Hey you, if you’re new to this blog or to me, you may have a hard time finding your way here! I discuss quite big topics and themes and one can easily lose the overview, especially if there isn’t someone to talk you through it. This complexity is exactly my reason for writing in the first place: I aim to create an overview on topics that are hard to wrap your head around.
And while I like to think that my blog posts are clear, I also fear that they aren’t so clear at all. Especially since these topics are so big and heavily intertwined.
So here I am, writing a newsletter type of post, connecting my recent ‘munchings’ and the blog posts that came out of that. So in this way I’ll be the one talking you through! I hope this helps in enjoying my blog.
In that sense this is not so much of a newsletter but more of an old-news-letter, an overview of the past half year. I’ll call it a reading guide. In it I will also give you some hints of what you can expect in the upcoming half a year.
Enjoy!
My kundalini yoga series
One big thing that has been on my mind for a year was kundalini yoga and how to relate to that. You see, I started out quite enthusiastically, I became a ‘certified’ yoga teacher and all, only to end up throwing it all away a year later. To wrap my head around it, I wrote three blog posts about different aspects of it and I believe they take you quite well through all that happened in the kundalini yoga community. They also show different ways to look at it, other ways than are presented in the kundalini yoga community itself, and I believe it is very valuable to at least consider these views too.
The first one is called On the community of kundalini yoga and it’s about how last year the kundalini yoga community turned out to have been a cult in which lots of structural abuse has happened.
The second post is about the kundalini yoga practice itself, which cannot be separated from the teacher and the culture if you ask me, and about elements of spiritual bypassing therein: My observations of kundalini yoga, the yoga of spiritual bypassing.
The third one, Why I won’t write about the positive effects of kundalini yoga, is mostly my conclusion on ‘the kundalini yoga teachings’ including how they came to be and what is left of them after all that happened.
Go here to see them all together.
I believe that this is the end of me writing about this topic, even though I am very likely to keep referring to these blog posts and the themes they discuss, because so many elements come back over and over in other areas of life too.
On social media & online business
Other big things that I find highly intriguing are social media and online business and marketing. So I have already been writing about different aspects of that too.
Right now the articles don’t all fit into any one of my categories, and I am not sure yet if I should make another one for them. So here is my current take at talking you through it!
In Remember to support small businesses this December and beyond I start off telling you that: yes, you are your own influencer. You are the one person who decides where your influence, including your money, goes. Influencers on social media only seem to have so much influence because they use double-counting: they include your spending money in their own total influence. Which is kinda crazy.
This leaves you with your own influence and thus a responsibility of how you put it to good use. So please remember to support small businesses and put your money where your values are!
Then, in Social media are like parasites tapping everyone’s juice, I go on about how social media turns its users into ‘influencers‘ and ‘followers‘. I believe using social media, at least Instagram that I am mostly familiar with right now, alters how your mind functions. Moreover, this platform turns its users in some sort of marketing machine! You can’t help it, it is just deliberately designed this way.
So yes, my conclusion is that we may as well compare social media to parasites. They don’t really offer us so much, they mostly manipulate us into pouring our resources into it and becoming dependent on them too.
Also, partly because of social media, the internet is becoming like a gigantic mall. At least, in my bubble it is! In Beware of what your bubble reflects back to you I explore how following the people you like the most allows you to create your very own perfect bubble, and how this can impact you negatively too. Forget doom scrolling, dream scrolling is a thing too!
If you follow amazing people and many of them run small businesses (which is likely), this may leave you thinking that you should run a business too, or that at least your Instagram feed should look like you do.
You may even start to wonder, am I a business? And lose your whole sense of self while you’re at it.
I plan to write more about that too, about becoming a business. Yes, serously!
Because you know, starting a business is hot. It’s hotter than it has ever been due to many cultural developments and due to the lastest trend of becoming an online business or marketing coach. In The great paradox of online business and marketing coaching I explore how these online coaches present themselves, how they play with their potential clients (read: you and me), and what happens next.
So please read it before you buy from an online business and marketing coach! It’s for your own good.
These themes are definitely being written about by me again and I certainly do hope it’s of value to you! If you have observations yourself, don’t hesitate to leave a comment. That way we can learn together, which is the best way to learn.
About food & blood
In addition to the big themes, I wrote two easier blog posts too, one on vegan food and one on menstrual blood. Forgive me the alliteration above, but it works so well! 😉
5 festive & easy vegan treats for your Easter brunch inspires you with some great tried and tested recipes for brunches and high teas. You may not know, but this blog started out predominantly being a vegan food inspiration blog! So this post was a great way for me to bring some of that vibe back to the stage.
In An honest review of 5+ years of bleeding in reusable products I tell you all about my experiences with reusable period products! I am quite honest in there, so check it our if you’re still on the fence. I’m mostly positive too, after 5+ years, so that surely means something.
What’s up next
There you have it, those were my posts from November 2020 until now (April 2021). After some sort of pause I came back to this blog in October, almost half a year ago, which I announced complete with intentions in Return to the blogosphere. Well, I did return and lived out my intentions! And I will continue to do so.
I’m am interested to see where this goes. Until now I’ve only been writing for fun and I’d love to turn my writing into something even more serious so I can even make a living out of it. If you happen to know of any openings or invitations, I’d be happy to hear!
As I wrote, I will continue to explore social media and online business. Other topics I am interested in remain: everything about personal development, sustainability, ethics, feminism or female power… Those kind of things. So please come back to find more!
By the way, I don’t have an actual newsletter nor am I very active on social media. Would you prefer to be updated in some way? Please let me know if you have ideas about that too. I would definitely like to hear.
Love, Nina
Photo by Muyuan Ma via Unsplash.
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