Looking Back and Planning Ahead

Hello, Fellow Friend of the Chestnut!
 
The first cookies have been devoured, candles are burning on the Advent wreath, some of us even had snow. Now there is no denying that this year is coming to an end soon. On the one hand, I am happy about it because I’ll be able to relax, spend time with my family, meet my friends, eat tons of Kräppelchen and drink mulled wine. I plan to finally dive into several books that I have been looking forward to reading all year. And I will take time for myself to quietly review my 2022. I will take a look at what I have accomplished and experienced.  Everything is tracked in my calendar and I can relive the entire 12 months – the ups and downs, my successes, my losses and my life-experiences.
 
How are you doing in the last days of the year? Do you take time to look back and review? Are you already looking ahead to the new year and thinking about what you would like to achieve? Are certain ideas and goals already taking shape in your head? Or do you just hope that the holidays will pass quickly because they may be intertwined with difficult memories?
 
I am going to spend the last days of the year daydreaming, starting to hatch my goals for the next year. I will also spend some time thinking about how I want to change over the next few months to become the person who achieves those goals. What I would like to work on and who I want to work, laugh, and spend time with to get there, including by when I plan to have achieved my key milestones.
 
What do you dream of for your next year? Do feelings of anticipation come up or do you feel stress and pressure when you think about 2023? Or are you just feeling so, so tired? We can show you how targeted and relaxed! planning can provide you with more results and more freedom at the same time, e. g. for more time to sleep in in 2023.
 
We would love to support you in deciding on your desired goals.
 
We can share our strategies to planning out your roadmap to achieve your goals in a sensible, feasible way with strong women at your side and show you how to stay on track throughout the year without losing motivation.
 

We would love to talk to you about your dreams. Just get in touch!

For those quiet moments, we offer you these wonderful chestnuts:
 
1. Christina Werner – Thank you. I prefer lions.
Women’s History: Empowered Subjects and Disciplined Bodies. 
In her work, Austrian artist Christina Werner presents biographies, historical photographs and images of unusual women who worked as lion tamers in the circus between about 1860 and 1980. With the lion, these women tamed one of the central symbols par excellence connoting male power, whereby the fact that they were mostly lionesses is definitely worth mentioning. A subtle hint of this is provided by the 3D-printed lioness heads that populate the installation. The stories of these women combine two narratives, that of self-empowered subjects and that of objects of desire, for it was not least with this that their costumes and staging played, often emphatically feminine, sometimes also provocative. In the figure of the lion tamer, the Western colonial view of the animal is combined with the patriarchal view of the woman as a “weak being” who acquires masculine qualities in order to triumph over the “wild beast”. This narrative is countered precisely by those tamer women who lived a special closeness and intimacy with the animals and practiced tame dressage. In spite of everything, these women can certainly be called early feminists, since they realized an emancipated, partially independent way of life. Reports about these daring women arouse great fascination even today, one can hardly escape them. 
 
2. The Swimmers — on Netflix.
This is a moving film about two sisters from Syria, ages 17 and 20, who live for swimming. I was struck by how the two sisters, Yusra and Sara, almost defiantly pursue their dreams despite facing destruction and loss almost daily. They have to leave Damascus and flee to Europe. There are some breath-taking moments in this film that seem almost unbelievable, but nevertheless happened exactly as they did. Yusra, the younger sister, makes it to the Olympics with her courage and perseverance. This film shows the experiences of two strong women who had to flee, and who are exemplary for the fate of countless refugees. Absolutely worth seeing!
 
 
3. Dr. Florence Hervé
 As a journalist and women’s rights activist, Dr. Herve is committed to women’s rights and visibility. I saw her live at the award ceremony of the Louise Peters Prize of the city of Leipzig. She is the author of numerous works on women’s ideas, ideals and works. She tells their stories or she lets women tell their stories themselves. Every year she publishes an inspiring calendar “We Women”, which commemorates outstanding women and accompanies their photographs with texts on current topics, images and prose. Our copy has already been ordered.