help relax you after a long, hard & stressful week.  And don’t forget the candles!  If it’s in your budget to do so, treat yourself to a massage!

Ok, I’m off for a hike with my husband.  I wish you all a transformative week.

Be you and enjoy it!