The Mindful Art of Letting Go
What could you do less of? When someone asks what you could do less of, your first instinct is probably to think about tasks—the endless to-do list, the obligations piling up. But when I really sat with that question, I realized the answer wasn’t about productivity at all. It was about presence. I could do…
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Rediscovering Myself Through a Year of Writing
What positive events have taken place in your life over the past year? I will start with my New Year’s resolution—something I don’t usually do. But this year, I decided to write a blog post a week, and so far I am ticking off every week. Only three blog posts to go! Or two, after…
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A Journey That Started at Sea
Do you have a favorite place you have visited? Where is it? My father has a paralyzing fear of planes. It’s not something he dreams of overcoming—travel itself has never appealed to him. I suspect he was always this way, but age only made it worse. Yet somehow, growing up in his house, I became…
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The Hardest Decision I Never Had to Make
What’s the hardest decision you’ve ever had to make? Why? Over 13 years ago, I went through one of the hardest moments of my life. My late husband had stage 4 pancreatic cancer for over two years, after a diagnosis and a life expectancy of 6 months to a year. He was still there with…
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Between Rio’s Heart and Canada’s True North
If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be? I answer this question after spending a week in Rio, the city where I was born and that holds a huge part of my heart. My first few days brought all that love back to the surface, and I immersed myself in its…
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A Whale Bone on My Wall: My 40 Days in Antarctica
What’s the coolest thing you’ve ever found (and kept)? In my early twenties, I had a boyfriend who was a hot air balloon pilot and a mountaineer. He would go to the Brazilian base in Antarctica from time to time during our summers and, on one of those trips, he brought me a whale bone…
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Reinventing Myself (Or How I Challenge My Fears)
What could you try for the first time? I like to reinvent myself. Maybe this is not an accurate description of how I have been living my life. As a friend used to say, I came to this life to challenge my fears… Sport has always had an important role in my life. I started…
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I’m Writing My Memoir (Even When I Think I’m Not)
What have you been putting off doing? Why? I have a very serious project that I have the feeling I have been putting off but, everytime I think or talk about it, I realize I have been working on it, on and off, for the last 10 to 13 years! A memoir! First of all,…
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The Parting Gift
October is Thanksgiving in Canada. And around Thanksgiving, it’s my late husband’s birthday. It’s been almost 23 years that I’ve celebrated his birthday—first with him present, and for the last almost 13 years, without his physical presence. I came from a family where parties were not a thing. Dates were almost a forced celebration, and…
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Seeing Rio Through Fresh Eyes
I am about to start a trip to Brazil. For two weeks, I will visit my city, Rio de Janeiro, and south of Brazil, where my parents and one sister live. The week in Rio will be very different this time: I am taking a friend with me and showing the city to a first-time…
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Chasing Trails and Dreams Through Northern BC
I recently drove 2700 km (around 1700 miles) in a motorhome with a friend and our two dogs to the north part of British Columbia. With us, but in a separate truck, my son and two friends. They were finding amazing mountain biking trails and features to film for their annual YouTube video. Curious? Check…
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The Beautiful Words We Inherited: How Africa Shaped Brazilian Portuguese
From time to time, I answer a prompt here and let it guide me through memories and feelings. Today, the prompt was: What’s your favourite word? Not too long ago, I listened to a podcast called Projeto Querino, and this opened up a door to Brazil’s fascinating, rich and sad history, which I knew very…
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Helena artmann - life coach 