Month: September 2025

  • The Milk Moustache Dilemma

    Drinking a glass of cold, full-fat milk right after eating milk chocolate logically sounds pointless. But it feels like a necessity, like the milkier it is, the better. I never understood the reluctance adults seem to have toward milk, as if drinking it past the age of 12 is somehow an act of rebellion. Somewhere along the line, most adults traded in milk moustaches for coffee cups, lattes, and matcha. But who decided joy was supposed to come with a caffeine kick?

    At some point, some people bought into the idea that adulthood should taste bitter. Black coffee at 7 a.m., red wine at 7 p.m. as if seriousness could be sipped. Maybe milk feels embarrassing because it’s too pure, too playful, too “unserious.” Maybe it isn’t the milk itself most adults avoid, but the vulnerability of being seen enjoying something so simple.

    Or maybe milk is just a personality test: if you’re still happily drinking it at 40, chances are you’ve kept a childlike innocence intact. If you’ve sworn it off, maybe you’ve accidentally mistaken taking life seriously for being a grown-up and your playful side has already jumped out the nearest window. 

    So the question isn’t whether milk is childish. It’s whether we’ve mistaken self-denial for sophistication. Maybe adulthood isn’t giving things up at all. Maybe it’s letting yourself keep them, enjoying all the simple options life has to offer, even if it leaves you with a moustache.

  • Infinite Mirrors

    The universe is basically a very dramatic mirror. What you see depends entirely on the angle you’re holding your life at, the filter on your mood, and whether you’ve slept enough. History repeats itself – especially if you haven’t done your homework – and sometimes the echoes are so literal they feel like bad rewrites of a play you thought you’d left backstage.

    Case study: dogs.

    My grandparents had a husky. I named her Happy because, if you’re going to rescue something, you might as well give it optimism as a name. She arrived like an accident of fate, not a purchase. Later we had a tan hunting dog who refused to leave us that we had no other choice but to take him in. One Christmas, Happy nearly died. I was a teen, and in that small, ridiculous human way, I used my Christmas wish on her healing. Months of illness turned to recovery, and she got a third chance at life; rescued off the street, loved, and then loved again.

    Fast-forward years. Another husky rescue; Alex. He already had a name. Another tan hunting dog that successfully got himself adopted because he refused to leave. Alex got attacked. Untreated wounds became infection; he fell ill. It stopped being coincidence and started to look like a pattern; a repeating riff on a melody I recognized but had no sheet music for.

    At my parents’ place, another rescue who found us by herself, injured a leg during the same patch I was limping. This March, apparently, was Injury Season. Or perhaps it’s simply that the world hums in patterns, and sometimes the hum reaches everyone within earshot.

    Look at the weather. Stormy weeks mirror stormy moods. Clear nights feel like reconciliations with life. Stars pop on like tiny agreement notices, saying, Yes. You are still part of this. Nature mirrors our bodies, our feelings, our odd little crises. We borrow metaphors from it because evolution handed us the original instruction manual: watch a river and you’ll understand flow; watch a tree and you’ll learn rootedness.

    We are connected: not in a platitudey, inspirational-poster way, but in a slow, undeniable choreography of cause and echo. If you stop for even a minute, and you start noticing, you’ll find more mirrors than you have in your bathroom cabinet.

    Sometimes the reflections are gentle: a breeze on a balcony that makes you remember lying on your childhood roof naming cloud animals (fox! swan! very questionable whale). Sometimes they are cinematic: you feel like you’re watching your life from a balcony above it: a passive observer in a movie you wrote but forgot your lines for. Those dreamlike moments are not glitches. They’re the universe handing you a high-def still of the pattern: pause, study, understand.

    There are people who minimize mirrors in their life (metaphorically and literally, some of them hate selfies). I get it. Maybe mirrors are inconvenient if you’re not ready to adjust your hair or your narrative. But pretending mirrors aren’t there doesn’t stop the reflection. It just postpones the conversation.

    So what if we accepted that we come from invisible roots above and below that tie us to the soil, the stars, and everything in between? What if the planet is one enormous organism and we’re polite bacteria? (Philosophy aside: I like the imagery.) If we stop treating daily life like a to-do list and start reading it like a novel, there’s more meaning than we usually allow ourselves to see between the lines.

    The point isn’t mystical showboating. It’s noticing: the feather on your path; the way a dog’s eye holds you and remembers you months later; the way your limp matches other people’s (and your parents’ dog’s that lives 1’500km away) ; the way a chance conversation solves a problem you didn’t know you had. These are small miracles disguised as coincidences.

    So maybe the work is simple and impossible at the same time: observe more, judge less, and loosen your grip on the wheel. Float a little. Let life look back at you. If dreams have been whispering the script all along, perhaps reality is only waiting for you to show up and read it.

    And if you’re still unsure. Try the dog test. Rescue one, watch how history and heartbeat rearrange themselves, and then tell me the universe isn’t excellent at mirrors.

  • Labels and More Labels

    Twin flames. Soulmates. Lightworkers. Starseeds. DFs, DMs… The internet has turned into a spiritual alphabet soup. The deeper you dig, the more labels you find. It’s basically like googling a headache and suddenly discovering you’ve got a brain tumor.

    Humans have this relentless need to label everything. Introvert, extrovert, ambivert, and now ortrovert? Healers, psychics, mediums… At some point, it starts sounding less like self-discovery and more like an HR department from another galaxy.

    But here’s the kicker: some connections don’t need labels. They’re just it. I’m me, you’re you, we already have names. Do we really need to slap on a nametag too? At the end of the day, we’re all just particles colliding in the same human experiment.

    And then there’s the “one great love” theory. Some say you only get one. Some say two. Either way, it sounds suspiciously like the rules of a board game no one agreed to play. The truth? Great love isn’t always fireworks and epic ballads. Sometimes it’s subtle. A smile you didn’t expect. Healing you didn’t know you needed. Or finally knowing what you want in life after a five-year detour through chaos, heartbreak, and questionable decisions.

    So maybe the point isn’t the labels at all. We don’t call ourselves surfers after one wave, or hikers after one trail. Our hobbies don’t define us, so why should our labels? Especially when some people collect them like medieval kings collected titles “Duke of This, Lord of That, Keeper of the Gridlines, and Occasional Reiki Practitioner.”

    Maybe the real trick is to embody who we are, let it evolve, and not take any of it too seriously. To stop over-analyzing and start floating; like we’re drifting in a river, letting the current take us.

    Because at the end of the day, labels may try to tell us what we are. But only we get to decide who. And in the end, no label ever defined us better than this: human, just trying to figure it out. 

  • The “Tsch Tsch” of Enlightenment


    Last year, I mocked a billboard for grilled meats. “Tsch tsch,” it read, trying to seduce me with the sound of sizzling. As if I was Gordon Ramsay. As if I had a Weber collection in my non-existent backyard.

    Every time I walked past it, I rolled my eyes like the world’s most judgmental art director: “Really? That’s the best they came up with?”

    And then… this summer, during one of my grilling evenings at the park that I ever so look forward to, just around the time the billboard ads had made a come-back, winking at me… I heard it. Tsch tsch. Suddenly, it wasn’t an ad anymore. It was a cosmic truth. I had been enlightened by a sausage.

    That was the moment I realized: most of life’s great understandings sneak up on us like this. They sit right under our noses – which, ironically, we literally can’t see without a mirror – until one day, something clicks.

    Until then, life hides its answers in plain sight, just out of reach. And no matter how many people point at it, explain it, or warn you about it, you won’t see it until your moment arrives.

    So I began to wonder; how much of life do we silently judge in others, dismissing what hasn’t yet clicked for us? And how much compassion could we hold if we remembered that everyone’s “click” has its own timing?

    And maybe that’s the point: we all learn differently in our own different timings. Some people can just take advice. I, apparently, need to be charred in the fires of direct experience.

    So maybe the secret isn’t to roll our eyes at other people’s “not-yet-clicked” moments, or judge situations through our own limited perspective; the one that might only make sense to us later. Maybe it’s not to form such strong opinions in the first place, since half the things we swear by today will sound either naïve or too harsh tomorrow. Maybe the secret is to accept that enlightenment can sound like sizzling meat, look like a bad breakup, or arrive disguised as a metaphor we never asked for.


    Maybe the real wisdom is this: life isn’t a straight line of lessons. It’s a series of sizzling sounds, waiting for us to finally hear them.

    After all, one person’s “Tsch tsch” is another person’s “Ah-ha.”

  • When the Unexpected Shows Up

    Vacations are supposed to be a break from reality. Sun, sea, slow mornings, coffee at the beach whilst the dogs go on their morning walk. But sometimes, reality doesn’t get the memo.

    Take Alex, our sweet, beach-loving dog. He usually runs straight for the sand like he’s auditioning for Baywatch. This time? After his attack, he’s limping, in pain, and suddenly the beach – his favorite place – doesn’t interest him anymore. And because he’s not going, neither are we, and neither are the other doggos (sorry sweeties, it’s not fair to him.) 

    It’s funny how one event, one accident, can shift the entire shape of an experience. The vacation stopped being about me unwinding and started being about him healing. And oddly enough, I don’t resent it. Not even a little.

    Because maybe that’s the real truth: when things are going great, life always sneaks in with a test. An interruption. A flare-up. Something to remind us that bliss isn’t about nothing going wrong; it’s about how we adapt when it does.

    Instead of the beach, there are quiet mornings. Instead of salty swims, gentle cuddles with Alex. Instead of our plan, life’s plan. And honestly? It wasn’t worse. Just… different.

    So maybe vacations, like relationships, aren’t about chasing the perfect picture. Maybe they’re about holding space for the unexpected, and still finding joy in what remains.

    Because sometimes the universe cancels your beach day. And sometimes it replaces it with healing love in Alex’s resting spots in the garden. 

  • The Flare-Up

    Just when you think you’re healed – your body, your heart, your everything – life has a way of handing you a little reminder: not so fast.

    My hip injury, for example, has had more comebacks than a boyband from the 2000s. Six cycles of healing, six flare-ups. Every time I thought I was done, every time I dared to live a little beyond walking on flat surfaces; skateboarding, balance board, surfskating, mountain biking, hiking, climbing trees, windsurfing… or, you know, simply going up a couple flights of stairs more than usual… boom. Flare-up.

    It got me thinking: how many times have we all believed we were “healed,” only to find ourselves sucked right back into the same old loops? The dynamic you swore you were over until you see their name pop up. The family dynamics you thought you transcended until you’re back at the dinner table. Healing, apparently, has stages. And sequels. And re-runs.

    The thing is: you don’t really know you’re healed until you try. Without external stressors, you look peaceful, zen, maybe even enlightened. But throw in a couple of triggers and suddenly you’re limping, metaphorically or literally.

    Maybe the point isn’t avoiding flare-ups. Maybe the point is doing things differently. Swimming doesn’t hurt my hip. Diving doesn’t either. So maybe the solution in life is the same: stop climbing trees with people who shake the branches. Change the type of people you interact with. Change your reaction. Notice the pattern. Rewrite the script.

    Spending extended time with family recently reminded me of how much I’ve outgrown certain dynamics. And yet, every now and then, I still catch myself reacting in the old way, like muscle memory. Only now, it’s not a failure. It’s an experiment. A test run. Proof that healing is less about being perfect and more about practicing differently.

    Maybe life is constantly showing us what works and what doesn’t, so we stop chasing triggers like amateur treasure hunters on the beach; combing the sand with metal detectors, hoping to find gold, when really, all we’re unearthing are old bottle caps and rusty nails.

    It’s often not what we say, but how we say it. Most conflicts don’t come from the words themselves but from the nervous system delivering them like a faulty mailman; frantic, dysregulated, and late. I know because I lived there. I researched. I thought. I rewired. And now, I get to practice showing rather than telling.

    Because here’s the secret: people rarely change because you tell them to. In fact, tell someone outright what to do, and odds are they’ll do the opposite. (Guilty as charged. Stubbornness was my brand.)

    But if you quietly model a different way? That’s when people learn without even realizing they’re learning.

    So maybe flare-ups aren’t setbacks at all. Maybe they’re reminders: proof that we’re still alive, still practicing, still human.

    And in my case, still learning not to sprint up the stairs like it’s an Olympic event.

  • Blowing Out Candles (and Other Traditions We Can’t Seem to Quit)

    How many things do we keep doing simply because… we’ve always done them?

    This year, I had my birthday with my parents. Lovely day, lovely cake, the kind you buy from the store that still insists on plastic decorations nobody needs. Then came the candles. And for the first time in my life, I thought: why am I doing this? Blowing out candles suddenly felt pointless. Last year, it felt like magic, like one strong puff could carry my wish straight into the universe. This year, I did it out of tradition. As if the wish would expire if I didn’t.

    It made me wonder how many other things I keep alive purely because of habit.

    Take photoshoots, for example. Growing up, we always had them. My mom loved them, my dad, the family photographer, took them, and I adored them. It became our thing. My love for photography grew from theirs; I graduated from family portraits to hiking landscapes, and eventually, architecture, just like my dad. But this year? The thought of a photoshoot feels… meh. And yet I know we’ll probably still do it, because it’s tradition. Because “we always have.”

    Is that growth? Or un-conditioning? Or just me rebelling against ancestral programming like it’s a Netflix subscription I never signed up for? Most of my early twenties felt like a crash course in breaking cycles my parents never broke; and somehow, that growth rubbed off on them too. Turns out, learning doesn’t stop at 50. Or 26. Or ever.

    Life’s ripple effect is funny that way. I’ve learned my biggest lessons through love and romantic connections. My parents? Through me, their only child. And somehow, our growth overlaps. Like a family group project none of us asked for, but all of us are in.

    And then there’s how love multiplies. Once, I bought someone a massage gun for his sore hips. I would have never thought of getting myself one. But I tried it, liked it, bought one for my parents, and then we got one for my grandparents too. One thoughtful act snowballed until suddenly everyone’s muscles were happier. That’s love for you: powerful, exponential, and sneakily practical.

    So here’s to traditions we outgrow, lessons we can’t skip, and love that multiplies like a group chat you never leave.

  • Born to Be Connected

    on connections that don’t need logical explanation.

    Apparently, I was born to have nature follow me everywhere, even when I live in an apartment. City life, check. Tiny black spiders hopping around like they own the place, orbweavers spinning their chaotic art just where I walk, jumping spiders with more personality than most people I know. Toads chilling at my apartment entrance like they’re waiting for the elevator. Birds casually getting friendly wherever I am, like we have an unspoken brunch date scheduled.

    Fast forward to the countryside: finally, no makeup, chill vibes, stargazing, moon-watching under the dark, magical sky away from city lights. And yet… my little city friends are still here. Nature doesn’t care about ZIP codes. Heart-connections don’t dissolve just because your surroundings do.

    Enter my parent’s doggo: gentle, healing from her traumas here with the humans that are nice to her, ridiculously sweet, and somehow my spirit twin in fur form. First sight? Instant deep eye contact that doesn’t make sense to the mind but does to the soul. Miles apart? Doesn’t matter. Same look when I return, same instant connection; like a Wi-Fi signal that never drops.

    Maybe it’s woo-woo. Maybe it’s magical. Maybe it’s both. But soul connections? They don’t need species boundaries, or city/countryside borders, or explanations. Once bonded, always bonded.

    So here I am, surrounded by spiders, birds, toads, and a very wise dog – plus the other two – thriving in my urban jungle and countryside alike, and somehow, it all just feels connected. 

  • Little Nudges, Big Love

    I used to “complain” about how, whenever my energy dipped, it was on me to raise it again. No random nice surprises. No someone magically fixing it for me. Just me. Alone. Picking myself up, brushing off the low vibes like crumbs from last week’s cookies.

    Since March, that’s changed.

    It started with a tiny male bee. A little creature, seemingly tossed from his hive, struggling on the sidewalk while I was rushing home, fifteen minutes earlier than usual. I picked him up. Gave him sugar water. Found a resting spot on my balcony. While I was lounging on the couch, a gentle nudge told me to check on him. And then he flew away. Free. And somehow, watching that little rescue soar, I felt alive again.

    Since then, the universe has been dropping love-coded breadcrumbs everywhere I go. During my solo trips, gentle nudges lead me to things I wouldn’t have noticed otherwise: a ring and a white rose from the Aare, a mustard-yellow backpack, a playful dinosaur postcard, a 9 of hearts card, a pink rose, the moon rising behind the Alps during sunset. If I hadn’t followed the little voice inside me telling me to go to Kirchenfeldbrücke, I would have been wandering around Altstadt missing the most beautiful moonrise I have seen yet. Bern has this way of loving me back. 

    Sometimes it’s dragonflies dancing around me, landing on me. A cricket hopping onto my pinkie. Spiders weaving their tiny, intricate homes across my swimsuit, my phone, me. Occasionally, it’s a lost subway insect I release, or a stranger I stumble upon who needs help at the exact moment I’m there to give it.

    Other times, it’s quiet moments: a baby smiling on the train, a dog locking eyes and wagging like we share a secret, crows getting strangely friendly.

    The last one? A spider landing on me right as I sat on the ground, followed by the discovery of a great horned owl down feather. A tiny reminder: look. Pay attention. Be open.

    Often, we don’t need grand gestures to lift ourselves. We just need to notice the little things. The universe whispers, we just have to listen. And sometimes, it’s these tiny nudges that remind us: yes. You are alive. You are seen. You are loved.

  • Intuition: Not for the Faint of Heart

    Some men are natural liars, manipulators, attention-seekers. And that’s fine… as long as they know which territory they’re entering.

    Intuitive women? We don’t miss much. We feel it. We see it. Sometimes we say nothing. Sometimes we’ll call it out. But most of the time, we keep our silence because we’ve seen how that story ends: gaslighting, accusations of being “crazy,” our own intuition turned against us.

    We’re learning to trust ourselves. We don’t need your chaos to doubt our clarity. We know when something is off. We feel it in our bones. And if you try to gaslight us… well, congratulations, you just picked a battlefield where the other side has radar.

    So here’s a tip for lying, manipulative men everywhere: if your superpower is deception, go find someone who can’t see through it. Because with us? We’ll be anxious, and the drama will always be on you. And honestly… we’ll still get on with our lives, lessons integrated, peace intact, while you scramble to explain yourself to the only person who actually matters: you.

    Intuition isn’t a weakness. It’s a shield. And if you don’t respect that, you’ll be watching from the sidelines while the women who feel everything from miles away thrive anyway, with the universe backing us.