About me

Hi, I'm Annelie – a nature-loving mother living in Stockholm with my husband, two daughters (ages 1 and 4), and our dog. Welcome to my corner of the internet, where I share our journey of slow living with young children along with my own awakening to living in the present moment.

You won't find step-by-step guides or prescriptive advice here.

My writing is built around a concept that I stumbled upon in a coaching session 6 months ago. I was talking about feeling that I was never actually present in my life. Always planning or going over the past. Never fully in the moment I was living. I got the question: who is stopping you from being more present?

... and then my whole world collapsed when I realised it was ME. I named that version of me the Manager because it felt as if I was managing my life but never actually living it.

She had been running my life for years without me even realizing it. She's the voice that needs to plan everything, schedule every moment, decide exact times for everything. She's the one asking endless what-ifs: What if I get wet? What if the children get hungry? What if this? What if that?

She's always resisting the present moment when it doesn't match her perfect plan. She's been quietly shutting down my impulses to actually live life, convincing me that spontaneity equals irresponsibility, that good mothers don't let their children get uncomfortable, even for a moment.

I started seeing her everywhere—in my mental rehearsals of conversations before they happened, in my inability to leave the house without seventeen backup plans, in my constant scanning for potential problems to prevent, in the toning down of my genuine joy to fit in. She wasn't malicious; she genuinely thought she was keeping my family safe, keeping me loved, keeping me approved of.

But she was also keeping me from actually living.

I am slowly uncovering the true ME underneath all the managing, controlling, story telling and resisting.

This blog is my story. Simply told.