#17 On Being Moved 🧡

Returning to the here.

Jun 02, 2025

May 2025

I am not even sure where to begin.

May is usually the month that carries a certain kind of light. The kind that tells you summer is near, and holidays are coming.

Instead, it is as if the season is happening somewhere else, and I am just here. Carrying on. Continuing.

Some days are good. Really good. I find myself diving into books, into writing, fully submerged. Nourishing. I am starting to believe this is time well spent. A subtle shift. That now, these quiet, thoughtful days feel like evidence of something working.

But yes, I have also caught myself falling too deep again into the scroll. That endless flicker-space where minutes (hours!) vanish.

I know it takes something from me.

Attention.

What is helping me currently is pausing in those moments. Creating a moment of stillness. Recognising, really recognising, that this is not how I want to spend my time. A kind of quiet, but needed reset.

Discipline that feels like care, room for breathing. Because I know - and maybe you know it too - that even something as simple as breathing in and breathing out with intention can do so much good.

Physiologically, it calms the nervous system. Activates the parasympathetic response. Slows the heart, quiets the noise. It brings the body back to a state where it can rest, restore, where the mind can think more clearly.

It brings me back to the moment. To here. To this sentence. To the patch of sunlight on the floor.

So I try to return to the here. Again and again. Breathing in. Breathing out.

Sometimes I use the 5 Second Rule by Mel Robbins to get there1.

5–4–3–2–1-Breathing in-Breathing out.

It nudges me toward acuity, toward a kind of readiness for the next step, however small. And sometimes that just means making myself a cup of coffee, like I did just now.

Robbins talks about how the brain will scoop in otherwise. In my case it will fill the gap with distraction, or with avoidance. My brain tells me to grab the phone, to scroll, to numb… and then feel bad afterwards. Sometimes, I honestly wonder why I am wired like this.

Counting down to one can take me out of the gloom, out of the knowing about the unknowing and it can also mean that I sit for a while in the gloom, but with more intention. Because I have learned that is okay, too. Not every low moment needs to be solved or escaped right away.

Lately, I have noticed myself trying to push that part away too quickly. To fast-forward through it. I am learning to let it speak. The moments when I am engaged and not distracted, that is where I feel good.

At the beginning of May, I was circling a decision: whether to join a riso printing workshop. Technically, I could not afford it. Not on paper. I did not count down from five, but the yes was very clear. Over fifteen years ago, back in Germany, I worked in a printing agency for nearly five years. And now, somehow, I find myself drawn back into that world. It is a bit my quiet dream, to open something like “If By Magic,” the first print house focusing on risography in Finland.

I invest rarely into myself like that. It felt indulgent, maybe even a bit irresponsible. Just before I got laid off last year, I had started to feel like I could. I was financially stable and I had, the mind to give to myself. To make space for me.

But then everything shifted again.

Still, I decided to go. To create things in a room with others. To see what each person made. To trace the whole arc, from digital file to tangible print. The sound of the machine humming, the rhythm of it breathing ink onto paper. The smell of it. The doing of it. The learning something new.

Breathing in. Breathing out.

The outcome? My first Zine:“When things are tough, let’s go to the moon and pick sunflowers”. Inspired by my dad. The sunflower photo was taken by him; the picture of the two of us was captured by my mom. You can read more about the quote here.

'On Being Moved’ is a monthly series of exploring and expressing observations and thoughts - through both written and visual formats. Not sure yet of its direction, however each step forward is a step 'on being moved'. Welcome ♥

5-4-3-2-1