Diane

#firstworldproblems I've just realized how shallow my worrying was. I won't be able to go to a mega party organised at work because I was convinced it would take place at work and I accepted to exchange a weekend shift with a colleague but it actually will take place somewhere else and I don't feel confident enough yet to be somewhere else when I'm on call. The funny thing is that for the first work party I was invited to when I was in Sardinia I refused to go because it made me anxious, now that I would basically be in my element I can't go and on top of that my people pleasing side makes me feel hyper bad as I don't want people to be sad for me when I'll tell them I won't be able to go.. Purification. I had the blessing of watching this video today. At about min 33:00 he answers to the question "what is the purpose of your meditation practice?" saying: "Purification". And he makes an analogy I definitely can relate to talking about cleaning. I do spend a lot of time cleaning and tiding my little environment but I hadn't thought yet to the necessity of cleaning the mind too.. I guess this experience with the party at work will help me clean the mind from the attachment I have to other people's opinions. A cleansing that will also clear some space to "becoming more me", my "true self", the unique, independent and wonderful woman I want to become.. I know that to be successful in this society it is very important to have connections and a great reputation and going to this party I could get both. But will I die if I don't go?? More than that: WILL I DIE IF I DON'T ACHIEVE SUCCESS??? Interesting... Also: even if I died of failure to achieve success would it be the end of the world? And even if the world ended because of my lack of success, would it be a "bad" thing? Maybe yes and maybe not, depending on who we ask the question to and what the alternative would be. What a relief!! Nothing is soo important. I can go on and do things with stillness and peace of mind. If it turns out to be a success, great. If it turns out to be a failure the world won't stop turning. And even if it stops, it will probably be for the best. #lovingwhatis. Happiness is loving what is (AKA the Truth...) Talking of Truth, I now realize that this whole experience was also a great reminder of the third agreement, "don't make assumptions".. As always, thank you Universe!!

#LESSONLEARNED Dear future (and past) me, DON'T SLEEP WITH PEOPLE YOU DON'T LIKE!!! Just don't. It's a waste of time (and energies) and you end up overcompensating, which translates in just more waste of time and energies... With love, D. Now the question is: why did I do it? For "fun". Maybe but it was mostly awkward than fun and I had already had more than one hint that it would have ended up like this... Because I do want to become a "sex Goddess". But I think even a sex Goddess needs some inspiration otherwise I'd be a sex worker (or better a sex volunteer as I wouldn't even ask for retribution). I think I'm not enough as I am for the person I want in my life. I want a great person in my life and I realize that someone like this would want a great person too. So, am I great enough?? Actually, why would I want someone that is so hard to get, for whom I would need to sleep with people I don't like just to have some more experience to show?? I don't respect myself enough to have high standards for myself and following up on them.. So... Dear Prince Charming, thank you for loving me exactly as I am, flaws and virtues. Thank you for letting me learn how to love you without expecting I should know already. Can't wait to see you (again). I love you to the moon and back. Diane Better. There's another thing I "learned" about love this week: the importance of mirroring other people's love languages. My love language is Acts of Service so when I do something for another person I feel pretty accomplished in showing love to that person. Sooo wrong!! This week I forgot the birthday of a friend, on top of that I think her love language is giving and receiving gifts. I don't even know how to mend it... Then there is the case of my cousin.. A few weeks ago my mum and my little brother came to visit me and they bought some chocolate to give at home at my cousin and my other brother. It didn't even cross my mind to buy something too.. Then when my mum gave the chocolate to my cousin the first thing she thought was that it came from me.. Oh, Love, what a strange and fascinating thing you are!!

Loving myself Two long weeks ago I accepted the weekly challenge on The Five Minute Journal asking me to write a love letter to myself. I was super excited to do it, I think it even was a weekend so I had all the time to do it. When I finally opened the document and started writing I was literally speechless, and not in a positive sense. I realized I actually didn't love myself and in general had no clue about what love is. Thankfully I remembered that Leo had actually done a video titled "What is love" so I went on to do my little research (aka realizing my life purpose - "to to plenty of research and public speaking to make people healthier through consciousness"- now that I notice..). I was so diligent that I took notes and went on watching other videos: What is love.pdf; How to transcend orange.pdf; How to love yourself.pdf I did it over the past two weeks and finally today I felt ready to try again and here's the result: A love letter to myself.pdf Short and concise but I like it (of course... ). In this process I realized how attached I am to the image I have of myself and how it actually won't hurt me doing things "I would never do" or "that don't sound like me". And I am practicing it in the little things.. As little as, when I want a coffe at work, going at the cafeteria where I have to interact with a human being instead of buying the same thing at the vending machine. It's really the most stupid thing ever but still.. Becoming.. I love how in her book Michelle Obama at the end says that there actually is no end to this process. In Eddie Pinero's words, "you can always run a little bit faster". On the other hand it's also kind of an incitation to slack off.. "Yeah, I didn't make it today but I can do better tomorrow".. I'm so Orange...

I'm honored @Ero, thank you!! Love your content too, great job!!

Leveling Up This title was inspired by Ciara's song "Level UP". It came out in a spotify playlist I was listening to a week or so ago and it couldn't be more on time and specific to my current situation!! I've been working in Switzerland for three months now and I'm starting to get used to it: I do things quite on time, I take lunch and coffe breaks and manage to go back home at a reasonable time. I'll even have a wifi connection at home soon. Things are so good I can't believe it. So I panicked! I didn't literally panic but I did start kinda self sabotaging with things like binge watching (I do have to acknowledge that I did learn something from watching the first and half of the second season of Suits.. It depicts very well the position I am in right now as a junior doctor, my work is actually important to make my senior's one better. I already knew it but repetita always iuvant..) and eating junk food. Fortunately at the moment I am also listening to Psycho-cybernetics. Among other quotes this one really stroke me "New roles require new self images". To live the kind of life I want to live I need to change my identity and let go of the bagages that keep me where I am now. Thanks to that book I re-discovered the importance and the power of visualisation. In particular this morning I took the time to do these two guided visualisations: In this one you basically meet yourself in five years and are asked to see exactly how he/she is. It was an incredible experience!! My five years from now self is a beautiful, smiling, calming and reassuring woman. She's dresses in a chic-ethnic way and plenty of ethic jewels (gold? Apparently I'll finally succumb to the charm of gold...). She also smells "chic-ethnic". She's confidently poised, and her smile.. Have I already mentioned it?? And, of course she speaks perfectly French, and is ultra competent il her work. She has an amazing husband and apparently a little girl growing up to be an amazing woman like herself. And I am that woman!!! This one simply broke me to tears.. The more I go on in this journey and the more I learn the importance of being humble and compassionate. Things like giving credit to an obese patient telling me that he/she wants to lose weight even if my first instinct would be to think that it's impossible watching his/her current situation. Now I see other people reflected in my life: I had many and many second chances and people believing in me even after I had done something wrong so why would I refuse that to the people around me?? Talking about leveling up, another video that came right on time was this one from Shan Boody: This is what I learned from her: Step out of your estimate (be the 3000 dollars worth cup looking like a 3 dollars worth cup to a casual observer). Step in your essence: you are there because you belong there = be undeniable. Aka study study study and prepare prepare prepare in my case. In short, as David Goggins says "Everything in life is a mind game!". So level up!! P.S. In the lyrics at a certain point she says "Thank God I never settled, This view is so much better".. I took this picture in amazement yesterday.. Not bad uh?! Yeah, Sardinia was great too but stil..

I should be working but... I'll take a few minutes to state some facts so that I hopefully won't forget them: I am VERY VERY lucky!!! I don't know if I'm the luckiest person on earth but I must be near that. I had some difficulties today managing a patient and I had a super rebound of impostor syndromeness.. But "luckily" everything worked out fine in the end and most of all there was one of my colleagues who were there to catch up with her work and helped me so much, she encouraged me and gave me a lot of of strenght with her words!! Life is a challenge but I'm given only challenges I am able to solve!! Worrying is totally unnecessary,as I once said: worry is a thief!!

Where I am and where I'm going I've been wanting to stop and reflect about this for a while. I finally kinda started the process last week, at the beach, while on holiday in Croatia. Answering directly to that question felt a bit too much at the moment so I chose to answer to the "21 most important questions of your life" by Darius Foroux (all but the ones about one's own business). Here's the result: The to do list / take home messages I can take from those questions are: Crossfit, Crossfit, Crossfit!! Restart meditating, 10 minutes per day would be already a great achievement. Sticking to doing the Five Minute Journal morning and evening every day. 1 hour of studying every day. To dedicate the whole Sunday to preparing the week. Doing my best to gain time. Being true to myself (telling the truth and being it). So yeah, in spite of the mess (I have a huge list of things to do before the end of my holidays and there's also some work I left unfinished before leaving - a week and a half ago-...), I am going places. A family friend said that I'm going to be famous, but that's just her opinion.. I'm glad I have more clarity about where I'm going right now. In the midst of the craziness of this new beginning sometimes I felt very very lost. Now I "know" that I want to excel in my work and I want a loving and fulfilling love relationship and a great social life (friends who share the desire to grow and become more). All things I already knew somehow, I just needed a reminder. So, as always, thank you Universe!!

@Natasha Thank you dear!! Many many hugs to you too!!

I has not come to last, it has come to pass Yeah, it's not "my words" but they perfectly summarize the realization I had this evening while getting home. For some reason during the afternoon I developed a strange sense of uneasiness, I wouldn't call it anxiousness, I was just not ok, "not accepting what was".. The underlining thought was that I wished I was better at work than I was.. I started decluttering around the office and it helped a bit. But then again in the bus on my way home I almost cried at that idea the I would have loved to go for a run but I had too much work to do.. I don't know if it was an Eddie Pinero effect but I reminded the time I used to get anxious during first salsa dancing lessons.. In a while all the "stress" and anxiousness I feel now will be something to look at and smile so why not start now?! Then of course, "becoming the Beyoncé of medicine" was not supposed to be a cakewalk anyway. The question is: why do I want to "become the Beyoncé of medicine"?! But then again, why not?! Or even better: what else?! Back to work!!

My first month in Switzerland I think the best place to start is Matthew Hussey's video on core confidence. Here's an excerpt: We need to start with core confidence, start with a strong relationship with ourselves where we feel enough so we can truly go out and make an impact in the different areas of our lives (work, friends, relationships..). Because as long as our confidence is living out of these areas we actually go there with an anxious feeling that stops us from taking risks, having standards with the person we love, having difficult conversations with people that could actually improve those relationships but in the short term risk creating friction. If you want to be truly happy in your life by enjoying the things that you're creating in your life, enjoying the things you have, instead of living with the anxious vulnerability of "if they go away I'm nobody, I'm nothing, I have no value" and if you want to make a genuine impact in your life, in the world, in your relationships, in your career, then you have to start with core confidence and then bring this core confidence to all of these areas of our lives. It couldn't be more on point. In the end I moved here looking for social status and validation. Ambition, per se, is not a bad thing. The problem is I let it drive my whole life and now I get anxious because of not having anything fun or exciting to answer to the question "what are your plans for the weekend?" (it will be a long weekend as tomorrow is a holiday here). My plan was to catch up on chores at home, prepare for the next week as it will be pretty intense and hopefully study something. At the same time, this weekend, right downstairs there was a huge street art festival and I had no plans about going there (a colleague organised a happy hour on Friday but when they left the bar I was still at work...). After watching Matthew Hussey's video (and the one in the link, that I had actually already seen but he knew I needed to see it now more than ever, thank you Matthew!! ) I fell apart. I cried so much!!! But the universe always has my back, even when I'm so desperate I can't see it.. Recently I've been listening to the book "Loving what is" from Byron Katie. Here's a quote from hers: Any stressful feeling is like a compassionate alarm clock that says: you're caught in the dream! Depression, stress and fear are gifts that say: sweetheart, take a look at what you're thinking right now, you're living in a story that isn't true for you. So the question is always the same: who am I? What is MY truth? What do I want? My reality right now is that I'm struggling and sometimes I feel like my best isn't enough. "I want it all" but I don't have it so I get sad and depressed. Acceptance. I'm not accepting reality as it is. __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ __ _ I did The Work on the belief "I don't have enough time" and here is the result: One belief worksheet - I dont have enough time.pdf So, not only do I have enough time but I also have all that I need to succeed. I can't say I 100% believe it yet but at least I'm conscious about it now. Thank you Universe, thank you Katie, and thank you David Goggins for the idea of the "accountability mirror". I wrote my new mantra on a post it and put it on my bathroom mirror. I've just realized I haven't actually said anything about my first month in Switzerland per se.. In summary I worked, a lot. And stressed out, as I mentioned.. In the weekends I soothed my anxiety with shopping,.. The good thing is that among the million things I bought there is actually a pair of printed trousers that I simply adore, they do sparkle joy!!! And the shop assistant enlightened me with an incredible match for them!! Unfortunately I didn't take any picture but trust me, they're amazing!! Apart from working and shopping I ran once, which is much more than zero for what I am concerned and kinda socialized from time to time. So far so good then, thankfully I can see it now!!

Amazing things that happened in the last three days: I am surrounded by wonderful people at work. Saying I was awkward is almost euphemistic.. From the confident and smiling person I was in Italian I turned to the shyest and most awkward ever in French.. At least I was used to being naked around semi strangers so that didn't bother me so much.. I wasn't totally naked, just pant-less.. We were doing a refresh on clinical examination and the teacher asked for a volunteer on whom to show the evaluation.. I volunteered as no one was and he kindly replied "great, thank you!! Actually I forgot to tell you that we usually examine the knee with the patient bottomless.." Apart from this (now) funny situation my lack of calmness and confidence came from the fact that EVERYTHING is new for me.. Ok, not really really every single thing, but sometimes the impostor syndrome feels very real.. For example for medications as I mentioned the other day. The language too.. I do speak French well but sometimes I stumble over my words or I lose some words.. Not to mention my social awkwardness.. A moment ago it came on my mind that I'm frequently like that at the beginning of relationships. Not always though and it doesn't depend from the language.. It depends from how I feel at the moment.. It would be interesting to fly in the past and see if there is a correlation between the point of my menstrual cycle and the way I related to new people in my life.. Anyhow... The amazing thing is that in spite of all this people around me were very kind.. The celebration I went to yesterday was great!! A true 2.0 Church as they call themselves.. I had never seen big screens and lamps in a Catholic church.. It was also very animated and participative.. I still don't "feel" that kind of worship but it was nice, a good way to prepare for the time I'll go to Coachella too... Pure blasphemy but hey, that was my reality and my truth at the moment, and it actually felt pretty good... I STUDIED!!! I love studying!!! Why do I do it so rarely??!?! How could I have made the last three days even better? Doing my routines.. And the 100 burpees I promised to do... I did them on May first, the day after I woke up too late, on Friday it was the first day of my period, yesterday I put it off to some unspecified time and today too... Quote/thought of these days: Learn to ask. The more I grow and the more I learn this lesson, ask ask ask!! I am free. Recently I noticed I was always surprised when someone said I can do what I want or when I did say my preference and they were like "ok, as you want" without any apparent resentment.. Little by little, when undecided about what to do I found myself answering "you can do whatever you want". Incredible, right!?! Well yes, I am free, ad powerful!!

Amazing things that happened in the last two weeks: I survived my first day of work!! We didn't literally work as it was a day dedicated to orienting us into how things work but still. The good thing is that most of my "anxiety" is now just acting as I always have, I don't actually feel it.. It's as if I told myself "you should be anxious in this situation". The more I notice it the more I realize how senseless and pointless it is.. Good!! I live in the palace of possibilities and I can do and be what I want. I just need to be decisive on what I really want, the subtle difference between FOMO and JOMO... For example on Saturday I'm invited to an event organized by a Church group but there is also a salsa, bachata and kizomba workshop.. I'll go to the first one, if nothing else because by going there I won't have to go to the Mass the day after and I'll have more time to study without renouncing to socialize a bit. A girl with whom I did an ALS course last week said that I have the face of a determined person (and also beautiful eyes.. ). We had to try to intubate the manikin in apnoea, I made it but she didn't know as we were in different groups. Afterwards while chatting she asked me and she said she was certain I would have made it as "I have the face of a determined person".. Distress, royalty and perseverance. Those were the keywords of last Sunday's sermon.. Apparently Easter time is not a time of idle joyfulness.. Similarly for me actually having made it to move to Switzerland is just the beginning, there is still A LOT of work to do and this first day made it even more clear.. The only use trade names for medications... And that's just an example.. But I have all that I need, I'll figure it out!! Matt D'Avella and Johann Hari on this video I stumbled on this evening about the loneliness epidemic. There are two questions I'd like to ponder on after watching it: Consumer objects I thought I had to have: the Fitbit. Yesterday night I re-watched a bit the prices and the different models.. I had come to the conclusion that that money would be better off in an investing account even if it actually was the gift I had chose to give myself with my first Swiss paycheck.. Then today at work I noticed that almost everyone had something similar.. I still don't need it, not even for measuring my sleep that would just need to be scheduled... Answering more specifically to the question, something I actually bought just because I thought I had to have it was a pair of Adidas walking shoes.. They didn't even "sparkle joy" but they were Adidas and glittery.. When they were ripped up I substituted them with a similar pair from Decatlhon, I spent a fifth of what I had before and I couldn't be happier, even if I'm not the coolest kid in town... Talking of which, there's a video from Tom Bilyeu that I haven watched yet titled "being you is the coolest you'll ever get".. Not bad!! What are moments you have actually thought your life was meaningful and satisfying? How could you build more of that into your life? The first thing that came to my mind was the new year's wishes I received from one of my former patients.. To build more of that I just need to keep on becoming "more me", in the sense of having the courage t actually do what I feel is the best and the right thing to do, even if it would be "cooler" to do other things.. How could I have made the last two weeks even better? Doing my morning and evening routines. Maybe I would have reacted in a different way to Monday's little drama.. Thank God it ended out well anyway.. Quote/thought of these days: Change is possible in any given moment. Just decide.

My "vow" I've just had a super stroke of luck, I thought my money was to be blocked between Italy and Switzerland for another week yet now everything is solved!!! (Long story short yesterday I spent most of the day worrying about the fact that I didn't know that bank wire transfers took longer than normal bank transfers and I couldn't even cancel them..) So for God knows what reason I decided that from now on I'll be doing 100 burpees every day when I wake up for the rest of my life. Will I succeed? Idk, but I'm infinitely grateful for what has just happened so it's very probable i will.

Hello anxiety again!! #firstworldproblems. I was about to write "swissworldproblems" but fortunately I was conscious enough to remember that there are are people who suffer also here.. So, I went to a trial class of salsa dance and it was a complete failure!! Long story short I expected to mingle with people who had been dancing the whole year long and I got depressed when I saw I wasn't able to dance as nor with them.. After class they went to a club to dance but I was too sad and anxious to go with them. Yet they were very kind.. But I was so deep in my mind that I couldn't relax even during the pause.. As always if I could go back I would hug so tight that me and tell her "it's okay, you'll be fine. They're people like everyone else, there's nothing to be afraid of". Poor little creature.. I even forced myself not to speak Italian even if most of the people there, including the teacher, spoke Italian (and this because I was told not to by the guy who hosted me when I came to look for an apartment.. A great advice even if not following it would have made thing a lot easier today.. Yet the hard way is the easy way so good me for that!!). Where was Adler in that moment??? I really would have benefited from some of his words in that moment.. I'm listening to the book "The courage to be disliked: The Japanese Phenomenon That Shows You How to Change Your Life and Achieve Real Happiness", by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga. It's a dialogue between a philosopher and a young man fundamentally aimed at explaining Adler's psychology. I don't remember how I stumbled on this book but I'm grateful for that and for the me who decided to maintain the subscription on Scribd. According to him all problems are interpersonal relationship problems. The three main principles of his psychology are: Self acceptance (accepting one's irreplaceable "this me" just as it is, which is different from "self affirmation" that instead focus on what one would like to or "should" be..); Confidence in others (placing unconditional confidence at the base of one's interpersonal relations rather than seeding doubt = seeing other as comrades and not enemies) Contribution to others (doing things because I'm happy to be helpful to someone else, not at the point of self sacrifice though). Yes, it would have really helped me remembering to accept myself as I was and to see others as comrades.. Hopefully next time I will.. And not being the cool kid will be fine too.. Apart from that... Amazing things that happened in the last week: I'm in Switzerland!! I had the greatest of welcomes: I went out on Friday and Saturday night (and had my first hangover in French) and I met a Burundian family living here who has almost adopted me!! Yeah, it was nice!! Mostly because I was able to let myself be. Maybe that's the reason I was so self conscious today, the system was trying to go back to "normal" after all this ruckus. In Adler's model I actually created that situation for a specific goal.. What could it be though?? I don't know yet. Certainly the idea that I have to be perfect in what I do is still there ad still very powerful. It will subside in the end though, I'm sure. This afternoon I came up with this quote "better goofy than ignorant". It was referred to the fact that the perfectionist in me would rather not ask anything to anyone yet asking stupid questions in a language I don't master at 100% is the only way to get to know the tons of things that the Internet will never be able to explain, no matter how long I research.. No more fitbit (or maybe yes..). I was amazed to acknowledge that I don't yearn to own a Fitbit as I used to.. I see no use in it.. The only things I could use it for now would be assessing y sleep and registering my runs. Yet I always can schedule my sleep and Runtastic works just fin also in Switzerland!! I can be myself (as I always could). It's a thought that hit me this afternoon. I felt like I can "finally" be myself here but actually I always could, I just didn't give myself permission to.. How could I have made the last week even better? Doing my routines.. Hopefully I'm getting back on track.. Quote/thought of these days: Everything from the book "the courage to be disliked". Here are some quotes: No matter what has occurred in your life up to this point, it should have no bearing at all on how you live from now on. You, living in the here and now, are the one who determines your own life. A sense of belonging is something that one acquires through one's own efforts. It is not something one is endowed with at birth. Community feeling is having a sense of others as comrades and an awareness of having one's own refuge within the community.

Amazing things that happened in the last ten days: I thought it was much more since the last time I wrote.. I did a lot of things and so many more happened… I'm physically moving to Switzerland!!! It couldn't be truer and definitive than a one way flight… On Monday I had a happy hour with some colleagues to say goodbye.. I finally found the happy medium between wanting to throw the greatest party ever and saving for the incoming expenses: TELLING THE TRUTH!!! Who knew?? I was explicit about the fact that even if I was inviting them we would share expenses and I ended up not paying a dime, they paid for everything!! And it was a wonderful night!! You find out a lot of things when you're about to leave.. For example one of my senior colleagues said he was sorry me and the other residents of my year didn't integrate so well in the town's life. I told him I thought that at least for me it was mostly my fault because of the forma mentis I used to have but still, he felt he and his "peers" could have done more for us.. I hosted for a night a medical student from Czech Republic who came to Sardinia for a two months internship. It was a very adventurous experience from the beginning: I hadn't looked so thoroughly into his couchsurfing profile and I thought it was a girl… Then he found out that a friend of his was there too for an internship, she had arrived the same day but they didn't know about each other's internships until then.. So she joined us for a tour around town. While chatting it came out that she was having some problems with the apartment she had rented for her and a friend of hers who will arrive next week.. Long story short she will move to my apartment tomorrow!! Regarding the guy I hosted, it was a pleasure meeting him!! After a few beers I found myself telling him about the book "Radical Honesty" and how it relates to my life.. Books are good but I definitely have a lot of life experience to acquire too.. I commented the whole situation with his friend and in general the wonderful time we had had together saying that sometimes things are just destined to happen and he rightly noted that nothing of would have happened if I hadn't responded to his request.. I don't think it's something he has read anywhere.. Common sense you'll say but as notorious it's not so common as it sounds… A friend of mine joined us too visiting the town. She's a medical student too and beyond that she's very knowledgeable in almost every possible domain.. So she was our tour guide and it was the most romantic of tours as I was saying goodbye to the city while the other ones were getting to know it. I also discovered a lot of things I didn't know!! At the end of the evening, when saying goodbye, she said I was an inspiration for her!!! <3 <3 <3 Talking about "helped" destiny: today while preparing to leave I noticed I hadn't given to my friend the manioc flour I still had at home. So I called her and she came over. She found me in the middle of a complete mess and if she hadn't helped me finishing to clean the house I would have certainly missed the bus and then the airplane… Thanks to her I finally restarted wearing jeans too!! She's almost obsessed by jeans.. While selecting what to keep and what not to she made me throw away a lot of black clothes and I committed not to buy anything black. The only exceptions were underwear and trousers. Then I tried on some blue jeans and it was love at first sight!! This was yet another blind conviction of the old me.. I had read that to appear older one should avoid jeans and wear black trousers and so I did for all these years!! With all the messiness of these days, yesterday I was certain I had to work in the afternoon only to find out (after writing to my tutor that I would have arrived a little late) that we actually had the morning shift.. I was sorry for the incident but in the end not so much as lots of the things that went perfectly could have gone worse and the free time was an opportunity to have some rest. My "future husband" sent me an invitation for a brunch he's hosting on Sunday!! I don't know if I'll go yet but it's a great thing anyway!! I don't know if I have ever been so tired like during the last few days.. I remember it was soo hard keeping up the conversation with the Czech students and also with my colleagues the evening after.. Hard yet so so worth it!!! I am happy at least as much as I am tired!! Yesterday was my last day at my Crossfit box (I caressed a barbell at the end of the WOD…) I said goodbye to my coaches and one of them told me to continue to workout because "I am strong"… How could I have made the last ten days even better? Doing my morning and evening routines.. AKA planning my days. In the end everything worked out well fortunately but doing my routines at least I wouldn't have missed my last shift in the emergency ward… Quote/thought of these days: Fortune favors the bold. Moving to Switzerland didn't feel such a "bold" move yet it actually is and fortune knows.. There is also the exit door near to where I'm sitting right now not working so that I don't get cold…

I'm actually at work right now, there wasn't much to do but I was very uneasy.. So I wrote.. I feel better now. March 30th.pdf

Amazing things that happened today: I spent the whole day with my Cameroonian friend, we went to visit a friend of hers who comes from Kenya.. It was funny at lunch when her friend suddenly said "we're three Africans and we're making pasta, how shameful!!" She prepared a delicious meal anyway and we spent a great time together!! My friend suggested that I let go of the idea of throwing even the tiniest party for my departing. I had already told her that I have to stay quite vigilant with money right now but my people pleasing reflex couldn't really tolerate the idea of not having a party... Fortunately she helped me come back to reason... It makes me think of what the shopkeeper of a whole foods I went to with a friend of hers in Switzerland said during a conversation with another customer: "doesn't it feel good to let go sometimes?!" Yes, it does!! The song "More than words" by the Extreme. I've been listening to it since yesterday after hearing it in a bar I passed by.. Usually I imagine love songs dedicated to / sung by Mr Prince Charming but this morning I had this insight: what if these same songs were sung by and dedicated to myself?! In particular this one.. It's definitely time to start loving myself and showing it... How could I have made today even better? Meditating (AKA waking up earlier...) Quote/thought of the day: It's true, it's (sur)real. Time is up.. I've been a bit in denial about the actual time I still had left to stay in Sardinia.. I kept pointing out the month of May and telling people that I would move around the half of April even after I had decided to move on the 10th. Now I have just ten days left... It's (at least) time for reflections and evaluations.. The playlist I'm listening to right now could be a good start.. It's called "Relax", I think I created it a little before coming here so most of the songs are tied to some Sardinian memories.. Anyhow.. I think the most important thing learned from this experience is the importance of "being myself", in the sense of telling, respecting and appreciating my truth, even when it's not perfect, polite, pleasant or similar.. That's how I made the two real friends I made here, I let myself be with them. I even argued with one of them, I loved her so much that I was able to get mad at her and express my anger. So maybe I'm not so ignorant about expressing emotions, phew!! I "just" need some more practice..

Amazing things that happened in the last few days: I went to study to the park!! And since a picture is worth a thousand words, here is a picture: While there I finally started grasping the sense of Swiss health insurance system too!! Crossfit, always a great experience!! When I arrived I also met the owner's wife, I think she's 6 months pregnant now, she's soooo beautiful!!! I'm sorry I won't get to see the baby, she'll be certainly wonderful too!! I'm (finally) writing here!! I was told that a nurse who works with me at the emergency ward (they didn't want to tell me who she is though..) said that I am skilled, fast and competent.. I may not always be that way but it's definitely what I aspire to, especially with this physical medicine and rehabilitation thing... I came up with a first answer to the question "who am I?": a happily messed up person!! This actually answers to the question "how am I" but it's a start. "Happily" because after the breakthrough of the other day I haven't felt any kind of anxiousness in situations that used to make me such.. My mind was kind of ready to deal with it but it wasn't there, no trace of the sensation I used to feel in my chest. At its place there was NOTHING (nothingness??), nothing in particular, just me trying to solve the problem or talking to someone.. Incredible, right?!?! It's actually possible to go through life without being anxious for every little thing.. As Leo once said "worrying is un-necessary". Who knew?!! I also realized that while I may not know who I am, I do know what I like and this can better inform my choices than mechanically doing what I think I ought to do based on the model of the world I decided to adhere to.. So here's what I noticed that I like by far (I already knew all this, I just didn't give it weight..): dancing, I like it waay more than Crossfit!!; doing research on things; cooking AND eating. How could I have made the last few days even better? Waking up earlier. Here's how I like to view it right now (rather than the old "I should do this and that, I'm so lazy" etc): "I love myself enough to do the effort to wake up early so that I have the time to do the all the things I like doing". It's just a matter of remembering it in the moment, when the alarm goes off... Quote/thought of the day: "The key is to commit to doing things from a place of genuine desire instead of out of obligation and guilt". "It doesn’t make sense to be a perfectionist about being a recovering pleaser". "No flower blooms all year around". These come from my research on anxiety & co.. This truth telling thing isn't easy AT ALL!! I'm working on it, putting off the mask every time I can.. But I still have some resistance to it.. Is it ALWAYS best to tell the truth?? Of course yes, but... There's always a "but", an exception in which I think that it would be better to withhold the truth, if not utterly lying... I can easily tell the truth about facts but I'm definitely not used to expressing my emotions, I wouldn't know where to begin.. Right now I'm at the chapter of "Radical Honesty" that talks about anger.. I don't know though.. Hopefully I'll find a way.. Here are some quotes from the book: "When we do get in touch with unity, the vastness of our being, we usually run away, we feel as if we're about to loose something. We are: we are about to loose the protection and safety of the limited definition of self we have come to think we are. We are afraid to loose who we are, which is special, and we are afraid of becoming who we actually are, which is not special." This one came to my mind and also made me laugh at Crossfit when the trainer paid more attention to another girl.. It's actually pretty liberating knowing that I am not special.. The only thing I have to do is my best and it will be more than enough!! (at the end of the wod he actually said that I was the best at doing box jumps so I WAS being paid attention to even if my mind made me suppose otherwise AND I had the proof that focusing on the action rather than thinking too much about the result creates the opportunity to do more and maybe be more..) It is not doubt but certainty that drives you mad. (Friedrich Nietzsche) --> From rules to rules of thumb, because the truth changes.

@flowboy Thank you!!

I've been doing it all wrong. But at least now I know.. I had a mini breakthrough this weekend. I realized that I've been living how I thought I should live based on what I've learned over the years and not always as I actually wanted to. It all started with a sense of anxiety concerning a conversation I had had with the owner of the Crossfit box I go to. I was nervous because I realized that we had only talked about me during the whole conversation, though I could (should...) have asked him about his wife who is pregnant right now. I've actually seen her pictures on Instagram and she's absolutely glowing!! The thought made me anxious because I had gone against one of the rules of "how to make friends and influence people" (they are not "rules" but to me they definitely felt as set in stone..). In my mind I had broke a law and it made me anxious. So I started doing a little research on anxiety (thank you again, Teal Swan!!) that then expanded to exploring my belief "I should be perfect in everything I do" with Byron Katie's One-belief-at-a-time worksheet (onebelief.pdf) and finally into rediscovering the importance of working on emotional mastery. I started listening to the book "Radical Honesty" by Brad Blanton and the next one will be "Loving what is" by Byron Katie. I definitely have a problem with truthfulness. I kinda already knew it as I saw it was damaging me at work but I could have never imagined it was such a deep issue.. I've literally forced myself to do things against my will because I though that was the best course of action. The most striking example that came to my mind was the fact that one of the reasons I chose to live in a dorm run buy nuns when I came to Sardinia was that I knew that if I had gotten my own place I would have been with a different man every night. For some reason it felt like something to avoid but would it really be such a wrong thing? I was single, young and free.. As long as I was not being abused there was nothing wrong with sleeping with whomever I pleased. But my pleasure, my actual wants and desires were not invited to the table. There was a plan to follow, no distractions allowed. And here I am two years later, I live by my own, I've slept with some men and I have no regrets about it. It all merges with my ongoing problem of people pleasing which I think ultimately stems from a feeling of not belonging. I think it all started when I came to Italy, I did everything in my power to be liked by others and hopefully become "one of them".. After 20+ yeas of living like this I found myself not able to answer to the questions "who am I, what do I want??" I really don't know. I've been doing things because I had to and when I wasn't good at it I beat myself up for not measuring up to the standard I had set for myself. The good thing is that I do like most of the thing I normally do, I just need to change the mindset underneath them. Fortunately I'm still in sync with my life purpose ("to do plenty of research and public speaking to make people healthier through consciousness"). About it too, I am now conscious that the time I spend reading things and watching videos is not a waste of time, I'm actually implementing my life purpose!! Really, I've beaten myself up so many times for not studying enough when I had actually done something even more important... So externally nothing will change (I'll still run, meditate, move to Switzerland etc because I do want and desire those things), I'll just do things with a lighter spirit. There's nothing I have to do, I now do things because I want to do them, I enjoy doing them and I love myself. Also, I can be loved as I am, can you believe it?! I didn't. Not everybody will love me and it's totally ok. The point is that I don't need to do or become nothing special to be loved. I'm allowed to just be me. Whatever it is..

@Zigzag Idiot I didn't know about the concept of the Fourth Way Inquiry. From the little research I did I saw that it's fundamentally about practicing consciousness in daily life, being a silent witness to the activity within us.. Not easy at all but as they say "the hard way is the easy way and he easy way is the hard way".. Thank you for the great food for thought!!

Amazing things that happened today: I "just did it"!! And it worked amazingly!! I summoned the courage to do all the things I had to do (mostly making phone calls and sending emails, not so difficult tasks per se but still..) I also received an email from the HR assistant of the Clinic I'll be working at telling me that she received all the documents I had sent and everything was perfect, she literally used that word!!! I meditated and I'm writing here for the second day in a row! How could I have made today even better? Waking up earlier!! Quote/thought of the day: Imperfection is mis-seen perfection. I was looking for some documentaries on Switzerland and among other videos on youtube I found one with the title "in the name of order and morals". There was a time (sadly not so long ago..) when social problems were solved interning and incarcerating people in order to preserve the Nation's high moral standards. The first comment that came to my mind when I started watching the documentary was: "I found the right place for me..." I definitely used to be like that, seeing everything from what I thought was other people's opinion and trying to conceal everything that didn't measure up to that standard. But I was already perfect, and so were all those people, they may have needed help but excluding them from society was definitely not the solution.. As always the only thing I can do now is the best I can, loving myself as I am and others around me too.

Amazing things that happened today: Crossifit, I love it, there's no way around it!! I found out that on Scribd there is also the audiobook of "I will teach you to be rich", not only the written version!! I went on with the things I have to do for the relocation. How could I have made today even better? Waking up earlier!! Quote/thought of the day: Just do it. Oldie but goldie! Organizing the relocation implies doing a lot of things that I've never done before, mostly in a language that I don't master as well as I wish yet. Most of the times I procrastinate to avoid the the anxiety it (I) creates. Yet when I actually do "embrace the suck" and do the work it almost every time turns out to be a lot easier than I thought.. That's what anxiety os after all, fearing something that is truly dangerous...

Amazing things that happened lately (I have a quite long list...): I forgot to mention two things about the days I spent in Switzerland: I met with a friend of a friend who was incredible!! I think she's younger than me but she's already teaching as a professor in high school and she does plenty of sports!! She plays in an official football team, skis and does snowboarding. She had really an amazing energy!! Then there was the beauty of partner dances: following and being led, trusting that your partner will take you through an extraordinary journey. At the same time though, in order to be able to enjoy the ride, you too need to know the steps.. A perfect metaphor of life, and love!! Dancing at home. One Saturday night I had plans to go out with a friend but she cancelled last minute. At first I was a bit sad and disappointed but then it turned into a super night of wild dancing at home!!! Scribd. I have a lot of expenses in this period so I had decided to stop my subscription on Scribd in order to save up a little bit but fortunately I realized that it is actually a source of richness!! The more you learn the more you earn!! Thank you Warren Buffet!!! Gysting. It's actually what I'm doing right now. Normally writing here is part of my evening routine. It's only 7p.m. though.. For one reason or another I always had an excuse not to do it lately but I definitely needed to stop and reflect for a moment.. I love how she says that everybody needs gysting from time to time, everybody BUT Beyoncé!! Maybe she does too but it's a great aspiration to have. Sun. A friend called me her "sun"!! Wow!! Tinder, again... The "amazing" thing was that I realized that the more I go on the more I'm certain about my standards and the less prone to settling for less I am! Super couple. We visited an old lady a few days ago, she didn't speak and couldn't walk because of her disease but she was so beautiful and you could see in her eyes that she also was a very kind person. Her husband accompanied her to the visit and at a certain point he turned to tell us "she's my love, do you see how beautiful she is?!" I'm happy almost all the time!!! And I see 11:11s or similar numbers every day... How could I have made this last period even better? Not procrastinating... Quote/thought of the day: "Theory without practice is empty, as well as practice without theory is blind". - M. Baldacci - I was helping a friend who studies social science and this quote came up.. So so true!!! In every single domain!!!

Thank God I promised not to complain ever again, and I haven't forgotten It was definitely a rough week. I did a lot of mistakes at work, nothing fatal but still I could have done better. So until a few minutes ago I was wallowing in sadness and self pity but then I remembered this promise. And these two videos appeared on youtube: Right on point. To be better at work I just need to study more, accept that I am not perfect AND that it's ok to say "I don't know". For some reason, I'd rather say something even if I'm not 100% sure than say that I don't know.. I have so much work to do.. What stroke me from the first seconds about the second video was that she creates vegan recipes.. A few days ago I realized that I definitely could use a cookbook.. I tend to cook always the same things and when I do try to do something different, strange things happen.. Like the omelet with arugula with a side of pinto beans I made a few days ago. It wasn't so bad and after cooking it I also realized I had made a perfect slow carb meal.. No need to reinvent the wheel too though.