Nathalie Himmelrich

Inspiring Hope | Finding healthy ways of Grieving | Writer

What If… today was your last day?

By 1 Comment

There has been a song on the radio called ‘If today was your last day’ sung by Nickelback which makes me really think: What if today was my last day?

There have been a few deaths of people I knew, friends of people I know… and as sad as it might be it allows serves me as a reminder to live every moment fully.

[Edit January 2021: 12 years later and I would add the following: I have lived through the death of my daughter (2011) and my mother (2012). Remembering that every day is a gift is a daily practice, especially in the light of those people who do not have that possibility.]

What would you do, if today was your last day?

[Read more…] about What If… today was your last day?

The Ugly Truth About Men and Women

By 3 Comments

Photo by JD Mason on Unsplash

Since the release of the comedy ‘The Ugly Truth,’ the male-female intimate relationship structures are again under observation. Even though it is a comedy revisiting the old and well-known cliché of male and female differences it still leaves couples and singles going home and re-thinking the gender differences.

Here are the film’s quotes: The Ugly Truth about Men:

  1. Stop trying to win a man’s heart. Aim lower.
  2. Men are visual creatures.
  3. If you want a relationship, here is how you get one: It’s called a Stairmaster.
  4. Laugh at whatever a man says.
  5. No man is saying ‘I love you’ without expecting something in return. And by something, it’s not a home-cooked meal.
  6. Women, you have to be two people in order to lure your man: the saint and the sinner, the librarian and the stripper.

Let’s have a look at the truth behind some of the points mentioned above:

[Read more…] about The Ugly Truth About Men and Women

Top 10 of the most popular ‘Ugly Truths’

By Leave a Comment

Photo by Gemma Chua-Tran on Unsplash

Below are the Top 10 of the most popular ‘Ugly Truths’ as voted by the public on the Sony Pictures website to the film ‘The Ugly Truth’ with Katherine Heigl and Gerard Butler that recently came out in the cinemas near you.

10 popular truth about relationships

1. You can’t make someone fall in love with you.

2. Sometimes you can’t tell the difference between Mr. Right and Mr. Right-Now until it is too late.

3. Both men and women can act like children.

4. Men should not wear spandex. Anywhere. Ever.

5. Changing your relationship status more than once a week is not a good sign.

6. No matter how much we talk, you’ll just never get what it’s like to be a woman.

7. She does look at other men.

8. No matter how hot she looks now, her “assets” will eventually fall victim to gravity.

9. Your parents had sex at least once, or you wouldn’t be reading this.

10. She’s faking it to make you feel better.

What is your ‘ugly truth’ about relationship? Tell us via the comment box.

The ugly truth is you can’t make someone fall in love with you.

Spiritual Awakening Through Illness

By Leave a Comment

flu and other illnesses
Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

Everyone has had the experience of being sick in their life. Did you get the spiritual awakening and the learnings that were presented to you?

Many of you who are on the path of becoming aware know about the metaphysical causes of illnesses. There are plenty of great books on that topic, among them my favourite from Louise Hay and Lise Bourbeau, which can be an excellent starting point in understanding your dis-ease.

Let’s look at it on a practical level: Take the example of the reoccurring bouts of flu. What are the benefits and potentials for spiritual awakenings in having the flu?

  1. Prioritizing: When your body is weakened by fever and headache you only do what is really important or urgent, like cancelling appointments, calling work to let them know you are not well. You are not wasting time with or worrying about unimportant, trivial matters.
  2. Focus on Health: You become more health conscious, you are mindful of what you eat, drink and what outside influences you expose yourself to.
  3. Speaking the Truth: You might be telling people to stop talking when you’re physically, mentally or emotionally not able to take in more. How often does it happen that you are keeping your mouth shut, when you are well, because you want to be ‘nice’? When you are sick, you are being more honest with yourself and others.
  4. Looking after Self: When you are feeling low, you have to take your own needs seriously. Looking after your body becomes a matter of self-preservation.
  5. Less Ego Fixation: If you are seriously weakened by your illness you will no longer be bothered making a point. It becomes less important to ‘be right’ and more important to ‘be well’.
  6. Sticking with the Essential: When you have throat pain, for example, you are only saying what is really necessary, leaving out all the fluff. Similarly to the previous point you are less attached to being right or being heard and trust that things will sort themselves out.
  7. Allowing Help: This is a great chance for people who find it not so easy to accept help under normal circumstances. When you are ill and cannot do certain tasks, you have to learn to accept and welcome help. For the person helping you it is also much nicer to help you as they won’t hear: ‘Oh no, that’s not necessary, I can do it myself!’

So do you have to get sick to learn those lessons or can you do it while you are well?

Pearls before Breakfast – Joshua Bell playing at Metro Station in Washington

By Leave a Comment

[]

It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by.

No one knew it, but the fiddler standing against a bare wall outside the Metro in an indoor arcade at the top of the escalators was one of the finest classical musicians in the world, playing some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins (worth $3.5 million dollars) ever made. His performance was arranged by The Washington Post as an experiment in context, perception and priorities — as well as an unblinking assessment of public taste: In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?

Three minutes went by before something happened. Sixty-three people had already passed when, finally, there was a breakthrough of sorts. A middle-age man altered his gait for a split second, turning his head to notice that there seemed to be some guy playing music. Yes, the man kept walking, but it was something.

A half-minute later, Bell got his first donation. A woman threw in a buck and scooted off. It was not until six minutes into the performance that someone actually stood against a wall, and listened.

Things never got much better. In the 45 minutes that Joshua Bell played:-

  • 7 people stopped what they were doing to hang around and take in the performance, at least for a minute
  • 27 gave money, most of them on the run — for a total of $32 and change
  • That leaves the 1,070 people who hurried by, oblivious, many only three feet away, few even turning to look
  • Every single time a child walked past, he or she tried to stop and watch. And every single time, a parent scooted the kid away
  • 1 person recognized Joshua Bell
  • 1 person, recognized a ‘superb violinist’ playing. He was a fan of Joshua Bell but didn’t recognize him as he hadn’t seen a recent photo

IF A GREAT MUSICIAN PLAYS GREAT MUSIC BUT NO ONE HEARS . . . WAS HE REALLY ANY GOOD?

It’s an old epistemological debate, older, actually, than the koan about the tree in the forest. Plato weighed in on it, and philosophers for two millennia afterward: What is beauty? Is it a measurable fact (Gottfried Leibniz), or merely an opinion (David Hume), or is it a little of each, colored by the immediate state of mind of the observer (Immanuel Kant)?

Context matters.

If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the best musicians in the world playing some of the finest music ever written, with one of the most beautiful instruments …..

How many other things are we missing?

Some facts on Joshua Bell:

A onetime child prodigy, at 39 Joshua Bell has arrived as an internationally acclaimed virtuoso. Three days before he appeared at the Metro station, Bell had filled the house at Boston’s stately Symphony Hall, where merely pretty good seats went for $100.

This is a man whose talents can command $1,000 a minute.

Recent discography:

Read the whole article by the Washington Post here.

Love is Everything

By Leave a Comment

Photo by Bart LaRue on Unsplash

Love is everything. Acceptance is a big part of love. Accepting yourself and accepting others is a huge step in loving yourself, and loving others. Each of us is here for a reason. That is why people think and act so differently as there are more reasons for being here than there are people.

Try and accept what people do and say without any form of judgment. Rather ask yourself what lesson you might learn from them in what they are doing or saying. Just this step alone will bring so much peace into your life. It will also bring acceptance of you, and respect for you.

Love is everything. It is everywhere. Be still and you will always find it and it will envelop you.

Des Lowe

Subscribe for updates
    Built with ConvertKit
    Nathalie Himmelrich

    I accompany people therapeutically as a holistic counsellor and coach.

    I walk alongside people dealing with the challenges presented by life and death.

    I’m also a writer and published author of multiple grief resource books and the founder of the Grieving Parents Support Network.

    Terms of Use | Privacy Policy | Affiliate Disclosure

    Copyright © 2012 - 2022 Nathalie Himmelrich | All Rights Reserved