My name is Karin Sahlin and I am passionate about human well-being and mental health. I myself have experience of mental and physical illness and have experienced how much community and creativity does for well-being.

This idea was born out of the fact that I had just undergone a difficult and serious surgery that left me both mentally and physically exhausted. I realized that I needed to rest and recover, so I decided to start visiting a meeting place in Malmö. It turned out to be exactly what I needed. I ended up in a context, a community and it allowed me to heal. It was during this time that I realized how much it meant to me to be in this place with other people and how quickly I not only felt better, but at times became so clear-headed and whole that I knew what I wanted to do in the future. “I want more people to feel this!”. Imagine if I had chosen to stay at home instead, because I could have. It was then that I realized how much community and other people actually have on our mental and physical well-being. We need each other. We are not strong on our own, we are strong together.

It has become a rather isolated world where we are used to screens and likes. The personal meetings have disappeared more and more and are being replaced by more efficient solutions. But I think we are still human and we need to meet others, talk, share experiences and difficulties, learn new things, experience different perspectives and feel a sense of community.

It’s not easy to get to know new people nowadays. You might move to a new city, your life circumstances might change due to all kinds of things and it can easily become quite isolated. Because it’s so taboo, we’d rather hide at home than show that we’re not having a great day or feeling great. But that’s when we really need others the most.

I myself have gone through several difficult periods in my life, but something I have experienced especially in recent times is how much better I feel being part of a community. It’s like I felt that even though I really felt like shit, I am welcomed, accepted, needed and loved – still.

When life has thrown me a curveball, I’ve always found peace in creating. There’s something about just being able to ignore all the world’s problems for a while and just focus on the color I want to paint with or what my new hat should look like. Suddenly the clouds of worry can work in the background and I have time to unwind and balance the whole system again.

I really believe that we humans are not very complicated creatures. We need love, joy, community and to feel needed by others. That goes a long way. I think we also need to realize the importance of recovery and unwinding, it’s part of the balance we need . It is everywhere in nature, night and day, yin and yang, cold and heat, joy and sorrow, dry and wet. No flower in the world would survive on sun alone.

I want to create a place for human well-being. A place where you feel it’s ok to just be for a while, without any demands on performance or social skills. We all have good and bad days and this place should be for when you are both happy and creative to depressed and maybe need a hug. A place where you can exhale, get new strength and be strengthened. This is my big dream I want to make real.