Welcome back to my monthly reflections 🎉

This newsletter has three purposes:

1. A dedicated time for me to reflect on and draw meaning out of the last month ✏️.
2. An entry for conversation – if anything of what I write awakens something in you, I encourage you to reply 🙋‍♂️.
3. An insight into my thoughts regarding the topics I write about 💭.

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If a person you know would benefit from what I write about, forward this newsletter to them! At the bottom, they'll find a link in case they want to subscribe, too.

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In this very email, I write about working on holiday, speaking up, shedding skin, my recent running experiences, new More Life episodes, and our irrigation system.

I hope you enjoy!

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The Real Holiday

It's been a while! I didn't send any reflections last month because we were on holiday 🙂

I was looking forward to it for a while but it actually took a bit to realise how much I needed the time off! I still had a couple of meetings scheduled until my mom asked me why I'd have meetings during holiday.

I postponed all of them except two that I actively decided still to have.

What was happening unconsciously was a limiting belief around money that didn't want me to potentially miss any opportunities.

Being in nature always helps me see the abundance and let go of limiting beliefs. And we had lots of precious nature around us on our trip to Lucca 🇮🇹:

We had visiting Lucca in mind already for some time and now took the trip to honour the third anniversary of our son. We actually didn't spend much time in Lucca itself. As you can see on the pictures, the hills on meadows were calling us.

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Speaking Out What I Need

Over the last 2.5 months, I talked to my therapist every week. After a couple of sessions, I noticed that I didn't get what I really wanted. More specifically, my therapist was "taking over" the sessions and was talking most of the time.

That's not what I needed, and I told him. I wanted to be the one talking most of the time and asked him to reflect and ask me questions that'd help me go deeper.

Speaking that out wasn't easy. It made it even more difficult that he was supposed to be the one knowing how therapy works. Maybe his definition differed from mine. In my opinion, the therapist should talk less and give the client space to talk.

He agreed to my request but little changed. In the end, I was challenged again to speak out and say that this way wasn't working for me.

Do you have relationships (be they therapeutic, romantic, work-related, or friendships), which don't really work for you?

What do you do about it?

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Shedding My Skin

Therapy was not in vain, though. Among other things, my therapist gave me the very fitting metaphor of a snake shedding their skin, referring to the process I was undertaking.

For me, it represents leaving behind the old me to fully to accept and embrace the new me. I can still look back at my shell but it's not me any more.

Nic already helped me apply that principle before, when she helped me write my bio for an event. I was describing myself by the past accomplishments. She said something like "that's not you. That was you." and it clicked! In this case, cultural norm plays a role as well regarding what is supposed to be in a bio.

But thanks to her, I was able to let go of that and instead write a bio based on who I am and what I do today!

Funnily, a similar metaphor was presented to me in the fiction book Vol'jin: Shadows of the Horde. In it, the wise elder asked Vol'jin whether he was the hermit crab who stayed in the skull of a dead warrior or would move on to a new house, grow on, and eventually leave that shell as well to find an even bigger one.

...and I got yet another reminder/confirmation in David Goggins' Never Finished! In it, he describes how when people jump out of a plane and their parachute doesn't work, they are at risk of getting too fixated on trying to fix the parachute.

When that happens, they forget to check the altimeter and pull the second parachute too late. By that, they put themselves in unnecessary danger of heavy impact and potentially death. We need to shed the weight we can't use any more. It slows us down and holds us back from living!

It's good to have these metaphors come up again and again so I can continue doing what I need and want to do: live in the present, empowered by the past but looking into the future.

The past has shaped me but it isn't me.

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First Race

Talking about Goggins, let me tell you about my running:

I've finished my first race!

It was a 13km trail race with 600m altitude difference. I've run longer distances before but it was something new because of the ups and downs. Actually, much of the race was spent powerhiking!

Also, I usually don't push myself as much during trainings! The last km was tough - I almost started walking!

I continue with my training as planned, I even did so during holiday. Arguably, it made the holiday even better because it was a great way to release some of my energy after so much driving!

August 26th last year I ran a half-marathon distance without training for it. 21.26km in 2h37min, resulting in an average pace of 7'24". Just yesterday, I set a new personal record for distance: 22km!

After 9 weeks of running training, I can see an obvious improvement: I ran 22.01km in 2h02min, resulting in an average pace of 5'34"!

35 minutes faster, even though I ran 800m further.

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Seems like the training is working! If you're interested in following my progress more closely, check out my YouTube in which I upload short weekly training updates.

Next stop: marathon-distance in 3 weeks!

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New Episodes Are Out!

Last time, I wrote about resentment and referred to the podcast episode with Candice Wu. Now you can listen to it, too!

If I look back, the last two months have been chaotic. I

hope you enjoy!

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Let It Sprinkle

There's been a big change in the garden: I've put in an irrigation system!

I had contemplated this for a while and the recent human failure to water enough, and therefore failure of seedlings motivated me even more!

Now, I've got a timer (it turns on at at 6:20 AM for 10 minutes), hoses and different kinds of nozzles: drippers, sprayers, and misters.

It's been in place for 1.5 weeks or so but already the garden looks much greener. Newly sowed tomatoes already emerged as well! The amount of water is probably similar to what I put into the garden before but now it's regular!

Infrequent but heavy watering does improve resilience of plants (as mentioned in a previous reflection) but it doesn't allow seedlings to grow and extend their roots...

I'll keep you updated!

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Made it!

And that's my reflection for May and June!

There are two things I'd like you to consider:

• Reflect on my reflections. I'd be happy to receive a reply from you.
• Forward this newsletter to a person you think would appreciate it.

Until next month,

Jorim