ALIKE ATTRACTS ALIKE

I couldn’t come round noticing, that recently a lot of people including myself are confused about love and relationships.

The most questions we ask is:

WHY THE HECK ARE WE ALWAYS WITH THE WRONG ONE!!??

Or

WHY THE HECK IS IT ALWAYS THE WRONG ONES THAT WANT TO BE WITH US, BUT THE ONES WE SEEK DON’T APPEAR???

Now, I have a random thinking here. I have a theory, which I am trying to write down as I am thinking it.

I am kind of thinking it onto the paper, but my random parallelism seems to be based on:

Like Attracts Like

It took me a while to find out how and why I am attracting certain kind of people, in this case talking about men in my relationships.

Now, something that all men I usually go out with have in common isn’t their colour of hair, their culture background, their jobs or their career in life.

It is their mental state.

All men I was in a relationship with tended to be so-called ‘cool’ men.

Men who were kind of frigid, wouldn’t talk about feelings, mostly didn’t even have access to their emotions and weren’t very warm-hearted.

With me thinking I was the opposite, I tried to convert them. I tried to change them, I put up fights and discussions in order to make them open up to me. To make them talk about their feelings and make them realise what kind of emotional state they’re in, myself claiming to be someone like that.

I tried to make them soft but I kept failing and finally ended up splitting up with them, thinking we’re too different. So I THOUGHT.

But now looking back, I must admit that this wasn’t correct.

Because, every time I DID manage to crack their wall down and they opened up, I would find myself confused and in a conflict. And would put up an even bigger fight…which did put a wall between us again!

Whenever they turned into being soft-hearted and opened up, I turned into defensive mode and put a wall back up, unaware of that. And whilst they opened up I kept ravaging about it without seeing that they actually already ARE soft and open. Then, what happened was that they were even more confused, because they were doing what I demanded and still it wasn’t right. They had no clue of what I had wanted; neither did I have ANY clue about what I was actually doing.

So in the end, I was actually the SAME!!! I chose ‘cool’ men, who were scared of intimacy because I was like that, too and every time intimacy was created from their side, I ended up putting the walls back up!

The perception of who I am and my actual behaviour weren’t congruent and I wonder how many of us actually do this.

How many of us actually wonder about why they always attract a certain kind of partner, thinking that they don’t fit but actually being the same as what they attract?

Maybe, we have to think again, think back and be more honest with ourselves?

So, maybe…

Maybe the reason why we are with someone very rational is because actually we are a very rational person ourselves, although we keep claiming that we are heart-driven and intuitive.

 And even when we decide not to be with rational people anymore, we still stay in contact and connected with them without realising that we might have more in common than we think.

And that maybe that’s the reason why we kind of need them.

And maybe, that’s why we are confused about life and love when we suddenly meet warm-hearted people who are soft, fearless and intuitive, instead of rational, calculated and insecure.

It might be, that when we are with the opposite, we turn into rational people ourselves…because maybe, that’s just what we are really…only, we didn’t know.

But now that we know, maybe we can accept being someone rational and realise, that like attracts like and that this revelation can point us towards the right one…to someone who is alike instead of trying to be someone we are not.

And that to attract what we WANT to be connected with, we at first have to BECOME it!

So far the theory I just wrote down and I feel very successful here with this, but staring at my dog (who is staring back) he kind of found very confusing words for the end of this quick thought:

“Like might attract like, oil doesn’t mix with water, but honestly, Mali, you use both together to make that salad sauce, which tastes soooo amazing every time I steal some!”

Maybe…the dog is right?

Like attracts like but opposites might also complement each other and turn something very boring ( and I can’t think of anything more boring for a dog than salad!) into something fruitful and delicious!

So, there might not even be a right or wrong.

Maybe…both are right?

So, people, why not just have fun and try out what you prefer?

:D

MENDING HEARTS

My friends and I have been talking about heartache and relationships recently. 

About the painful experience when a partnership breaks up, and about the sometimes deep wound it leaves behind where once was happiness.

How long does a heart take to heal?

How long will we be able to shut ourselves off and will the fear of getting hurt again ever go away?

A partnership is a complex thing. 

When we enter a relationship we give something away from ourselves. Our heart is open to receive, to give and we make plans and are full of dreams.

The longer a relationship takes, the deeper and more intimate we become with our partner, and sometimes we even merge with that world.

When this beautiful world is destroyed, when once what we thought was happiness has vanished we find ourselves hurt. 

Sometimes it’s not just the heart that’s in pain but even our whole body.

We are frustrated that our ideas haven’t been met and our dreams have shattered into pieces.

Rejection hurts, failure even more.

It’s hard to get through this stage of healing. We go through different periods of healing, we try to reorganise our lives in a new world, where we had shared day-to-day life with someone else before.

How long does it take to heal?

I don’t know how long it takes to heal…everyone is different, every situation is unique and so are we.

For some of us, we heal only in years, for others it takes only 4 months.

Some people need a lot of time in solitude to mend their broken hearts, for others, only the love and company of a new partner will be able to mend theirs.

Fact is, we never know until we come to meet someone new.

When we come to meet someone new between all that healing and restoring, we might suddenly feel hit and confused.

We question ourselves, we question the other and we find it hard to trust our feelings again.

We are scared.

I think, the fear that hits us is still connected with the pain we felt when our relationship before broke into pieces – and we don’t want to get hurt anymore.

We are waiting for the pain to go away and then we are waiting for the fear of new intimacy to vanish. We tend to think, that only when we’re not scared anymore we are healed and ready for someone new.

But matters of heart are not as obvious.

When we are mending our broken hearts, we have to attend it. Like we would attend a broken leg. With a broken leg we go to the doctor, he has a look at it and we get it fixed. It will take time to be able to walk again without a cast, but eventually, if we follow the right treatment we will be able to walk again.

Now, with a heart, its not very obvious. Not as obvious as a broken leg where the doctor confirms our health by a diagnostic report.

No, with this matter, we have to be brave enough to make the diagnostic report ourselves.

We have to learn to trust our feelings again, and this trust we only get back by trying. 

And despite all fear, let me tell you, no two moments are the same, neither are two people. What went wrong back then, doesn't mean it will go wrong here and now.

We have changed in the process of a break-up, so have others. And even tho you cannot feel that change yet, it does slumber inside of you, subtle, and it will show at the right time. 

Someone said to me, maybe we are forever wounded. I don’t think so, unless we decide to rip the healed wound open again forcefully, which only happens when dwelling in the past and concentrating on our fears.

So, maybe, its not about getting rid of the fear, but collecting the courage of trying all over again.

Maybe, healing doesn't mean that the pain and fear don’t exist, but that the damage and fear no longer control our lives and decisions.

Maybe, the best way to heal is to accept that we are scared of love, but doing it anyways.

We never know how long a relationship will last, neither in love, nor with friends but if we shut ourselves off in fear of getting hurt we will end up confused and lost.

It’s not the pain itself that kills our hope, it’s the fear of pain that imprisons us.

So why not opening our arms open wide, why not being scared but doing it anyways?!

Don’t wait for fear to vanish from the stage!

Go and grab that power called courage by the horns, dive into love and you will be surprised what beauty there is to find!

PS: To me, this short conversation with a friend opened my eyes and heart:

She: So what’s wrong then?

Me: Well, it’s just that i don’t want a relationship anymore. They are always trouble.

She: No, that’s wrong. You don’t want a relationship with THAT man anymore! THAT relationship was always trouble!

Wow...how i love switching the point of view :D

CALIMA STRIKES

Dear people of Medano.

No, this is not the apocalypse, it’s just a heat wave and YES, that is why I had been making you a coffee although you’ve ordered a Coke.

The air is dry, not a slight breeze is moving the surface of the sea and the air is dense.

It’s hard to breathe, the dense heat is hanging like a cheese bowl above my head and the air pressure gives me the feeling that my beautiful mind is about to explode.

Calima it is called, and as a weather condition a remnant from Sahara sandstorms, that get driven over the whole Canary Islands by south easterly winds, covering everything with sand and dust, whilst visibility is limited like on a foggy day in London.

The intensely dry, dust-laden heat reaches temperatures from 35-45 C, generally takes 1 week and used to occur 3-4 times a year (nowadays its usually 8 times a year!).

Apart from the fact that there is no wind, which makes the wind- and kitesurfer very miserable, it also has various effects on the human body, mostly involved with Dehydration, headaches due to high air-pressure, the fine sand particles are entering the lungs, and cause short breath, a lot of people catch a bad cough and mucous membranes become irritated, which in worst case, can lead to nosebleed.

So here I got a little walkthrough through on how to survive 1 week of Calima in the sanest manner without becoming ill.

First of all: DON’T RESIST!!!!

Just surrender to the heat, accept it as it is, because the more you and your mind go against it, the worse it gets!

Surrender to the heat and accept everything that comes with it, then you will be bit more relaxed about the rest of it.

Keep your system running.

The heat gets the system down, vasodilatation leads to low blood pressure and can cause dizziness and severe fatigue.

To activate your system, do easy sports (I am pronouncing the word EASY here!) I sometimes see people running during the day and then ending up collapsing! 45 degrees with fine sand particles in the air is NOT an invitation for a marathon!!!

45 degrees is a reason to get up early and go for a swim in the refreshing cool sea before the sun is up or for a short but relaxed run.

Yoga in the evening helps calming down and so does a swim after work.

Actually, anytime you can spend in the water is best, even if you’re just doing the "SUP-chiringuito-challenge"!

Go snorkelling and free diving, the sea is calm and the water is clear, so just shoot off and enjoy the underwater world, instead of trying to run through the city in order to get the shopping done.

DRINK! Is the magic rule.

“GOSH! I could do with a big, cold shandy!!!” Jejeje, I know, the force is strong with this one! But remember, young padawan, forget you must what you have learned…because alcohol is actually the worst you can do at the moment.

To maintain the little force you got within you, refrain from alcohol, as it dehydrates you and you loose important salt your body needs.

Furthermore, you will be waking up next morning with your eyeballs the size of a raisin and your tear sacs will be dangling down to your knees.

Food

Cucumber soup, fresh salads and homemade chilled Gazpacho do the job very well and whilst hydrating you they refill your energy and electrolyte level.

I love popsicles, homemade with lemon, watermelon or pinapple. They’re the easiest way to get quick refreshment, same as iced Yoghurt-Lassi in any kind of way.

An average intake of at least 2-3L of fluid should be on the list, preferably unsugared teas and water.

Yeah, I know, water is pretty boring, it does the job tho, and to pop it up a bit, I add some fresh mint leaves and ginger, fresh lemon or pieces of a fresh orange to it… not that boring anymore, right?

Last but not least just a quick guide on behavioural attitudes during Calima:

1^st:

Stop complaining about the heat! Your complaint doesn’t make the temperature drop, neither are your common fellows stupid. They KNOW its hot.

2^nd:

Do not under any circumstances go into a bar and order random stuff that’s not on the menu, like strawberry cake and a chorizo baguette!

3^rd:

Speaking of the menu, please relax and take time to read the menu instead of asking the waitress or waiter to rattle down the whole menu… you’re sweating, not blind…furthermore, tongues and concentration are at limit, and energy on speech and thought process have to be used sparely, so keep it easy,

4^th:

I know the predicament you finding yourself in, we are all sweating our arses off and you might have a great character, but please put a t-shirt over the glassy beer belly and shorts that cover your speedos when entering a bar. This keeps people standing next to you dry and their eyesight at peace. Obviously, if you’re Paul Walker, don’t under any circumstances, put a shirt on and PLEASE wear speedos!

5^th:

Please drink and eat whatever you getting served in the restaurant, even tho it’s not even close to what you have ordered. The brain of a waitress/waiter works only on its last leg and readjusting your order will be either out of consideration or will take another hour to be completed

6^th:

And NO, you cannot take the whole table and 6 chairs down to the beach in front of the sea!

My favourite tip for hot Calima nights?

Jumping off the harbour wall with all your friends naked…no one can sleep anyways with bedroom temperature above 40C and as hot as a sauna. So why not spending time awake having fun, instead of rolling from one side to the other and trying to enter dreamland forcefully?

1 YEAR

It’s been 9 months now since I’m back home and it took me 1 entire year to actually heal.

A lot of things happened that whole year, but what I mostly want to communicate with you today is that silver lining I found at the end of the complete process.

Life is strange and sometimes things happen that make no sense to us.

Doors we meant to open remain shut, boulders stay unmovable obstacles on our path to success and people we trusted to be friends let us down or betray us.

Sometimes, circumstances that hit us in life leave us with nothing and we see our dreams perish into a black hole.

My darkest moment nearly 1 year ago took me to Scotland, a place that turned out to be one of the most beautiful places I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

And the beauty of that place went hand in hand with the magnificent people I got to meet there.

Spirited people (and here I don’t mean religious but close to their hearts!) who with their patience and kindness offered me the exceptional opportunity to take part in something bigger – working with the horses at Horseback.

And when it finally was time for me to leave and head back home, I was taking something with me.

I had learned to push through dark days. I had learned to sit patiently with the unsolved because I KNEW that any interference would have ended in even more confusion and disaster.

The greatest skill I’ve come to obtain was the precious attitude of:

ONE STEP AT A TIME

Finally, back at home on my lovely island I was ready and eager to grab my life back by the horns.

I wanted to concentrate on 2 of the most important things for me in my life.

All I wanted to do was going back into surfing and windsurfing, which I needed in order to heal my soul and to open my mind.

And 2^nd, I just wanted to work in order to stabilise my financial situation.

But again, what I THOUGHT will happen didn’t work out the way I planned it to do.

I had to face another financial crisis where I had to learn again to sit and wait patiently, whilst my surfing went haywire due to my shoulder injury.

With surfing (my only and biggest passion) gone and not much financial cushion I at first felt like falling from 80% in life down to 3%.

I was devastated, I had to learn what it means to let go of a passion, but only through that I was given a gift.

I had no chance but to open my eyes to all the beauty that surrounded me.

Not being able to go surfing made me miserable but it opened a whole new world to me.

That loss got me into snorkelling and free diving and I discovered a whole new world.

Knowing what happens on top of the water always moved me, but seeing what’s beyond…I would have never seen a real ray floating across the ocean ground, never touched a turtle and never at all realised how peaceful and in-tune the world underwater was, whilst waves and wind were crossing the surface.

And the little shifts at work made me realise that even without money one can enjoy life…Nature became my playground, whilst I skipped bars and boat-trips.

I had spent nearly 2 years away from home and I also realised that I had changed.

My character, my beliefs and my view on life, and my view on friends and people had changed, too.

Now back home, people I used to fit in with I didn’t feel comfortable around anymore, whilst others moved closer.

I had to learn to say NO to people and a lifestyle that didn’t fit anymore – here again I met an ability I didn’t posses 2 years ago and which default had led me into the disaster last year.

I had thought that the darkest crisis I had met last year was the hardest one, but in reality, that had only been the start.

What I learned throughout this year was how important it is to care for myself. How important it is to still be open and not to shut my heart and mind down to things only in fear to get hurt again.

How important it is to say YES to myself, although it sometimes might mean to say NO to others.

How important it is to let go, not just of people and a lifestyle that don’t suit anymore…but also to let go of old beliefs, which formed the basement of my self-view and my character.

I had to let an old Self go – but everything I lost had been replaced by some stronger and wiser things.

What I find now is more calming and safe than my life was before… I had found another part of the true ME; cleared out and replaced some old, run-down furniture.

Knowing pieces of your true self is the realest strength we can obtain in life.

It’s a power from within and I think this is why they say:

“What doesn’t kill you, makes you stronger!”

I wish everyone a great start into the week and maybe you find some time to reflect on all the disaster you’ve overcome in your life so far and have a little break-down on how they made you stronger…made you more REAL.

PS: Oh, and don’t forget to love yourself :D