LJUBAV is love

LJUBAV – LIEBE – LOVE – Happy 9th Birthday to my Blog!

Who would have thought that I would come this far, when I started my mission and this blog in 2017, sharing plant-based, simple and healthy recipes as well as my thoughts and knowledge in various areas with the world? I always wanted to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem… Nine years later, I am sitting here and have become a completely different person, having developed on so many levels that I could not have imagined my current life back then.

What has changed most of all? I don’t think my core and essence have changed much: I am still a very grateful, happy, healthy person. But insights have solidified within me, I strive even more for the truth, I carry even more love within me – above all, much more kindness and love for myself. And that brings us to the most important point that has moved me the most lately: LJUBAV, the Yugoslavian word for “love”.

LJUBAV – my mission

LJUBAV has so many meanings for me. “LJUB” are the first letters of my father’s and my eldest brother’s first name, Ljubomir. LJUBAV is not only rooted in my family, but on many levels. Love is probably the emotion that accompanies me most throughout my life, like a red, invisible thread – love is the driving force behind everything for me, my life energy, the main emotion I feel. And emotions are, when you think about it, “energy in motion”. A frequency, energy, aura. Have you ever noticed that someone radiates in a special way when they are in love or love in general? Bingo! That is the frequency of love that makes the body glow. We feel invincible when we are newly in love. We can stay up all night, hardly sleep. Plus, we get much more done in a day than we would normally in a whole week. LJUBAV makes it possible. Easily.

Love is healing. At the latest, when we feel loved or realise how much someone loves us, we also feel its healing effect. We only need to think of Mother Teresa, who achieved the seemingly impossible with her insurmountable love. “True love moves mountains.” Who doesn’t know this saying? And who has not yet had the pleasure of doing the same for a loved one? I would travel to the other end of the world for my loved ones. And if necessary, even further.

Here’s to love in all its facets

LJUBAV has so many faces and forms that we sometimes don’t even notice it in our stressful everyday lives. But the more often we do, the more it fills us with its energy. Whether it’s a handwritten note you suddenly find in the morning. Money in your jacket pocket that your parents slipped in there. Coming home after a long time, and seeing the joy in your parents’ eyes. A deep, heartfelt hug. Love is tears of joy. It is missing someone. Love is friendship, and friendship is love. But LJUBAV is also about standing up for yourself and setting healthy boundaries.

Love is in letters. It shows itself in having difficult conversations instead of running away. Love is helping. Love is being there when you know the other person wouldn’t dare to ask for it themselves. LJUBAV is listening to understand, not to respond. Love is much more often quiet than loud. But love requires courage. Because true love means showing yourself to be vulnerable and making yourself vulnerable. But it is precisely where your comfort zone ends that the real miracles begin. Where the magic happens.

And because I’ve already written so much about LJUBAV here, such as “About strong women and their unconditional love”, “Generation no-commitment” and “When did love letters turn into situationships and ghosting?”, I’ve decided to delve even deeper into the subject.

Insights, guidance and LJUBAV for little Rosa

When I was at Afrika Burn last year, I had a very special experience. I was under the starry sky of South Africa, dancing ecstatically to electronic music. Surrounded by many of my favourite people. An untamed gratitude flowed through my body, allowing me to experience all this as a maximally free, independent woman in the prime of her life. I could have burst with gratitude and happiness in that moment. But something completely different happened: out of nowhere, an infinitely deep sadness, heavy pain and heart-wrenching grief came over me. Because I realised what terrible experiences I had to go through to get to this very point. In order to feel all this gratitude and see all this happiness, I had to go through hell on earth, among other things.

I cried from the bottom of my heart because all these emotions came crashing down on me like a raging storm. And at the same time, I was infinitely grateful that I had experienced all of this because I knew that it was precisely these supposedly negative experiences that were necessary to shape me into the person I am today. Because I am certain that it is above all through such experiences that we arrive more quickly and more deeply at our true core.

And I am incredibly grateful that I am the way I am – even if I am “too much” for many people. Because I now know that you always have to put down roots first in order to grow tall and secure, otherwise the first gust of wind would sweep us down from our height. So, supposedly negative experiences always have a meaning for me. I always try to learn something from them and see what the universe might be trying to tell me. Sometimes I only understand it years later. Sometimes never.

My first childhood memory

First and foremost, I saw little Rosa in my mind’s eye. My first childhood memory came flooding back: me, probably 3-4 years old, dancing in front of my mum’s cassette player to the music of Yugoslavia’s music icon at the time, Lepa Brena. A cassette that my mum had saved from the civil war, and one of the few things we still had from our original home in Germany. I can remember it as if it were yesterday. Me dancing to Lepa Brena in our basement flat. My absolute favourite cassette, transparent with a view of the black tape – I listened to it countless times and swayed along as a little girl.

Tears came to my eyes again, and I realised what this poor little girl would have to endure in the coming years. What trauma she would suffer. I just wanted to take her in my arms, hold her close to my heart and say to her: “Hey, little one, you’re going to have to go through a lot of shit. But please hang in there, it will be worth it!” And how proud I am of her for never losing her heart and for responding with LJUBAV even in the most difficult moments. She didn’t become hard or bitter. And now she has become an inspiration to others.

The first feeling of true self-love

At that moment, I felt this deep, true, fundamental and unshakeable self-love for the first time. And I made it my life’s work to do everything in my power to ensure that this little girl now has the most wonderful, beautiful and happy life she could ever imagine. That has always been my mission, and since then, I feel I have finally learned to set healthy boundaries and, above all, to stand up for them. Actually, I couldn’t do that before in my boundless love, as I had never understood the concept of “healthy boundaries” until then.

For me, love has always been boundless, but now I defend little Rosa with everything I have. Because there are enough parasites out there, including human ones. Healthy boundaries are designed precisely for them. Just as the bank protects the land from flooding, it allows the river to flow freely.

LJUBAV for little Rosa

And that’s exactly how “LJUBAV.Rosa” came about: insights, thoughts, conversations, quotes and an invisible hand that I would love to give the little one to help her get through life more easily and never lose hope. In English, German and Yugoslavian. And I feel that all of this was necessary to start this project. Since I am doing it for no one but myself. I don’t care what others think of it, and even if no one is interested, I really don’t care because I no longer measure my worth by external factors. I know who I am and what I am capable of. Having said this, I move on to the poem I wrote for my last birthday and at the end of the year.

Thank you for accompanying me on my journey.
LJUBAV,
Rosa ♥️

LJUBAV

This year taught me one thing above all else:
Love is not a concept. Love is a force.
And everything in my life begins — and ends — with it.

LJUBAV.
Love. Life force. Energy in motion.
The origin of creation, healing, creativity, warmth, and truth.
The quiet power that lives beneath every breath I take.

I learned that love does not mean giving myself away.
It means choosing myself without guilt.
It means understanding that my energy is sacred —
and that not everyone deserves access to it.

This year showed me, sometimes painfully,
that clarity is not cruelty,
that boundaries are not rejection,
and that walking away can be the deepest form of self-respect.

I am presence. I am depth. I am fire. I am passion.
I am a force of nature.
And only those who can meet me there
are meant to stay.

I stopped confusing attention with intention.
I stopped loving potential more than truth.
I stopped shrinking to be easier to hold.

Instead, I came home.

Home to my body.
Home to my intuition.
Home to my rhythm, my movement, my silence.
Home to the knowing that energy never lies.

I discovered that healing does not happen through suffering —
but through awareness, movement, breath, sound, and honesty.
Through letting energy move instead of storing it.
Through listening instead of resisting.

I learned that love is quiet.
That real strength doesn’t shout.
That power is unshakeable when it is aligned.

I learned that solitude is not emptiness —
it is a resonance space.
A place where truth gets louder
and the noise finally dissolves.

This year cracked me open.
And instead of breaking,
it revealed depths I didn’t know I carried.

I met parts of myself I once had to abandon to survive —
and I welcomed them back with compassion.
Especially the little girl inside me
who carried more than she ever should have.

This is for you, little Rosa.
I see you. I protect you.
I will never abandon you.

I am endlessly grateful —
for my family, my parents, my roots, my body,
for my friends — my chosen family,
for nature, movement, music, silence, and truth.
For the ability to feel deeply in a world that numbs itself.

I no longer measure life in achievements or validation,
but in presence, integrity, reciprocity, and peace.

Love is my armour.
Truth is my ammunition.
And love — rooted in self-respect —
is the most powerful force I know.

I choose myself.
I choose alignment.
I choose depth over noise.
I choose LJUBAV — again and again.

And standing here today,
with tears in my eyes and gratitude in my chest,
I can say this with certainty:

Everything that happened
did not take me away from myself.

It brought me home.

Little one, I am proud of you.
Happy birthday to us.

– LJUBAV.Rosa ♥️