Christmas spirit?

For me, christmas could be all year around. I can't never get enough of christmas lights, songs, presents, movies and of course food. Despite the fact that I'm an atheist I love Christmas! I love this commercial confusion around the holidays (which obviously is sometimes very shoddy and overdone), this family atmosphere, even if we fight half of the holidays, and that I just let go of all negative emotions. But this year I can't feel the christmas atmosphere like I felt it few years ago. To my mind, it is because I'm getting older and I see everything in a different way than when I was a kid, Fortunately, I have some proven ways to feel more festive. Here's my top 5 tips to feel christmas atmosphere in the air even if there's no snow outside! (Probably all these tips are on the Internet :D)

1. Bake gingerbreads! Lovely smell of cinnamon, sweet frosting, the heat radiating from the oven and cookie cutters in the shape of christmas trees. "Last Christmas" in the background and slow sips of hot chocolate. There's nothing that feels more cosy than baking gingerbreads, especially with your friends or family. In general, I love helping my mom in the kitchen while she's cooking christmas meals.

2. Watch christmas movies. Personally, I recommend "Holidays". If I had to choose the best movie I would definitely choose this one. But there's many more films I like, for example "A Christmas Carol", "The Polar Express" and of course "Home Alone". It's a great opportunity to make a movie marathon!

3. Sincere wishes. Yesterday I was on the last yoga class before Christmas and afterwards we had a christmas meeting. A lot of cakes, cookies (of course delicious ones), tea, coffee and the festive atmosphere. I could never forget it. First time in my life I felt so moved because all those honest, beautiful wishes. Not only is it a wonderful feeling when people are so kind to you but also when you see them smile because of your wishes,

4. Smell! Maybe I'm weird but I love to smell things, especially food. When I walk around the kitchen I always smell anything my mom is cooking, when I cook I do the same. And there's few christmas scents that remind me previous holidays and childhood. Today in the morning I was helping my mom to bake a cheesecake and before that she had started to prepare poppy-seed cake. The smell of poppy seed makes me feel the christmas spirit, just like the smell of dumplings with mushrooms and cabbage or croquettes.

5. Presents. Stop thinking about the gifts you'll get and start to enjoy giving them to your loved ones! Surprise them, make something special, not necessary expensive but something to show your love. We often forget how important it is to tell people we love them, we take it for granted but Christmas is the time when we have a great opportunity to let them see what we feel. How many times this year you told your family you love them?

So these are my top 5 things to feel the christmas spirit. I have one more tip for you: let go. Stop thinking and worrying about everything for these few days, slow down and enjoy holidays. Let go all your worries, forgive yourself all mistakes and eat a cake ;) I'll write more about letting before New Year's Eve, Now, turn off your computer and go help your mom in the kitchen. Merry Christmas! ;)
(Sorry, I just like making lists of things, like "5 things..." or "7 ways to..." :D)

           

5 things yoga has taught me.

I haven't been here for a while (okey, I know, I completely forgot about this blog) but I was writing new post for the past few weeks. I just couldn't finish it so now I'm writing another one. Because, why not? So the topic of my scribble, as you can see in the title is: 5 things yoga has taught me. Of course yoga has taught and is still teaching me many more things but at this point of my yoga journey I want to present you 5 the most significant.

Let me start with my short yoga story. I'm doing yoga 2 times a week (sometimes I practice at yoga studio, sometimes at home and in the end it turns out that I do asanas everyday ;) for over a year. It's not a long period of time but with regular practice I'm getting better and better. Remember: practice makes perfect. 

1. It has taught me to be more patient. Yeah, patience is something I've always had problem with. All my life I wanted everything at once, without waiting or doing anything, the only thing I was interested in was result. One fail was enough for me to stop what I was doing. Now I'm aware that to see results I have to come to this and be determined to finish what I started. Twelve months ago I couldn't even reach the floor with my fingers and straight legs and now I can lay my head on knees.

2. I'm looking in a different way at my body and my workout routine. Before I started doing yoga I had worked out a lot because I wanted to make my body fit and I hadn't felt comfortable with it. Now I work out to have strenght and power, because it makes me happy and I simply love it (especially yoga). And I realised that perfect body just doesn't exist. Everybody is different so we shouldn't try to look like somebody else. I work out because I love my body not because I hate it, it's one of the biggest progress for me. 

3. It has taught me how to breathe. Yes, something as simple as breathing is usually underestimate. I was simply forgetting to breathe, maybe not literally but more figuratively. Yoga taught me how to breathe properly. When I'm stressed, nervous, furious, cheerless or in any other mood I just breathe, it brings back balance and peace to my mind. And believe me or not, breathing in some kind of situations is difficult.

4. Listening to my body (and mind). To its desires or needs. If I feel like reading a book I just leave everything and start to read. If I want to drink some red wine, I will because my body wants this. And also if my mind need to rest i'll let it not to think for a while. Be kind to yourself, you deserve it.

5. Falls and mistakes are okay. When something seems impossible don't give up on this because you can fail. If you do, you'll try again. And again, and again until you achieve your goal. I believe that mistakes are needed because we learn from them. Failures too because they give us priceless lessons we never learn from other people. So keep trying and gain knowledge and skills from your own experiences.

So these are my five most important lessons that yoga has taught me. Summarizing, I've learnt how to live a happy life.

          
                                              Tara Stiles and Laura Sykora

Warsaw. Part 1.

It's been a long time since I've been here but I have so much to tell you! Maybe I'll start with a festival I took part in June with my mom, it was sort of earlier birthday present. So, it's called Orange Warsaw Festival on which everyone can find something for themselves. Rock, pop, hiphop, techno, indie, almost everything. I was there mainly because of bands like: The Kooks, Florence and the Machine or Kings of Leon but not only. Concerts took place in Warsaw an the National Stadium and it lasted 3 days, 3 amazing days of music, food, ears and legs sorness, tiredness and happiness. Unfortunately the concert of band I was waiting for very badly The Pretty Reckless was canceled because of wind which destroyed the second stage near by the Stadium. Of course I could complain on organisation and many other things (for example concerts of my fav bands in the same time or tea for 6 zlote - it's very expensive in Poland ) but let's focus on good sides. Seeing so many artists in these days was very exciting, if you haven't been on any festival yet, you should be buying tickets now on one you would like to go to! Besides the brilliant concerts I spend nice time in Warsaw and fell in love with this city. While coming back to my town I  had something like depression that I have to go back to school and reality. I realise that Warsaw is nothing compared to Paris, London and other big cities. But for me, girl from town where I feel like there's no civilisation It was a great experience. I still have no idea how it is to live there everyday but I hope I'll find out when I finished school. Beautiful, old buildings, some new skyscrapers, shopping centres, many vegan and vegetarian restaurants, bubble tea (which I'm in love with <3) and little cafes with delicious coffee and apple pie. This place with vibrant nightlife captivated me. And I've got battle in my mind between big cities like this and small countrysides. Where the hell I want to live? But nevermind. I've made many videos but only 3 of them are in the Internet, I was too lazy to upload more but I'm going to do this in the near future. Anyway,you can watch for example Kings of Leon on my YT chanel. So, I wrote I fell in love with Warsaw and that's why I came back there in August! My friends and I decided to go there for 3 days but I tell you more next time. 

                                           The National Stadium before concert.


                                                               The Kooks.

Be yourself.

I've found a lot of words: pretend, pretense, acting, imitate. Today I would want to write about being someone that we're really not. Yesterday I was on my friend's 18 birthday. She organized a party in a club. Okay, you may think that's cool, we are teenagers so we like parting and getting drunk. WAIT. I HATE IT. Is it weird, stupid, anti-social? I was thinking about it for a very long time and guess what's my opinion about it. I don't care. I don't care if it's weird, anti-social or stupid, I just don't like it. We all know that everybody is different. What you think, do, like, don't like makes you who you are. I prefer  meeting in a cafe with couple of friends and drink coffee not alcohol while a lot of my friends are getting drunk in a club. So what? Am I supposed to be fake, pretend that I like it and fool myself and everyone else around me? No, of course not. And the point is, your mates should understand and respect your decisions, no matter what. Unfortunately it's not always like that. 

And it's not right to pretend in any different ways too. It's not only about parties, it's about everything in your life. I hate doing something against me because it doesn't make me happy. We shouldn't change ourselves  just because we need to fit in, adapt to the environment. People should accept who we are. If you like having a picnic in the rain with youre imagine friends, do it. Be sure that you're doing what you love and it brings happiness to you, don't look at others. Stop being fake, pretend someone that you're not just for show. It's okay to be different. Even if there's only one little thing that makes you unique or everyone thinks it's weird don't change it. People should stop trying to impress others and worry about someone else's opinion.

           

              

I have a song of the day for you : Don't forget whoy you are ! And I have an info! I'm going to create the second blog where I'm going to write the same posts but in polish, it might be a little bit different because it's easier for me to write in my language. Also I wanted to tell you that I don't need a lot of views or something. This blog recently became a diary to me. I had a lot of notebooks, diaries or other stuff like that but I've never written there much. Now I see that it really helps me and I'm enjoying it.

I'm sorry for all mistakes I'm doing in each post ! ;)

           

Changes.

I won't explain myself again why I haven't been here for months because it's not important. Let's focus on changes! Yeah, everybody needs them and now it's time to change something in my life.  I'm a little bit bored with reality around me, my daily life. And I started thinking about my dreams and goals I want to reach someday. Even though I know I have to work hard for it, because there's nothing for free in this world, I don't do this as best as I can. I know I could do more than I think. Why am I standing in the same place for all the time? People need to evolve. This is the first thing that I want to change, to stop only exist and do something for me and others. 

My biggest dream is to finish school with good grades, go to university I want and then go to South Korea and I know it's not easy, so I want to change my attitude and stop thinking that it's not going to happen. My the most important goal is to work for it as hard as I can. I have to study more, limit the Internet and also change attitude to school and studying. I want to try do this with passion not only because I have to.

Second change I want to make is to get rid of all negative things. Emotions, people, situations, EVERYTHING. I don't want to waste the rest of my life for nonsense and stupid worries that people create for their own wish.

Next is to be stronger. This is something I'm working on from a year and it's not a problem for me to keep going. Run a marathon? Of course, maybe in 10 years but I will keep practicing.

More discipline. More strong will. Less laziness. Less worries. More happiness. More inspirations. More challenges.

I already reached some of this goals but I realised that not as much as I wanted to. So the best what I can do is to give myself some time and be more self-denial. There's more changes to make but I'll keep them for me.

I wanted to inspire you to make changes in your life too and don't be scared that you won't handle it. Be brave and take a step forward - this is my motto for today.

               

Luxembourg ! ;)

I know that I haven't been writing here for a long time but... the fact is I don't have reasons why. I'm just too lazy or I have to many things to do so I always say 'I'll write a post later'. Meanwhile I was in Luxembourg! In autumn I found out that teachers in my school picked me to take part in school exchange. I was shocked because I thought that I hadn't got any chances. But in January I spend one week in Luxembourg with lovely family living few minutes from Luxembourg City, in small village called Kleinbetingen. What can I say about it? Amazing experience. If you have a chance to take part in exchange and you're hesitating whether to go or not I'm telling you: GO ! Such an opportunity may not happen again, you can be dead tomorrow. Meeting new people, visiting new places, doing useful things for example my project was about music against the rasism so we where thinking about how to fight it, learning english, trying new food and seeing how people live in other countries. For me it was great that I had a chance to see how they live everyday, what they do, where they work and so on. Family I stayed with was so adorable! I could feel trust, love and thoughtfulness in the air. It gave me different view of the world, helped me to see things objectively and also helped me to open myself a little bit more for other people. 

              

                                          

Let's talk about present. Now I'm during my winter holidays, 4 days left and I'm still tired of school. I think some of teachers are seriously crazy or sick. For several weeks I didn't write any tests and then suddenly teachers doing 10 tests at a time. Is it normal? That we have to stay up late or even not go for some lessons because we must study for other subject? I don't think so. And they also turned my holidays into a normal school weeks so I'm waiting for real holidays in summer, because maybe then I will not have to worry about the stuff I've got to learn. By the way it's hard to study during Winter Olympics in Sochi, there are so many Koreans!

Now I'm promising myself that I will write here once a week, no matter what.

P.S. There's one song that I can't get out of my head! Brunch ! ;)