Two weeks ago my good friend Tina sent me a text message asking a bit worried: „Conny, what is happening with your blog?“ At first I thought that there must be a technical problem, so I went to check it out. But when I looked at the date – which is displayed in a huge font size, so absolutely not to be missed – it immediately dawned on me: January 16! Where the heck have I been?!

Although I did a few more posts this year on my “A little extra blog”, I remember the time when I absolutely loved blogging. Rambling is one of my specialties, and I always have something to say. I especially loved my „Happy Monday“ thoughts, which was kind of like journaling for me. Five years ago I would do at least three or four blog posts a week. I had my „Happy Mondays“, my interview series, and of course my photo shoots to blog. That was before the day and age of instagram. Ever since social media has taken over, we are used to fastly scroll down our feeds, sometimes only looking at the photo and not even reading the captions. Our instagram feed has become our micro blog.

This development made me wonder over the years whether people still make the effort to go see and read a blog post. And it kind of took away my motivation of putting in all the work and time to create a post. But deep down in my heart I miss my blog, and I would rather continue my blog than putting out content in this fast and ever changing world of social media.

But it would be way too easy to blame it all on social media. Because I have changed, too. Since the last three or four years I have been constantly working on setting my priorities right and living life a bit more intentionally. It finally dawned on me: The more time I spend on work, the less time I have to spend with my loved ones. Well, it’s not that I work less, but I have optimized my all-around-workflow, and got rid of lots of distractions (this alone would make a full blog post). Now I feel I work way more productive and focused that I used to.

Luckily there are so many good books out there that have helped me to establish these new habits, and live life more mindfully. Every once in a while I also take a longer break from social media, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. It feels so good that I realized my breaks from the screens are getting longer and longer. 😉

I learned from a friend of mine that there is such a thing called „hyperarousel“. Of course I had never heard about it, but when she explained it to me, it all made sense. Obviously when we’re always online, our brain has no chance to fully unwind. All these noisy digital distractions make us feel out of balance, and can create anxiety and depression. We feel burnt out. And although we do healthy lifestyle changes like excercising, meditation, eating healthy, yoga etc., it all doesn’t help to rewind, because our brain needs peace and quiet. Something we do not get with all the stimulation from our phones.

So last week I was curious to find out, and after we came back from our vacation in Sweden, I completely put my phone away, went screenless, and even accepted a work offer on an outdoor design project, where I got to work outside with a fantastic team, being creative and even using my hands. I know, I know … please don’t laugh. But this was something totally new for me after having been working as a photographer for 16 years now. I absolutely LOVED it, and my happiness level went right up. This is exactly what my brain and body needed to refresh, renew, rejuvenate, refill and calm down. And it also turned out the world keeps still turning. 😉

If you made it this far, please let me know and I buy you a coffee. 😉 I also don’t know whether I have ever posted a picture of me and my beloved husband with whom I have weathered many storms in the last 21 years. I don’t remember. But this is my happy place, my number one priority. This picture is absolutely imperfect, but it means a lot to me. We happened to be surprised by a big thunder storm in Stockholm on the ferry and got totally wet. Really wet. We could have been totally upset, but instead we got such a good laugh out of it.

Happy Monday, everyone!