Spirit Animal

Happy weekend! #SpiritAnimalPodcast is back this week after a little break. For me, the break was pretty necessary as I needed to regroup and prepare for a really special interview. But: I am back now and this week I have the pleasure of having yet another rather wonderful, insightful and amazing guest – I didn’t have to look very far this time as she lives with me. I suppose you can guess who it is now, but I will let you listen and discover it by yourselves…

Let me know if you liked it by messaging me either in the comments on iTunes, on my blog or in an email [email protected]. If you want to chat with me on social, I am “MelleRobot” on most networks.

Don’t forget to subscribe to Spirit Animal on iTunes or via your favourite Android Podcast app, it’s FREE. And give us a rating AND a review please.

Guess how long I’ve been waiting for this three day weekend? 1M years at least! Ok, fine, maybe I’ve just been waiting since the last bank holiday weekend, which was just a few weeks ago. And maybe yes, I’ve been travelling a lot, breaking up the work routine a little more. But still. I am exhausted and so stressed out, my heart flutters for no reason, just because. The only times I am not thinking about the upcoming mass of things I have to do is when I meditate in the morning… Even when I sleep, I am packing bags and taking a mental inventory of things to do. Yet this isn’t an episode about anxiety. I was going to skip this week’s recording of Spirit Animal and take a week off from it but then I realised it was like missing a therapy session which is not the best idea at the moment. So here I am, being a grown up and not bunking off, in order to talk to you about compromise, understanding and non-reaction practice…

Let me know how you get on by messaging me either in the comments on iTunes, on my blog or in an email [email protected]. If you want to chat with me on social, I am “MelleRobot” on most networks.

Don’t forget to subscribe to Spirit Animal on iTunes or via your favourite Android Podcast app, it’s FREE. And give us a rating AND a review please.

Today, I wanted to talk about insecurities… I am not sure why I haven’t talked about this before actually, this is definitely a topic meaty enough to feed a handful of episodes. I don’t think I know a single person who doesn’t question themselves and their worth constantly. I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with questioning yourself on a regular basis – it is a good way to keep yourself in check – but you have to make sure you do it in a kind, non-judgemental way. I guess this is the key to dealing with insecurities and I could possibly just end this right here by telling you this: be kind to yourself, be compassionate to yourself, be gentle and go easy on yourself.

Why are we so hard on ourselves all the time? To try and switch things up, for the next few days, every time you think something negative about your appearance or your mind, imagine you are talking to your best friend. When you look in the mirror, compliment your appearance. Assert yourself and accept yourself, see if you can turn it into a new habit… I will try too.

Let me know how you get on by messaging me either in the comments on iTunes, on my blog or in an email [email protected]. If you want to chat with me on social, I am “MelleRobot” on most networks.

Don’t forget to subscribe to Spirit Animal on iTunes or via your favourite Android Podcast app, it’s free. And give us a rating + a review please.

The initial idea for this week’s episode was to chat to you about the unknown and unplanned aspects of life as my guest is a bit of a master of the unplanned. Somehow, the conversation took a different turn and we started talking about many other things that sort of go hand in hand with the great unknown, such as anxiety, fear and fearlessness, but also dealing with authority and fuelling your creativity. I suppose I couldn’t really try to plan an episode around the topic of the unplanned, could I?

So this week’s guest is Nick Maher, one of the co-creators of docu-series Unplanned America (which you can currently watch on Netflix). Sadly I couldn’t sit down face to face with Nick like I did with my other guests as he is currently in Sydney, but we tried to make it work anyway!

Wanna join this conversation? Just message me either in the comments on iTunes, on my blog or in an email [email protected]. If you want to chat with me on social, I am “MelleRobot” on most networks.

Don’t forget to subscribe to Spirit Animal on iTunes or via your favourite Android Podcast app, it’s FREE. And give us a rating AND a review please.

Follow Nick Maher: Instagram | Twitter | Website

Illustration

WhatWeDo Copenhagen

Recently, I have been doing some thinking about my daily routine and habits. I have some constants in my life, such as school runs, meals and the everyday stuff, but mostly my time is quite unstructured. It comes from running my own business and working from home. I work 9 to 5 (or around the clock, depending on how you see it) but no two days are really the same and I travel a lot so I find it hard to stick to a routine. I don’t really know if there is order in my chaos or chaos in my order. I also got thinking about habits as I think they go hand in hand with a form of routine. 

I am really fast at letting go of bad habits but I generally cannot for the life of me stick to good habits. I decided to investigate the world of habits further with the help of  Kristina Karlsson, founder and creative director of kikki-K. She recently designed a brand new Habits Journal to encourage people to analyse their behaviour, track their habits and form new ones. As I am about to embark on my own #HabitsChallenge, I wanted to chat to Kristina about her own approach to habits and how she includes them in her life in a sustainable way.

If you want to track my new habits check out my instagram! And let me know if this inspired you to take on new habits by using #HabitsChallenge in your updates! You can also let me know about your habits by messaging me either in the comments on iTunes, on my blog or in an email [email protected]. If you want to chat with me on social, I am “MelleRobot” on most networks.

Don’t forget to subscribe to Spirit Animal on iTunes or via your favourite Android Podcast app, it’s free! 

Happy Saturday! I can’t believe another week has just gone by… At the moment my life is very much filled with a growing number of people, which is exhilarating at times, but quite difficult to manage for me, as I am very much a lone wolf. I enjoy being alone a lot, I really crave solitude. As you can imagine, alone time is a luxury when you are a parent… So add to this a rather sociable work life and a social life on top of it, you will quickly understand how I am having issues managing! This situation made me think about the recent trips I took and how I mostly travel on my own, which means that to me travelling now equals peace and time for introspection. However, the way I travel alone is not very relatable, I think because it happens mostly for work and it is a different kind of solitude, where I am surrounded with strangers and eventually alone in my hotel room, ready to think about stuff… This is why today, I invited Bethany Toews to join me in discussing what it is really like to travel solo. Bethany is a writer, a singer, an actress, a model, and also one of the kindest ladies I know. I guess you could say she is a wandering artist, no matter how obnoxious this actually sounds – the truth is, she’s been on the road around Europe for the past 4 months all by herself, writing and taking photos along the way. 

If you have thoughts on the topic, don’t be shy and message me either in the comments on iTunes, on my blog or in an email [email protected]. If you want to chat with me on social, I am “MelleRobot” on most networks.

Don’t forget to subscribe to Spirit Animal on iTunes or via your favourite Android Podcast app, it’s free. 

You can find Bethany on her website | instagram

Happy Saturday everyone! It’s been a pretty hectic week, I spent it mostly running around London from meeting to meeting, trying to fit my social life and my family life around my work. The good thing about running around town is that it gives me time to catch up on my favourite podcasts, listen to music, read and also think about a lot of stuff. The tube is where I do my best thinking at the moment. I put on some music and just observe people around me. There are so many faces concentrated in one small carriage, all so lost in their own intimate thoughts and everyone looks vulnerable, oblivious to the world around them. These seemingly endless tube journeys, and the general vibe in my life at the moment made me think about the topic of vulnerability and whether or not we could use it to our advantage.

What’s vulnerability to you? Is it something you feel a lot? Do you let yourself feel vulnerable often or do you tend to be more in control? Message me either in the comments on iTunes, on the blog or in an email [email protected]. If you want to chat with me on social, I am “MelleRobot” on most networks.

Don’t forget to subscribe to Spirit Animal on iTunes or via your favourite Android Podcast app, it’s FREE. And give us a rating and a review please.

Photo credit – Tim Walker

At the moment I am a little on edge and so I am much more sensitive to the world and people around me. I have a pretty accurate bullshit radar in general, but when I feel a little on edge, the accuracy of my bullshit radar is off the charts. Which leads me to today’s topic on Spirit Animal: integrity and authenticity.I get it, it is so boring to build up a life / a career / a relationship organically. It seems so much easier and more instantly rewarding to take shortcuts. But in the long term, it really isn’t.

What’s our deal with integrity these days both online and offline?

If you have any opinion on the topic, message me either in the comments on iTunes, on my blog or in an email [email protected]. If you want to chat with me on social, I am “MelleRobot” on most networks.

Don’t forget to subscribe to Spirit Animal on iTunes or via your favourite Android Podcast app, it’s FREE. And give us a rating and

a review please.