Thoughts
Know everything about my Thoughts on lifestyle, business, personal interest and more.
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Memories and Connections – Lost forever?
The connection and understanding between two people can only ever be known by those two persons. I have contemplated over the memories and shared moments between two people, what happens to them over time? What happens if one passes away, do the memories die with them? What happens if one loses the memory? Where do they go? Do the memories even make sense to anyone else but to the people sharing them? Is that the reason why we would want to create art and creations to capture the soul of the people around us? To honour the connections between souls. I don’t know. I just know that I cherish each moment with every single soul in my life that I share a pure connection with, and I hope that we are able to hold on to the memories the day they’re only left with one soul.
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Crystals and Moon phases
In 2007-2009 I attended yoga and meditation classes in Gothenburg, when I lived there. My teacher, or guru, Anandananda was the most genuine yoga teacher I have come across over the years. In comparison with all classes I have taken over the years those were the ones I remember with great joy. While meditating on the train down to Gothenburg a couple of weeks ago, I came to think of that teacher again. It’s been years and the thought hasn’t really ever crossed my mind since I don’t live in the same city anymore. I looked him up to see if he’s still teaching and he is, especially during the pandemic he was doing classes over Zoom. I signed up without hesitation for a class this autumn season. I needed something like that to ground me during these difficult times and I believe my higher consciousness took care of that for me, and made me remember what in the past has made me feel better.
I visited the main place in Stockholm for crystals, called Kristallrummet a few days ago. I needed some new energies in my life from the power of the crystals, so I looked around mostly on intuition and from previous knowledge of different stones. I love the energy and vibe in that store, everyone who shops there are all so in tune with their spiritual practice and I don’t know many other places where people would treat each other with such genuine kindness than such places. Due to the pandemic there was a queue outside and they only let 10 people in at a time. In that line I could see a bunch of teenagers in the age range 14-18. It made me so happy to see how this practice and spiritual interest has spread to the lower ages these days, most probably due to it spreading via Internet and word of mouth. I remember when I was their age, I used to hang out online in these Yahoo mailing groups, spiritual forums where no one knew each other other than a nickname. I had joined both international and Swedish forums at the time and I remember always being one of the youngest ones in the groups. Since age isn’t visible online, I remember people often mistaking me for being one of their age (adult). All of that came back to me just by seeing these teenagers in line. I’m glad people are able to find their way to this hobby easier these days. There’s also less judgement for difference and other hobbies than the norm, compared to when I grew up. Back then it was something better to be kept to myself if I didn’t want to be a total loner.
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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.