Archivi delle categorie:Life

Empathy: a Bridge to Foster Connections

Sometimes, relating to others may feel like navigating a complex labyrinth where tensions surface. Empathy would emerge as the thread that weaves the fabric of understanding, which helps to transform difficulties into opportunities for profound connection and mutual understanding. Thanks to its transformative power and pivotal role in forging meaningful connections, empathy may become a source of joy and inspiration.

Empathy: The Art of Walking in Another’s Shoes

Empathy is more than a mere display of mercy; it’s the art of stepping into someone else’s world and experiencing their emotions from within. Unlike a predefined talent, empathy is a skill that can be learned, honed, and applied to enhance our relationships.

Breaking Barriers: Empathy in Action

Being empathic involves a profound sense of connection with others. While it may be easier to empathize with those who share similarities, the true challenge lies in extending empathy to those we perceive as antagonists. Workplace relationships, for instance, can benefit immensely from empathetic communication. Engaging in open conversations, understanding colleagues’ experiences, and acknowledging their emotions can bridge gaps and pave the way for trust and collaboration.

Empathy’s Ripple Effect: Renewing Bonds

A wellspring of empathy can unlock the ability to sense the emotions of others, offering a glimpse into their perspectives and enabling us to anticipate their reactions. When people feel truly understood, the path towards trust and deep understanding unfurls. Empathy is a potent force capable of renewing bonds that may have seemed strained or broken.

Looking Inward: The Dual Nature of Empathy

However, empathy is not a one-way street. To extend understanding outward, we must first direct it inward. Acknowledging our own emotions, both positive and negative, is crucial. Identifying and embracing feelings such as anger, bitterness, or shame allows for a deeper connection with ourselves. The clarity gained from understanding our emotions becomes a foundation for comprehending and accepting the diverse emotional landscapes of others.

Nurturing Empathy to Build Richer Human Connections

Empathy serves as the vibrant thread that binds us all. By cultivating this transformative skill, we not only enrich our connections with others but also foster a deeper understanding of ourselves. As we start the journey of empathy, let’s remember that embracing diversity, both within and around us, is the key to unlocking the true potential of human connections.

Do you also believe in the power of empathy to build bridges among people?

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Achievable Resolutions for the New Year

As the New Year dawns, resolutions become a familiar topic of conversation. While setting goals is common, the challenge lies in their realization. Often, we find ourselves succumbing to boredom, doubting our abilities, and overwhelmed by competing priorities. The question arises: why bother taking these resolutions seriously? However, the key is not to burden ourselves with unrealistic expectations. Instead, consider setting achievable resolutions that align with your genuine desires.

Here are some practical and realistic resolutions to kickstart your year:

  1. Cultivate Meaningful Connections: Dedicate more time to friends and loved ones, engaging in activities you genuinely enjoy. This is a powerful way to foster connection, even for introverts. Establishing a routine, such as joining a monthly club meeting every first Monday, can make this resolution more manageable.
  2. Express Gratitude Daily: Boost your happiness by expressing gratitude each day. Begin by acknowledging the abundance in your life—your home, your job, and even your gym. Gradually, extend your gratitude to smaller joys, appreciating a blooming flower, the morning sun, or a smiling baby. Over time, you’ll become adept at finding joy in the little things.
  3. Prioritize Sleep and Exercise: Improve your overall well-being by getting adequate sleep and incorporating regular exercise. If you currently sleep less than 7-8 hours per night, start by gradually increasing your sleep time. Add 10 minutes each night for a week, progressively reaching your optimal sleep duration. Additionally, kickstart your post-holiday fitness routine to shed those extra pounds and boost your mood with the release of endorphins—the hormones associated with pain inhibition and euphoria.

I wish you the best of luck on your journey to achieving your realistic resolutions.

May the coming year bring success and fulfillment to your goals!

Festive Stress: 5 Tips to Embrace the Holidays Season

The joy of Christmas brings back cherished memories from my childhood, eagerly awaiting the midnight unveiling of presents with my family. As an expat, returning home during the festive season allows me to share this serene time with loved ones. However, the holidays can also become stressful, from last-minute gift shopping to preparing elaborate Christmas Eve and Christmas Day meals.

Here are five tips to maintain a positive mindset and truly savor the holiday season.

  1. Connect with Loved Ones: Despite the distance, staying in touch with family and friends back home is crucial. A simple phone call or a few minutes of virtual conversation can make a significant difference, lifting both your spirits and theirs. Don’t hesitate to reach out – it’s a meaningful way to share the festive joy, and you won’t feel guilty about missing out.
  2. Embrace New Traditions: Adjusting to new holiday traditions may evoke mixed emotions, creating an emotional struggle. Release yourself from excessive pressure and strive to embrace the new while preserving a sense of tradition in your current surroundings. Finding this balance can contribute to a more fulfilling holiday experience.
  3. Resist Media Pressures: The media bombards us with images of the ‘perfect’ holiday season, fostering unrealistic expectations that can lead to emotional and financial stress. Avoid succumbing to these pressures and steer clear of comparing your celebration to idealized depictions. Remember, the essence of the holidays lies in genuine joy and connection, not unrealistic standards.
  4. Seek Emotional Support: For those facing challenging situations like grief, loss, or relationship struggles, the holiday season can intensify emotional stress. Acknowledge your feelings and don’t hesitate to seek support from specialists or counseling services. Analyzing your emotions and coping with overwhelming struggles can make the season more manageable.
  5. Find Your Personal Balance: Reflect on what truly matters to you. Whether you choose to visit relatives abroad or celebrate in your host country, align your decisions with your personal priorities and needs. Striking the right balance is essential for your mental well-being, ensuring a holiday season that resonates with your individual preferences.

Wishing you a joyful and stress-free holiday season! May these tips empower you to embrace the festivities with a positive mindset, creating lasting memories during this special time of the year.

How Creative Visualization Will Help You Achieve Your Goals

Do you find your ambitious life goals confined to your thoughts rather than materializing in reality? Creative visualization might be the missing link to transforming your aspirations into tangible achievements. In this blog post, I’ll explore the power of creative visualization and how it can help you manifest your dreams.

What is Creative Visualization?

Creative visualization is a potent technique that leverages imagination to shape your desired life. The fundamental principle is that your mind can actively influence your reality by nurturing it with the right mental images. When you intentionally visualize and feel your future successes, you plant the seeds that can sprout into reality.

Creative Visualization embodies three core principles:

  1. Clarity: The more vivid and detailed your mental images, the more impactful your visualization becomes. Clarity in your mind’s eye is key to manifesting your goals.
  2. Emotion: Infusing your visualizations with intense positive emotions enhances their effectiveness. Feeling success in your imagination strengthens the connection between your mind and body.
  3. Belief: A profound belief in the possibility of achieving your goals is crucial. Your mental state profoundly influences the outcomes, and unwavering belief supports the manifestation process.

Mind-Body Connection in Visualization

Creative visualization is grounded in the concept of the interconnectedness of the mind and body. When you vividly imagine your desired outcomes, your brain activates neural pathways as if you were experiencing them. This process triggers physiological responses, reinforcing the mind-body connection.

Achieve Your Goals with Creative Visualization

Clarify Your Goals: Visualization helps define your goals precisely, enabling you to identify your true desires.

Boost Motivation: Vivid mental imagery stirs emotions and motivates action towards your goals.

Overcome Obstacles: Anticipate and mentally prepare for challenges through visualization, enhancing your ability to overcome obstacles.

Grow Confidence: Repeated visualization of success builds self-confidence and a robust belief in your capabilities.

Attract Opportunities: Positive energy generated through creative visualization can attract opportunities and resources into your life.

Better Focus: Visualization sharpens focus, aiding in maintaining clarity and persistence when pursuing your dreams.

Incorporating creative visualization into your daily routine can be a transformative tool for manifesting your dreams. By understanding and applying the core principles, you empower yourself to clarify goals, boost motivation, overcome obstacles, grow confidence, attract opportunities, and maintain better focus on your journey towards success.

Are you ready to embrace the power of creative visualization?

The Power of Reading: Understanding the World Through Words

I received an email inviting me to buy books also containing a phrase that inspired this post: “Why reading teaches us to read”.

I think that this aphorism, if I can call it like that, embodies the profound value of reading in our lives. Reading is not just a pastime; it is a source of knowledge and a powerful tool for interpreting the world around us. Reading empowers us to decipher the world and recognize the stories unfolding beyond the pages of books — those stories that unfold around us daily.

The Power of Reading

Reading is much more than an activity involving words on a page. It is a process that teaches us to decipher the hidden meaning behind the words themselves. It teaches us to read between the lines and capture the details that would escape those who haven’t trained their gaze through reading. However, the power of reading goes far beyond the ability to interpret written words.

Reading gives us the power to read the world around us. It is a medium through which we can better understand the complex dynamics of society, politics, culture, and human nature itself. It allows us to explore different perspectives and connect with the experiences of people we might never encounter in our everyday lives.

In addition to revealing the world through reading, we also learn to recognize stories hidden beyond books. Every day, stories are unfolding around us, often going unnoticed. These stories can be disguised as facts, newspaper headlines, political speeches, or slogans, but also personal stories. Reading equips us with the tools to dig deeper, question what is presented to us, and seek the truth behind appearances.

Choosing What We Read

It’s important to emphasize that reading is not just a matter of quantity but also quality. We should carefully choose what we read. We should seek out engaging, dissenting, and liberating stories that challenge and inspire us. These stories become tools we can use to analyze and better understand the world.

Reading the world may seem like a daunting task, and indeed, it is. The world is a book with an ever-more intricate plot, a narrative that is constantly evolving. But just like a good book, the world offers a wealth of knowledge and adventures. Reading is the key to opening this book, immersing ourselves in its pages, and discovering the secrets and stories it contains.

In conclusion, reading is much more than a pastime; it is a means through which we gain the power to read the world and recognize the stories revealed around us. It is an act of discernment that helps us distinguish what is true from what is distorted or manipulated. Let us choose what we read carefully because every book we open brings us a little closer to understanding the complex novel that is the world.

What kind of books are you more interested in?

Why I Think Happiness at Work is Overestimated

“The Dalai Lama, when asked what surprised him most about humanity, answered “Man! Because he sacrifices his health in order to make money. Then he sacrifices money to recuperate his health. And then he is so anxious about the future that he does not enjoy the present; the result being that he does not live in the present or the future; he lives as if he is never going to die, and then dies having never really lived.”

Why do I think that happiness at work is overestimated? My job is okay but am I really happy? I don’t think I would stop working in the sense that I would sit doing nothing, but I would no longer work for money. I would dedicate myself to one of my passions, for example writing. I would also volunteer, and go to Pilates more often.

I would more or less continue to live the life I am living now without doing the same job and without feeling obliged to earn enough to make my living. This is actually the core issue. In most of the cases we work to support ourselves and our families and not because we like it. So talking about happiness at work is overestimated, at least in some cases. Ask some underpaid workers who work on the assembly line if they are happy to go to work. Or to a teacher harassed by the students if their job motivates them. Or a nurse doing stressful night shifts, if they’d rather work during the day.

The concept of happiness at work seems to me a bit forced, yet a lot of people talk about it, without considering that a large number of employees do not like the work they do but have no other choice, especially in an economic downturn such as the current one (at least in Europe). It seems to me a bit like a race towards a goal that cannot be achieved.

Then let’s look at the increase of the cases of burn-out. In Europe, France holds the record with their 10% of active population suffering from burn-out. Is it better in other European countries? Actually, the key question to ask would be if there is a good balance between private life and working life. People are better where governments implement policies to balance work with life.

The problem of work is therefore the space it occupies in our lives, space and not time. Space means not only the time actually spent at the workplace, but also the time spent thinking about work, the famous work that you take home and that interferes with your private life.

What to do then to change this constant thought that we have towards work?

Have a look at the techniques I described in the following posts:

5 Tips to Start The Day Anxiety-Free

5 Reasons Why Hiking Is Good for the Body, Soul And Spirit

How to Relax in 10 Steps: Making Space Within You

Try also to be grateful for what you have without thinking that this means lack of ambition. It simply means to stop chasing a chimera and to seek your well-being in what you have. Well-being, not happiness, because well-being is a state that can become permanent, while happiness is a moment, or some moments, that may fade away soon.

Pursuing well-being means beginning a journey made of small steps that could lead us to happiness but if the longing for happiness is not achieved, the most important thing is being well.

What about you? If you would win € 2 million, would you keep going to work?

Being Too Attached to Your Pet Would Reflect a Psychological Disorder

The importance of human-animal bonding in developing emotion regulation, social skills and mental health in children, teen-agers and adults has always been recognized. Attachment to a pet is fundamental for human beings.

“He who is cruel to animals becomes hard also in his dealings with men. We can judge the heart of a man by his treatment of animals.”– Immanuel Kant

This famous expression involves the concept from which one of the most beautiful existing relationships can be extrapolated. The link that can be created between two different species: human beings and animals.

Literature, cinema, but above all facts of everyday life (often made famous), are the tangible proof of the indissoluble bond that animals and people can generate between themselves; a true relationship that arises from trust and mutual respect.

Here is a study that may spark debate among pet owners, as it shows that too much attachment to pets would be a sign of an attachment disorder.

A recent study published in the journal BMC Psychiatry tells us that people very attached to their pet are more likely to suffer from a behavioral disorder and more specifically attachment disorders.

To reach this conclusion – which immediately makes our connection with our pets less romantic – researchers at Saarland University conducted a survey with 610 dog owners, mostly women aged 18 to 73. They asked the participants to complete various questionnaires to assess their mental health status and the type of connections they develop in general. By analyzing the answers, the scientists found a link between being attached to their dogs and signs of mental disorders and emotional distress.

A compensatory strategy

The study goes even further by pointing out that this intense bond with a pet demonstrates a lack of trust in others and a fear of being rejected or not being loved. Attachment to one’s pet would thus be an attachment strategy to compensate for the difficulty of being closed to other humans. A difficulty probably stemming from a lack of emotional security during childhood.

For sure I am super attached to my gorgeous cat, I cannot say though if I am disturbed 🙂

What about you? Do you have a pet? Do you feel attached to them?

Why Returning to Past Habits Would Do Some Good to Our Environment

There are a lot of ways to incorporate responsible actions into your daily life. Climate crisis is one of the biggest challenges the humankind has to face. More and more people are trying to live responsibly and are also becoming aware that even small changes can have a positive impact on the future of our environment.

Time for change has come. Drastically changing your habits and sticking to them may be difficult. But this is the only way to let our planet flourish again (and the humankind too).

Here is the contribution by Smelly Socks and Garden Peas – Returning to Past Habits – to the series being run by the Climate Change Collective

The Climate Change Collective was born out of an exchange between Michelle over at Boomer Eco Crusader and Jamie Ad Stories. They both care deeply about the impact of human activity on our planet, as we all should, and wanted to find a way to keep the climate change message right at the forefront of all our thoughts.

Next to the useful and interesting suggestions of returning to past habits made by Smell, there is also something else you could try, upcycling.

What is upcycling

Upcycling is a creative, design and production process, of recovering existing materials and products that will be transformed into something of better quality or greater value than before. It is part of the recycling processes and is opposed to downcycling, generally perceived as a process that allows to extend the life of a product or material, to avoid waste and reuse, but obtaining something of less value.

With upcycling, on the other hand, the result obtained is something new and generally different, basically unique.

The concept of upcycling, also called creative reuse, is applied today at an industrial and eco-design level, as well as at an artisan and artistic level. Among the sectors that are most suitable for upcycling there are clothing and furniture.

Are you ready to return to past habits and try some upcycling?

Here you can read more about my ideas on the environment.

A Short Story of Solidarity. How Anna Won at the Lottery Thanks to Her Neighbor

A lady, who we will call Anna, widowed, had become very poor and even had three children to raise all alone.

At that time lotteries were already very common in tobacco shops and once the lady wanted to play because she had dreamed of the number 16. She told a neighbor who suggested she go to the tobacco shop and play everything she had on that number.

So, Anna went to the tobacco shop and played the number she dreamed of, 16. On the day of the draw, her neighbor told her happily that number 16 had come out. The win earned the lady a large sum of money that allowed her to change her life.

Since then Anna was convinced that she was a fortunate foresight.

The children grew up and left the town in search of work. When one of the three children returned to the house where he grew up, to visit his old mother, he also met old friends, including the former neighbor. The woman then told him how happened that his mother Anna won the lottery.

The idea was just that Anna’s neighbor asked around the whole neighborhood for a monetary contribution, each according to their own possibilities, to be donated to his mother because otherwise she would never have accepted money from anyone, because of her pride.

When they heard that Mrs. Anna had dreamed of the number 16, they gave the money to the owner of the tobacco shop, who then gave it to her mother, telling her that the winning number was precisely 16, that she had dreamed of.

What do you think of this short story of solidarity?

Easter at home? Don’t worry and try these 10 ideas to enjoy your free time

Going on vacation is very important for your physical and mental health. You should think about taking rest periods during Easter even without being able to travel.

When you work you look forward to the weekend but it is not enough time to fully recharge. To be able to really disconnect from work you need more time.

Vacations are a period of time that we all need, as much as we need to sleep, eat, drink, if we want to stay healthy.

Vacations allow us to recover and when we come back, we often feel better, full of energy and even more creative.

It does not matter whether you go on vacation or not. The main thing is that you can rest and put aside your daily worries. Choose what to do, with whom and when to do it. Not everyone likes travelling. Some like to have time to read more, do more physical activity, and spend time outdoors. Others like to take small hikes, without straying too far from home. Some people enjoy long trips, some others like only short ones.

There are also people who do not like being at home. They do not know what to do, they get bored, they do not want to tidy up the house, and they think about many things, as if they were working. But they would enjoy to get to know new places, or return to places they have loved before.

Whatever you prefer, if you have to stay at home during this Easter, try these tips:

1. Don’t read professional emails;

2. Do little housework;

3. Establish rules and times for being at the computer or television (both for you and your children, if you have any);

4. Look for new places to discover in your neighbourhood;

5. Spend time in nature because nature is a source of energy;

6. Make a list of what you would normally do on vacation;

7. Organize a movie marathon with friends and discuss with them to find out which ones you all liked the most;

8. You can do the same thing with a book. Choose with your friends a book you all read. Then, gather together to comment on it;

9. Why don’t you start with that hobby you have been thinking about for a long?

10. And, above all, indulge yourself by buying some chocolate (it’s Easter, the best moment to eat it)!

Have you decided what to do today?