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Paula is the founder of the blog "The Art of Being myself", based in Toronto in Canada. But she is originally from Germany and grew up in a small and idyllic village near Frankfurt. You will for sure fall immediately in love with her words and her encouraging posts to stay true to yourself. She thinks outside of the box and is a rule breaker by nature, so we are happy to to introduce her to you. This year, she started to give mindful courses on a regular base in Toronto, in Frankfurt and Mainz in Germany and also via Skype, where you can reach her from all over the world. She also offers 1 to 1 coachings. Paula sees things from a different perspective. What helps a lot. If you like it or not.
She also creates space for people to detect who they really are. And what gems and qualities are hidden. She has a very unique talent to see the beauty within all of us and encourages us to live our unique talents.
So let's jump into the interview with Paula :
1.) Dear Paula, can you introduce yourself through 5 sentences?
I'm real. My face is a mirror of my feelings. I was never able to hide my emotions in front of anybody. By now, I think that's actually a good thing. I love reading, writing, talking about the Universe, aliens, teleportation, quantum physics, being real and people's weird behaviours. I also love breaking rules that make no sense, that's why this is answer has 6 sentences. Let's make it seven, just for fun.
2.) After being a dance teacher in Germany, you heard a new calling, some years ago.
I felt very unenthusiastic about my job as a dance teacher back in 2011. At first I thought it was a phase, but then it went on for months and months. The only thing I was passionate about at that time was writing down my observations. (I love watching people and how they behave.) So I decided to write down my thoughts in a journal every day. Then I moved to Canada. First I wanted to start some kind of a travel blog to keep my friends and family up-to-date, but again, the only thing I was able to write about were my thoughts and observations. After a while my writing turned into motivational articles for people to get a different perspective about life, find the courage to do what they love and be themselves in every aspect of their lives. 3.) "Be courageous. It is never too late to start something new." And "Dare to love yourself more" are the sentences your readers hear and feel the most. You encourage us to do what we love. Are these the two sentences, which describe you best?
Yeah, I feel really connected to these sentences, but there are so many more. What I wish my readers to incorporate in their lives is to "put joy over everything". This is another one of my core messages. That means to put joy and peace at the center of every decision that you make. And that is not an easy task, because we get distracted by so many shiny objects like money, fame, success and all that stuff. Another message that I stand for is to "follow your intuition" and to put more emphasis on your body's feelings rather than on what your mind is telling you. We all kind of forgot how to get in contact with our bodies. Instead we're stuck in our heads and make decisions solely based on logical facts.
4.) You invented a whole, beautiful card deck with quotes, where you help and encourage others to "dare more" things in their live. What is your favorite quote and why?
One of my favourite messages from my card deck is to "dare to not apologize for who you are". I've struggled with that all my life. Even though I followed my intuition and I stuck to what brought me joy, I always had the feeling that I need to apologize for being me. The thing is: You can't really relax if you're defending yourself all the time. I think the moment you start to relax into who you really are and you embrace all the weird things and the craziness inside of you and you start sharing all of you, your whole aura is gonna change. For me, being unapologetically myself is the most courageous thing. 5.) You have started your dancing career very late in the age of 24. So you really stay true to your words, that it is never too late for anything. Can you tell us, what the average age for beginning with this profession is? Because not being into it, it doesn't sound too late. I started getting more focussed on dancing when I was about 23/24. That was very late according to what everybody else around me said. It was basically too late. A lot of people start very young, like when they're 6 years old. And if you wanna be a prima ballerina, it's true, you have to start very early. 6.) How did you manage it, to hop in this dancing career so late? Well, I just started taking dance lessons while still managing my 40 hour office job on the side. First it was once a week, then twice, then three times and in a course of 6 months I was dancing so much, that my dance teacher asked me why I'm not doing this for a living. She helped me prepare for auditions and a few weeks later, one school was crazy enough to take me on with 24. 7.) Can you give us some important tips for going after your dreams? If you have a dream and you feel a very strong pull towards it, then this thing is not separate from you, it's basically a part of you telling you "Come home!" And you can either decide to follow the pull and be yourself or deny it and live an unlived life or live in misery. So, in the end, there is really no choice. You just have to do it, no matter what. You might go through a lot of struggles, but it's worth it. I would say: Do what you have to do! Feel into your body and ask yourself: What wakes me up? And what makes me smile? And then go for it!
8.) You also help people to stay in touch with their inner voice and inner wisdom. People feel immediately like coming home, when reading your posts and talking to you. Do you have any tips for staying true to yourself?
Yes. So what I do is, I ask myself after everything I do: How do I feel? If I feel really good, whatever I just did, must be good for me. If I don't feel good, if I feel exhausted, burned out, stressed, anxious etc., it can't be good for me. It's very simple. Try it out and get in touch with your feelings. 9.) What do you do to get in touch with your own inner wisdom, to which we all have access to? But often have forgotten to listen to it, to ourself? The best thing you can do to get in touch with your inner wisdom, is to not do anything. I go somewhere where it's quiet, preferably in nature, and I just sit there and do nothing. I sit, for example under a tree and empty my mind. So, I'm not thinking about yesterday, I'm not thinking about tomorrow or about what I should do later. When you're in the Now, you're completely connected with God, The divine or Mother Earth, whatever you wanna call it. This is when your intuition has access to you and can talk to you. And sometimes an answer comes to me through a very gentle voice or a picture. And then all of a sudden I know what to do. 10.) You just have given a workshop in Toronto about the topic "Coming Home. Find your natural place in this world", recently. While working with people, there is always something new to learn, even when you are a teacher. Do you have some insights from the workshop you can share with us?
What I learned from the workshop is that everybody sees the world through their own filter. And I got really different vibes from different people that were in the workshop. Some people were really happy and wrote me messages afterwards how they liked it and that they wanna come again. Others were a bit more critical and then others didn't give any feedback at all. So what I learned is, you should not try to be everything for everyone, so that everybody will love you. That doesn't work. You just have to be yourself, do your thing and give your best in this moment. And some people might like it and some might not. That's just how it is. 11.) "Feeling home is not confined to the space within our walls", is a beautiful quote of yours. What do you do to feel home? Home for me is when my life is very simple. I don't like to have a lot of things planned in one day. I like getting up not too late, have a nice breakfast, have time for myself, for reading and writing, maybe I take a walk and meditate, sometimes I go for hikes with my family or we play frisbee in the backyard. I love connecting with like-minded people who love to talk about the same crazy things I do and that's it. Preferably I love hanging out near water... it makes me feel very calm and peaceful. 12.) "Home can be anywhere, a place and a moment in time, when you feel completely relaxed and accepted", these touching lines are from one of your posts on Insta. What do we have to do to reach this moment? First it's good to know, what makes you feel happy, relaxed, inspired and at ease. Once you know what that is, you just have to give yourself permission to go for it.
13.) Why is thinking outside the box so important? From my own experience I can say, that bigger problems can't be solved with more or different thinking, but with less thinking. I see a lot of people who are trapped in a box. They're unfree. They make up their own prisons. That's why thinking less is the only way to freedom - for me. 14.) Thinking outside of the norms, is sometimes difficult and not always easy. While being a rule breaker, can you give any tips to stay true to ourselves? I'm a rule breaker, because I question everything. I don't care who is standing in front of me, my best friend, the pope, my partner, my kid, I question everything that people tell me and I only trust my own experience. That's when you start making your own rules about life. That's when you stay true to yourself. 15.) What do you do to love yourself more? I do what brings me joy even if it goes against what everybody expects me to do. 16.) You are a bookworm and give regular book tips. Which one is your favorite book? And why? My favourite book is "The power of Now" from Eckhart Tolle. This book brought me to the realization that the present moment the only moment is and that future and past are just illusions in our minds. If you really sit with that truth, it will change your whole life. 17.) What are you reading right now?
The other day, I was reading a few pages of a book called "Heart-centered living" from Pamela Kribbe
18.) How does your next project looks like? I'm planning new workshops in Toronto. For the next ones I will talk about how we can become aware of our natural talents and strengths and what we can do to step into our zone of genius.
19.) Where can we find you? You can find me on my website www.theartofbeingmyself.com or come over on Facebook “The Art of being myself” https://www.facebook.com/beingPaula/ or Instagram @hartmann_paula
Dear Paula, thank you so much for taking the time for answering all these questions. This means a lot to us. It was a pleasure talking to you.