A lot of mindfulness in a little cup

In case you were wondering if I had disappeared in a thick cloud of gloomy homesickness, moping about in the Nordic landscape – I haven’t. I have just been busy. Way too busy to mope.

In fact, life has been pretty good. More or less by coincidence, I got to teach my first yoga class, which resulted in the studio owner offering me to teach regularly in the New Year. I am also looking at a venue to rent to start teaching a community class once a week in Stockholm. Like most things, yoga is almost prohibitively expensive here. Time to change that, me thinks.

Having said that, I generally embrace the Swedish expensiveness and the ‘less is more’ approach, as I find myself becoming more and more mindful with regards to my own consumerism. Take coffee, for example. Because a Starbucks latte in London doesn’t cost the world, I would happily (read: mindlessly) dash into my local coffee shop on a daily basis to get a coffee and a pastry. Spending three pounds fifty doesn’t hurt if you do it once, but it most certainly adds up.

There’s no Starbucks in Stockholm. In fact, there is only a (admittedly very nice) bakery where we live. A bakery that charges the equivalent of five pounds fifty for a decaf latte and a pastry. Yes, pain threshold definitely reached. As a result, a trip to the bakery has become a weekend treat, and I am having breakfast at home, with a coffee or tea in a reusable take away cup.

Get me, all mindful and ecologically sensible. I don’t know if it’s Sweden or if it’s yoga – but I do know for sure that it works. Namaste 🙂