Empathy is THE social emotional intelligenceto make us successful: it connects us to those around us, helps us feel seen and understood, and provides us with the ability to put ourselves in someone else's shoes. But sometimes empathy can be unhelpful if used too one-sidedly, leading to burnout, or feeling overly emotionally manipulated, invested, or having issues with boundaries. Today I want to talk about how we can 'flip' empathy and make it work for us so we don't just give it away, but it keeps giving back to us.

Have you come to your senses yet? That's what 'the days between the years' are there for. Suspended between the years you can observe yourself with curiosity and decide to make another kind of resolutions that will marry 'taking pleasure' with 'taking responsibility' and fin words that ring true to you.

What is hope? No seriously: What is hope? I know you know what it feels like to be hopeful, but there's more to hope than the feeling bit. Hope can be created and here is how.

It’s back-to-school. It’s back to routines. It’s back to showing-up, back to performing, back to getting more done in less time during the week and back to wanting to catch-up on ‘the good life’ on the weekends. And soon it’s also back to living life on the edge between burnout and bore-out. A day-to-day that is so utterly process-optimized that we crash tired at night during the week and ask ourselves ‘Is THIS it?’ On the weekends. Instead of just having a coffee-to-go every once in a while we created an entire eco-system that led us living ‘a life-to-go’. is this really what we want?

The two most common hurdles clients face when wanting to make a change: The one before they start. And the one that comes up during the process, which keeps them from achieving great results. "You can't streamline anything that you have no practice doing. And because you are not streamlining what you are already great at, you keep being too busy to start something that you really want to start, but are not doing."

What do you do when you face a work problem that requires you to find a new, creative solution and you feel is: I'm stuck. In this episode I'm discussing with Nicoline Douwes Isema how we use 'thinking in our sleep' in order to come up with great solutions to actual problems. You can call it dream storming. and it's highly effective.

People are the happiest when at least a part of their lives takes place in the triangle that is, INSPIRATION, MOTIVATION, and CREATIVITY. Everybody loves inspiration. And everybody loves motivation. But creativity, that's a tricky one. In this episode I'm discussing with life & art coach Rafael Martinez how to make creativity a practice that will add vibrancy and satisfaction to our lives. Do you dare to flirt with your life?

An international move is a great point in time to look at your own behaviour and what to change for a better future. But it also throws a whole lot of sh...stuff from the past into your face. Here's a lesson about pain I'm currently learning.

I just moved to Sweden and keep getting honked at and my reaction made me realize: I’m expecting to justify my presence. I’m expecting to dig my heels in and apologize at the same time.

Big, deliberate life change doesn't happen over night - it's a process. So decisions have to made quickly, actions have to be taken swiftly, but good, lasting changes that improve the quality of your life take time. This is an invitation to come along on our journey to make our next country our 'forever-country'.

It's sale season in the interior design, furniture and home decor world and those are usually big expenditures in anybodies budget. Let's make sure you only buy what you need, what will actually make a WOW difference and stay within your budget. The last thing I'd want for you is to experience 'buyers regret'. Here is what any good interior designer checks to make sure their client will love the items they spend money on. Psst! Don't tell.

Do you want to feel satisfaction? Or do you want to show off achievement? Not that those two are incompatible, but change is hard and frankly, not worth the effort if you won't get out of it what you really crave for. So what is it you want in the end? This is a conversation with sex & intimacy coach Caoilfhionn Nic Conmara on how to leverage our moments of longing to get us what we hunger for most. And yes, that includes your willingness to touch & explore your most intimate parts. Soul, desire and your thoughts of you think you can have... feel free to explore the other intimate parts as well...

Seeing other people be courageous makes us admire them, because deep down we know what looks so great feels real shit and it's hard to start being courageous. But have you ever stopped to notice that there are different kinds of courage? And if you avoid one maybe that's because....

This is not your average 'Get over your procrastination' drill but showing you how procrastination is serving you and can be the guiding line you need to create meaningful & feasible change in your life. And if you think you're not a procrastinator - check the 4 unconscious habits that are a sure tell for procrastination.

What does it take to tell yourself a better story about yourself? I always knew I can create a better world - I can create scenarios for people so that they can experience their life better - one moment at a time. And in the end those moments will add up to a beautiful story. Now I’m also always painfully aware that my words are never as good as my designs. I speak 6 languages, but when I speak my words do not carry poetry. The way I tell stories is by wowing the eye & guiding the movement of bodies in space. So naturally I’m drawn to people who do the same - just differently - with different tools. Which drew me on Clubhouse into rooms led by Mark Lovett from Storytelling with impact. Mark is storyteller himself, a TEDx event organizer and master story listener helping others create a story that will have impact and thus change other peoples lives. And todays episode is about all that and the question: if we can learn to tell stories so that they make a difference in other peoples lives - can we also learn to tell ourselves a better story about our own life?

part 2 of my little guide on how to celebrate enoughness during the holiday season. In this episode I want to talk about 3 points: The fact that the real-life exp of Christmas can actually really suck and how not to be the sources of a sucking experience A link between enoughness and gratitude we often tend to forget And finally a simple design rule to decorating with enoughness in mind so that your home looks sophisticated and neither too little or too over the top…. But just well-balanced.

How can we celebrate enoughness in a season that is traditionally all about more more more AND at the same time for the second time round embedded in a global social context of lack and restriction and leaving us wanting to double down on the more more more? Today I want to offer you my approach to - “Hacking” the holidays. What are the little things you can change to honor your own enoughness during this stressful time? How does this sound to you? Let’s celebrate enoughness through practicing essentialism. And my two main filters for esstialism are significance - answering the question “what is important here? What will bring you the biggest emotional satisfaction?” And “How can we get the ball rolling, or the party started fast, easy AND ideally in a fun way? This is, after all the AHWH podcast and I love me a good dose of JDV - joy for life.

Sarah Plowmann helps people get 'unstuck' by holding a mirror to their own brain, so they can take a step back and see their situation from a more neutral stand point. If you have ever made a decision to change but then struggled to pull through with action - this is the episode for you. Belong to yourself more fully by sticking to, follow through and not making your emotions a problem you think you have to solve.

Making the decision to change can be scary because it is always also a turning away from something. So how about we take all our courage and make it a change that is purposefully all about being disobedient? Stand behind your change by standing up, calling out BS and not tolerating the wrong in the status quo

"Should I stay or should I go?" If you're an expat and are struggling with making this decision Kathrine from BadDaysAbroad.com is the woman guiding you through the decision-making process, taking you out of overwhelm and into a grounded clarity. This episode is all about making a decision of change (or not) that will carry huge ripples into your future.

Can we project manage the crappy bits out of how we face change that is forced upon us? Can we make big life changes less scary.

 and the 
discomfort less by adding more clarity) How do we build more confidence 
in the face of change?

Sometimes it looks like the grass is always greener on the other side (expat or not), but the truth remains: the grass is always greener where you water it. Take a big pitcher and nourish your lawn! Here are 3 ideas for you on how you can use the strengths you build as an expat to deal with angst during corona induced lockdown.

“Knowledge is only power if it's shared.” A woman who’s losing her sense of value and purpose because she became a trailing spouse and/ or a mother is a common phenomenon. We go from thriving in our own careers to doubting and clinging to doing the same thing each day just to survive in our ex-pat lives. Change does not come easy, but with the right support and success circle, we can be different. This is a talk about female entrepreneurs clubs why empowering women and inspiring them to do the things they love without limitations could create a colorful difference in the world. “Get started anywhere but every time you reach a certain point, you have to change the game to reach the next point. You can’t keep doing the same things. So every time you have to scale up or you get a new opportunity, you have to push yourself. And so, that is what it's like to build a business.”

When you find yourself lying on the hard, cold ground, lying in a pool of brokenness around you - surrounded by shards of what used to be your life and you have that moment of clarity that any movement will cut and hurt you, but just laying there is not an option neither: What are the things/people/thoughts that will get you to stand up anyway? And episode full of personal stories.

Friends are the family we chose for ourselves. If you are missing the real good and deep friendships in your life, this episode is inviting you to discover what it is you are actually seeking in friendships and how you can set yourself up to madly fall head over heals into your next best friendship.

“Those who come after us are born prepared to deal with what we experienced” but they‘re also just a human being, sometimes they would either intentionally or unintentionally hurt you but don’t let that shake your idea of bringing forward the anger, the bitterness, and setting boundaries that you may want to exclude them as being a part of your family. In that way, we may live more peacefully. The way we hold on to hurt may cause more harm than the situation itself because we were just a child but as we are growing, we're filling out the voids in a way that includes all the variables of acceptance and understanding and that’s what sets our hearts free.

Belonging Series: How to break trough your shame by Nic Scholtysik

Sivan Sharvits' 'Happy Place Hypnosis' Only by Nic Scholtysik

When we notice bahavior patterns that do not serve us, or are even sabotaging and keeping us from what we desire most, it usually is a long, hard road to breaking them. Which is why Marisa Peer developed RTT - Rapid Transformational Therapy, that promises to help us break those patterns in 1-3 sessions. That is a ballsy statement and deserves to be explored, which is why Nic talks to Hypnotherapist Sivan Sharvit from WellnessWithSivan.com to get to the bottom of all the questions you might have.

If you feel depleted by opinion culture because everyone wants you to support their point of view, or defend yours: here is how to decide if you have something to contribute and how to say no and consciously NOT to be part of opinion culture.

You are not to blame for the trauma that has been inflicted upon you, but it is your responsibility to set the healing process in motion. Decades of trauma therapy show that being able to articulate and share your past experiences is vital for the healing process. But what do you do if words are simply not your strong-suit when it comes to communication?...as if ‘going back there’ wasn’t hard enough, having to describe it verbally can feel like being forced to strip emotionally naked. In this interview with Kate Shaffer we discuss other ways of discussing and sharing what comes hard to say out loud.

How do you keep your wits about you, when you move to another country, wanting to build a better life for your children, are are highly qualified but 2800 declined job applications want to convince you otherwise? This is a real life story of how not to lose hope on creating a happy, thriving life as an ex-pat, a woman and the families main bread-earner. Interview with self-made entrepreneur Dijana Llugoli, Slovenian ex-pat living in Stockholm/Sweden.

The struggle and discontent you feel with your expat life is NOT you being difficult or falling into depression. You are mourning the life you decided not to live. - Talking to private crisis intervention health specialist and marriage councilor Martina Famos about the most common struggle expats experience when they feel they don't belong. To get into contact with Martina see www.martina-famos.ch

What does it take to create your home of your dreams? What does it take to create a home, your home when you live far away from home? When you are from one culture but live in another. When the first excitement wears off and you realize there is more to the expat life than travelling and having only leisure time... 'A Home Worth Having' is about designing noteworthy homes that will remind their expat owners how remarkable they and their lives are so that they can face daily struggles with more joy and confidence. And let's stop focussing plainly on the external praise of others. Let's focusses instead on building an environment rooted our personalities, personal history and working towards our definition of a desirable future version of us.

What does it take to create your home of your dreams? What does it take to create a home, your home when you live far away from home? When you are from one culture but live in another. When the first excitement wears off and you realize there is more to the expat life than travelling and having only leisure time... 'A Home Worth Having' is about designing noteworthy homes that will remind their expat owners how remarkable they and their lives are so that they can face daily struggles with more joy and confidence. And let's stop focussing plainly on the external praise of others. Let's focusses instead on building an environment rooted our personalities, personal history and working towards our definition of a desirable future version of us.