tanja(at)tanjalau.com

+41 (0)32 511 20 09

Bern, Switzerland

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Personal Blog Posts

Being a solopreneur can feel quite lonely. So can being a mother, a product person, a highly-sensitive individual… I made it my mission to bridge the gap between my professional and my private life to show up as authentically and whole-heartedly as I can, inviting others to connect with me from human to human. In this section you can check out extracts from my personal newsletter „Tanja’s Butterflies“.

To follow my product-related writing, I recommend subscribing to my Substack blog Learning Organisation. Some of my articles can also be found in the section Publications & Templates.

a little goes a long way

This is the first time I missed my bi-weekly Friday slot to send out my Butterflies. It's also the first time we ever took in a refugee family.  After weeks of feeling overwhelmed and helpless looking at the terrible war in Ukraine, we had an opportunity to make a difference for someone in need - and it turned out to be one of the most rewarding experiences I've ever had. We had registered on several platforms at the beginning of the war, offering a room for a small family, but the moment I received several Whatsapps from strangers asking whether they could stay with us made me quite nervous. Was I underestimating the support they would need? Would the kids get along and be able to...

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Clay Man With No Ears

I don't know about you, but I have the hardest time finding butterfly moments these days looking at the pain and misery inflicted on people right outside our door steps. I am not saying I am no longer experiencing joy with the kids and at work, but everything feels tainted right now. So I was not even sure whether I wanted to send out a message at all at this point in time. The news tickers are bursting with updates, lots of humanitarian projects are bubbling up on social media, everything seems to have been said and it feels like I am lacking the right words to express my feelings anyway. Whenever that happens, I turn to poetry instead. For days, a line from a poem by Joy Harjo has been ringing in...

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Your Day

I have to admit: I sometimes envy people without kids. Not long ago, I used to be one of them. Choosing how to spend my evenings instead of falling asleep at my toddlers' bedside. Waking up after a full night's sleep. Finishing an entire meal in peace. Making plans for the day without planning around someone's naptime. Before I had a family, I wasn't even aware of how much me-time I had. So as I said: I sometimes envy people without kids...

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Dear 2022

It’s been quite a ride. While the world was struggling to get back to what we once knew to be normal, I was finally getting comfortable with being odd, off and peculiar, with feeling all the feelings. Fed up with being worried about any sort of competition, I slowly started carving my way back to feeling unique. Not in a presumptuous way, more in the way we all are unique once we find our spot and stop overwriting our true nature with some sort of social consensus. For the truest version of ourselves, there really is no competition out there. For me, this process involves a lot of writing. My writing has always been dead serious to me. And this year, I finally got serious about...

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Fluidity

It’s been the third time now that I start the new year with 30 days of yoga practice. Not with the primary intention of becoming fitter, more flexible or to shape my body in a specific way. Rather to remind myself that when I really set an intention, I am able to carve out 30 minutes a day to make it happen - even and especially on days that feel like there is not a minute left to even brush my teeth. I show up for myself every day, and it really means something to me every time. I myself am definitely not particularly good at yoga. My tree is shaky, my down dog curved and my crane keeps crashing...

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