Wake up your 6 senses

To live life wholeheartedly also requires to “wake up” all your senses and increase your mindfulness and awareness.

:-) Open your ears to music and sounds and be inspired to sing and dance

:-) Indulge yourself with smells and aromas

:-) Be apprehensive of the power of colours, shapes and other visual stimuli

:-) Enjoy the touch and feel of different textures

:-) Treat your taste buds to different tastes and enjoy your food deliberately

:-) Last but not least: switch on and listen to your 6th sense, however you want to call it: godly signs, telepathy, meta-physic energy

Life becomes so much more intense when you enrich it with sensuality and mindfulness!

For example, I love waking up to the singing of birds, having breakfast with Norah Jones' "sunrise" and – yes, I am a true Austrian – I get an energy kick from listening to the Strauss' waltzes … they simply make me feel upbeat.

I am also very sensitive to scents and I have started to use an eye cushion filled with dried Alpine herbs and flowers to shut out the light during meditation and during resting times. The soft scent of the Alpine herbs and flowers immediately reminds me of summer holidays and wakes up all the nice feelings connected to it. It’s really a treat.

During my cancer treatments, when I lost my hair, I did not opt for wearing a wig. Instead I chose everyday a different scarf colour and turned it into a scarf turban. For me, choosing and wearing the colour - from red to pink to blue, turquoise - was energizing, and it was also a bold statement that I would not turn into an "invisible grey mouse", no matter what.

And whenever we go for a beach walk, whatever the season, I make sure that I take off my shoes, feel the cold of the sea water and the warm sand between the toes. Ask my friend Eva ;-)