Thoughts
Know everything about my Thoughts on lifestyle, business, personal interest and more.
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What is our meaning?
What is giving us meaning in our lives? Is it the strive for a career, near and dear ones, children or something beyond that, a faith or religion? Why is it so difficult to find the meaning and why does it matter to us so much? It’s a question that always keeps coming back to me. I contemplate on it and meditate on it but still come up with different answers each time. At times it can be hard to find the meaning when you feel down and depressed without light in sight. It’s funny how it can either be hormones playing a game with our brain or thoughts spiral in circles. Either way, it’s super difficult to do anything else than to rest, sleep and try to be kind to yourself and hope the day after is better. Those days it’s hard to find the meaning of life, why we are here on this earth. Music helps some days. At least to get the emotions out of the system. Some tracks make you feel so many emotions that it’s best to just listen to what your body and soul is trying to tell you. Through the music.
I have pasted some links to some tracks that always have an impact on me. The last one is a Swedish song, which is a remake of a song from a musical from 1995, Kristina från Duvemåla (which I obviously haven’t seen since it was before my time). Haven’t seen the musical but the song spoke to me. It’s called “Du måste finnas”, which means you must exist or you must be real. For me it represents a belief in something spiritual, something higher than us, something universal. A God, perhaps. Whatever you may call it. I don’t listen to a lot of Swedish tracks these days, I used to do it more during my teenage years. This song is a song about belief and faith for me, something you might need to remind yourself of when times are rough or you have doubts that you can make it through trying times.
Three books I’m trying to read these days are: “Mindful way out of depression”, “A new earth” by Eckhart Tolle, and “The Untethered soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself” by Michael Singer. The last one is a really great one which anyone should try to read, over and over, you find new things to focus on each time. I received it from a dear friend in India. It’s a highly spiritual book and will really take you on a journey within yourself, explore the vast divine within yourself.
Howard Shore ft Enya – May it Be (link to Spotify, if it doesn’t work, search for it on Youtube)
Hans Zimmer – Time
Yiruma – River Flows in You
Hang Massive’s music is pure magic. Just watch these two above videos Du måste finnas – Newkid (lyrics in English here)
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Words that came to me…
9:50pm 1st of March.
my mind wanted to blurt out what was going on inside, so the words that came out without any order are written below. Within one minute this is what was inside, let’s dig deeper and see what we can come up with.. stay tuned.
“Drown, bittersweet, joy, freedom, lucid, dreams, projection, dimension, astral, layers, nomadic, soul, travel, free, you, love, me, words, inspiration, galaxy, universe, infinite, possibility…”
Peace and love,
Kimmi
Sitting in the window of a hotel room, beautiful spot to sit and write and be dreamy… -
Frozen and Cold Dystopia
The streets of Stockholm. The vibe amongst the people who try to pretend that things are just the same and that we’re not in any pandemic. When you try to embrace the same feeling and go out for a walk and take a coffee in a nearby coffee shop, you’re told to wait outside in the freezing cold before they can serve you. The rules are 3 people in the queue at the same time. I obey to the rules, of course. I am greeted and pay for my coffee and in the next moment find myself being thrown out of the place, because they don’t have enough seats for everyone and we have to “keep our distance”. They return the money and I wander onwards. Walking the cold streets of Stockholm as if we’re part of a dystopian world where nothing is the same anymore. I walk into several chemists to try to get hold of an adrenalin shot that I need for my anaphylactic allergy towards peanuts. After the third chemist within 30 min I give up. No one has my important shot in store, which I find very strange. My toes and fingers are starting to feel numb. What started off as a feeling of motivation and hopefulness and a sort of adventure when I left my house, is now starting to feel hopeless and in vain. I start feeling defeated by everything around me. I long for warmth all around me. Not only the weather to be warm, but the people around me. Tired of feeling this unwelcome and cold atmosphere around me. It’s so heart wrenching. I guess it’s better to go back home to bed, to the warmth and find the joy in my dreams instead. Let’s wake up another day and hope that the world is a better place. Let’s hope that people know how to act friendly and that there is no more pandemic in the world. Let’s hope that there is warmth in people’s hearts. That’s what I hope for.
Peace and Love,
Kimmi Sandhu -
What’s been going on lately?
It’s been such a long time since I checked in here and I am very sorry about that. Last year and the start of this year has been a little crazy to say the least. I think I can speak for the whole world’s population for once and say that most people would agree with that.
At the end of last year I left for Gothenburg to spend time with my family and meet a couple of friends. It all went by so fast and in a haze because many were sick and we had to be careful about not making each other sick. I eventually did get really sick when I arrived in Åre (north of Sweden), the same evening. So probably I had the illness in my body and then got sick after some incubation days. When we arrived back in Stockholm, it had been some days since I had gotten sick and I noticed that I had lost the sense of taste and smell. There was kimchi we had made prior to leaving the flat and I couldn’t sense the aroma at all in the fridge. Now here’s the weird part. I was positive that this must be the ‘rona then, since what else can have this impact on the senses and the body.
Ordered a self-test and they came the same day and picked it up from outside of the flat, the whole routine and process was very smooth in Stockholm and I am very grateful for that system that was put in place to make it easier for everyone to get tested as soon as possible.The results came back a couple of days later and it was negative. So I am not sure if it’s a false negative or if it really just was something entirely different, some other flu if that even is possible in Sweden right now.
From the 18th of January my last course, the thesis course started at university. Normally I would commute to another city 1 hour away from here but due to Covid-19 situation they have made all lectures and seminars online. It was a little bit of a relief, because I wasn’t looking forward to sitting in a train with the current situation. The course is called Food Science and Nutrition. After I am finished with the thesis in June I will apply for a double bachelor’s degree in Informatics and Food Science. I am so excited for my new journey in this field. I have a great partner to write my thesis with and he’s also very much into the same areas of interest within the nutrition field, so it’s going to be so much fun when that part of the course begins this spring.
I hope you are all doing well and staying safe. I will upload more poetry and posts like these in the nearest future, it’s been a little too long hiatus for my liking; but you can’t really control life, can you?
Peace and Love,
Kimmi -
My thoughts on the Pandemic
The Pandemic has opened up our eyes to how vulnerable we all are and how important good health really is. It might be hard to accept that we can’t just eat junk food and not move our bodies without it taking a huge toll on our health both physically and mentally. We are just not as strong as we can be to battle these new types of viruses that can hit us at any moment. It’s apparent after this year that no one was expecting the year to turn around to something so huge as a pandemic to hit the whole world. We’re all still trying to manage how this has affected our daily lives even if we haven’t had any near and dear ones being affected by the virus negatively. We’re all waiting to either get it and get it over with or trying to stay away from the risk as much as possible. There has not been enough conversation about how this has mentally affected us as individuals and as a society, the struggle to cope with uncertainties such as these.
I remember in the beginning of the pandemic we all thought things would turn to be better until the summer and everyone was convinced, at least in Sweden, that things will turn around. In hindsight, I think it wasn’t based on any data or evidence, it was just pure hope. We hoped that things would turn around until the summer, because in a cold country like Sweden and the Nordics, the summer is so precious to us. We crave the summer like no one else, because we’ve been starved of sun and heat for the rest of the year. Summer means freedom and it means that we’re off from work to hang out with friends and family. Sometimes it means that we travel and explore, go out for drinks and basically everything we’re not supposed to do in a pandemic.
The whole world was watching Sweden and if people didn’t know the difference between Sweden and Switzerland, they for sure know by now. We didn’t ever have any full on lockdown. Every store and everything has been open the whole year. There have been guidelines and common sense advice to the whole population of what to avoid and what to do, but there has not been any rules up until now.
Now we have a few regulations regarding public gatherings, such as parties and formal activities, for the amount of people meeting in such constellations to not exceed 8 people. It has taken the whole year for the Swedish government to take this type of “extreme” decisions and put them in place.
The online world sometimes seems to think this is an issue only for the year of 2020, and the common joke has been that things would somehow be normal after new year. I really hope people don’t believe that just because it’s a new year things would actually become normal. We have to hope for the best and that a vaccine actually can stop the spread. I pray for the world to recover from this.
However, one thing that I do notice as a positive effect of the pandemic, has been the focus on the importance of a good diet and have a healthy approach to exercise. When we all were confined to our four walls and many people had to work from home, it started becoming obvious how important it really was to move around. I saw so many people, often the same people, take lunch walks every day ever since March. I am thankful that there was no lockdown in Sweden, because we were able to move about and still get the essential business done. I think that each country has to find the ways that suit them of course, and for a country like Sweden it seems hard due to laws to have a complete lockdown. It would require some law changes from what I understand, and that’s a whole different issue. Forcing people to do something is not in Swedish nature, so I understand why it could seem off for other countries watching Sweden’s approach from afar. The media doesn’t always cover the reality of the situation either. It’s not as extreme as it might seem. People were mostly adhering to the advice of social distancing. We’ll see what the future will hold.
I have also been following India and their approach on how to handle it. I have friends and family in India, so it’s important to keep track of what goes on there. Keeping fingers crossed that the curve which has been going down will keep going down there and that the virus ends its spread there. It’s so much harder with a huge “continent” type of country like India, to try to get everyone to adhere to restrictions but also to make everyone understand why we have to. Education level varies so much in India, and it’s what makes it so hard to have one way that will fit all. Such a big challenge to tackle. I pray that things will be better there soon so we’re able to also visit India soon again. It feels like ages ago, even if I was just there in January this year. Before the madness began…
Next post: some things I’ve done to keep busy during the quarantine and staying at home this year.
Peace and Love,
Kimmi Sandhu -
Why do we Romanticise Suffering and Darkness
Artist, poets and creative professions. Everyone equally seduced by the suffering that entails by walking the creative path. We all look up to the tormented artists and emotional wrecks that talk of decadence and painful suffering through their art. Why do we view these bad habits as something to draw inspiration from rather than question them? Do our souls need to bleed to be able to create art? Is it required to suffer emotional traumas to be able to create good and enticing art? I would like to explore this a little more in detail. Let’s view both sides of this story and unfold it.
Everywhere around us we see the people immersed in the creative world to be in a whirlwind of suffering and pain that they don’t seem to be able to get out of. It almost looks as if the art is only to be created if there is pain in their lives or if they have gone through hardships. The art feeds off the pain and tears, or so it seems at least to the outsider. One can almost think that this art of chasing after pain is what is needed to be inspired to create good and interesting art. The poetry is almost best accompanied with a dose of depression and sadness. If you have some anti-depressant pills and alcohol you can throw them into the game as well, for good measure. Jokes aside, this is the reality for many highly successful artists. The poet is in his best form a sensitive and tormented soul that wants to end the pain by engaging in bad habits such as drinking and getting into drug addictions. Is this the stereotypical image we have of a good poet or artist? Anyone who has a passion for a creative subject will agree that this image is what is often looked up to as being real and deserving of praise when intelligent art is created as a result. I have long also lived with that belief myself, and can still, at times, romanticise a little bit of a pessimistic outlook and painful struggle in life. It’s what creates the spice in our poems and writing. We feed off of the inspiration that comes from an emotional hardship. However, is it truly the only right way towards creating art and finding inspiration?
I find that whenever I go through strong emotions I am usually not able to create anything creative in those moments. It usually requires me to get a little bit of perspective and distance from the situation or the emotions to be able to tap into that inspiration. Whether it is positive and happy emotions or tearful and sad emotions; I tend to approach it all the same. A little bit of distance creates the magic and what gives me inspiration.
Why are we letting ourselves be seduced by suffering and pain? Can we not try to tap into our love and strength and create from that power within ourselves?
It is possible to live a decent life when you’re not always on the verge of feeling suicidal to create beautiful art. We can inspire other people to follow this behaviour and be creative in new ways.
Peace and love,
Kimmi Sandhu
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Hopelessness
Mental health issues have been rising during these past few months. I have personally been feeling okay since I have tried to focus all my energy on work and taking the driver’s license. There are moments when I am alone and I think about everything around me, where I feel a sense of hopelessness for the world and everything around me and within me. I don’t always know how to shake the feeling. It doesn’t always help to numb the thoughts by hanging out with friends or postpone the thoughts to another day. There is always a tiny thought that is tapping on my shoulder, and wanting some space in my mind. I don’t allow it to enter, but then the thought become larger in the background, just so I would notice it.
If one has to fight to be able to keep some people in your life, is it really worth it? Why can’t we get to see the people that mean the most more often? What’s the point of living when you can’t even get that? You can’t be in all places at the same time, I have tried. I have split myself mentally in so many pieces and I am still not enough in any of the places. I just keep missing the pieces I’ve left behind. Where will we all meet finally? In death? Why do we take out time on this Earth for granted? I have so many questions and I never want to say them out loud because they might scare people, but I wanted to write this here to unload some of the burden I have been bearing.
A piece of me is always missing. Should I stop searching for it? Is it ever going to heal the wounds? Who knows. Not me in this moment.
Peace and Love,
Kimmi Sandhu -
A ‘New Normal’? No, Thank you.
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Roots | Mumbai Diaries
Roots. What a peculiar thing that can affect us so much when we least expect them to. I thought I had worked through a lot of my inner struggles with roots and identity by this age but I was so wrong. Why do I keep coming back to this country, why can’t I let it go? My father left India almost 50 years ago and I as an adult keep coming back as if something is pulling me here. Is there a stronger energy at play here that wants me coming back? What is the purpose of me feeling this way?
There are two days left of my trip and the emotions are already building up, that I am going back and leaving this behind. Once again, just like any other year, I am travelling back to Sweden. My home. Don’t get me wrong, I am very grateful for my life in Sweden and that’s all I have ever known to be my home. But I have never felt that I fully belong there, there’s just that big chunk of both my heart and soul never able to belong to Sweden and it is always left behind in India. I come back to try to find my pieces every year to try to feel whole. I have also started to accept that it might be difficult for anything to ever fill that void of never belonging anywhere. The trick is to find ways to cope with this empty feeling.
When I land in Sweden and travel back to my apartment on the smooth empty highways, it’s always a bittersweet feeling. I feel emotional over the fact that I have left something behind but at the same time I am embracing what is so familiar to me. The life in Sweden. What gets to me each time, is that I notice that my clothes smell like India and the scent of Sweden is so different. The air is much lighter. There are no noises from traffic, no unnecessary honking going on. One would think that it’s something you’d never miss about India, but it’s exactly these things that make India come alive. It’s never sleeping and you learn to be mindful and unbothered by the scents, the noise, the crowd and everything that happens at once. Once you get mindful and one with it all, it creates this feeling of presence and bliss that we have all heard people mesmerised with India talk about. The hippies.
Even right now when I am typing this, I am sitting in my bedroom in our shared flat and the windows are closed. But you can hear everything from the streets four floors down in the middle of the city centre of Colaba, Mumbai. During a few wee hours in the night it goes quiet before the city wakes up to the organised chaos. I am not someone who easily get attached to places, I like to keep my memories of people and places normally and that is what I bring with me everywhere I go. But there has always been something with Mumbai that has pulled me in. I believe it’s the contrast between the rest of India that I’ve seen (which is not much compared to how much is left to see) and the India that exists in Mumbai. There’s a vibe in this town that is hard to match elsewhere. Perhaps I am a romantic Pisces that only likes to focus on these pink cloudy thoughts whenever I describe this town, but I am positive that I am not the only one who thinks this way. Obviously it’s not the jammed traffic, the high air pollution and crowded areas that make you love this city. It’s what language it speaks to you when you listen carefully with your ears and your heart. What is the soul of this place? Does it connect with you? Why?
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My roots | Mumbai Diaries
My roots have long been malnourished and fragile, protected against outer influence. I have found my way back to watering them and slowly but surely they are growing stronger and establishing ground in places I never could have imagined. The journey to getting here has been long and lonely. When the tree is starting to blossom, not many would know the effort and pain it took to grow the tree so fertile so that flowers can bloom. The result can be intimidating just like inner growth. I didn’t realise what I have been missing in my life; a sense of belonging. I have always stood out and been the rebel for so long, that it becomes your identity. It becomes what you expect because there is no room for just being you. When you find your way back to your roots, you’ll never look back again. I wish I could have told this to my confused and suicidal teenage self. Things wouldn’t have had to be this hard.
To be continued…
Peace and love,
Kimmi Sandhu