Latitude 59

In Swedish, telling someone to go to the woods can mean telling them to get lost. Yet people also deliberately go to the forest to find peace. In this episode, I explore this contrast, from Swedish folklore to forest bathing. I also ask what happens when we stop viewing a walk as just another task to complete.

#Sweden #Forest #SwedishCulture #Folklore #Skogsbad #Reflection #Latitude59

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Three years ago, I experienced one of the most difficult periods of my life. I wasn't sleeping. I'd wake up at 3 am with my mind racing, the same thoughts looping endlessly. I discovered that meditation was not a spiritual practice for me, but rather the only tool that actually worked. In this episode, I discuss what meditation really is and isn't, how it works, and why I believe it's one of the most important things you can do for yourself right now.

#Meditation #MentalHealth #Mindfulness #Philosophy #Stoicism #PersonalGrowth #Latitude59

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More than 400 days. That is how long it took me to find work after losing my job in Sweden. In this episode I talk honestly about what unemployment looks like here: the A-kassan system, the compulsory outplacement programme that barely helps if you are qualified, the CV engineering I developed, using AI as an interview coach, and the 50-plus interviews that led to exactly one offer. What the market does to your ego, and what Seneca had to say about it.

#Unemployment #Sweden #JobSearch #SwedishLife #ExpatLife #ITMarket #Reflection #Latitude59

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In 2003, while I was a student at a university in Madrid, I had a Swedish friend who was there on an exchange program. Before that, my knowledge of Sweden was practically nonexistent. Twenty years later, I'm a Swedish citizen, but I'm still struggling with the language, though the biggest challenge isn't the grammar. It's overcoming the fear of speaking and realizing that my limitations are more in my mind than in reality.

#Swedish #LanguageLearning #Immigrant #Sverige #SpanSwede #EnglishPodcast #Expat #SwedishLanguage #Meditation

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This summer I arrived in Spain for the solar eclipse and ran into a national state of alarm, the first in Spanish history triggered by a forest fire. Not a war, not an earthquake. Fire. In this episode I talk about something I feel every time I return to Spain from Sweden: the weight of a country where everything seems forbidden, controlled, or regulated. Police checkpoints, iron grilles on every window, neighbours reporting each other. And the strange paradox of a place I love that somehow no longer lets me unwind.

#Spain #Sweden #Expat #GuardiaCivil #Wildfires #Freedom #SwedishLife #ExpatLife #Latitude59

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Every year, on the first Friday between June 19 and 25, Sweden stops. People leave the cities, head to the countryside, decorate a flower-covered pole, crouch down in public parks singing songs about tailless frogs, and stay outside until the sun finally gives up and sets — sometime around eleven at night. This is Midsommar. I've lived through eleven of them. This year we celebrated at Skansen, the world's oldest open-air museum, in the heart of Stockholm. In this episode I talk about where the tradition comes from, what it looks like from the outside, and why — after more than a decade — I finally understand why Swedes celebrate summer the way they do.

#Midsommar #Sweden #Stockholm #Skansen #SwedishCulture #Summer #Pagan #ExpatLife #NordicLife #SpanSwede

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Some books find you when you're ready. This one found me during one of the hardest stretches of my life. The Fakir is a novel based on the life of yoga master Ramiro Calle — a man I had the chance to meet in Madrid. It's not a self-help book. It's a story about a tightrope walker, an ancient tradition, and a four-word instruction a father left his son: "Attain yourself." In this episode, I talk about why that hit differently — and what it still means to me.

#TheFakir #RamiroCalle #Yoga #InnerLife #Philosophy #Stoicism #PersonalGrowth #SpanSwede #Wisdom #Consciousness

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Sweden is famous for human rights, equality, and social progress. What's less known: for nearly 200 years, the Swedish crown financed slave expeditions, built a fort on the West African coast, administered a Caribbean colony with its own slavery code, and when it finally abolished the institution, compensated the slaveholders — not the enslaved. This isn't about guilt. It's about knowing the full story of the country you live in.

#Sweden #History #Slavery #Colonialism #SaintBarthélemy #NordicHistory #Reflection #SpanSwede #HumanRights #TheFullStory

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I didn't choose most of these changes. They just arrived — quietly, over a decade of living somewhere that isn't your own country. I eat dinner at six. I plan everything. I get anxious in loud places. I have Swedish words my brain refuses to translate. In this episode, ten things Sweden did to me without asking permission — and what that says about what it actually means to adopt a country, not just live in it.

#Sweden #Expat #Immigration #LifeInSweden #SwedishCulture #PersonalGrowth #Habits #SpanSwede #Reflection #NordicLife

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Every year on April 30th, Sweden lights massive bonfires. It's called Valborg. It started as a pagan ritual to mark the end of winter, later blended with the feast of Saint Walburga, and somehow survived centuries intact. In this episode, I reflect on what it feels like to watch that fire after eight months of cold and darkness — and why humans still need rituals that mark endings. Because without marking the end of something, it's hard to feel like anything new has truly begun.

#Valborg #Sweden #SwedishCulture #Traditions #Spring #Expat #Pagan #Renewal #SpanSwede #NordicLife

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