Chapter 2021

Today, as I write this, is the first day of 2021 and it feels like a fresh new start to me – a blank page in a new chapter entering a new decade. This idea is definitely far away from a groundbreaking yet so worth being explored once again. It feels more important than ever before to collectively recover a sense of possibility and ownership of our lives and develop (or re-gain) a sense of agency once and for all. As Fyodor Dostojevski said “Taking a new step, uttering a new word is what people fear most”. Thus, it makes us evolve, grow and change in the direction that years from now, we will be proud of, because change is inevitable, yet progress is not. So how do we progress in times so uncertain as to the ones we live in now? I cannot give you the exact answers but shall discover them together with you as I continue to write.

Manifesting a successful life, whatever it may be to you, happens through conscious creation: conscious thoughts, deliberate words and actions. We all want things to get better, days to be happier and more fulfilling while pursuing our most authentic life. Authenticity has become an important word in our society today. But can authentic co-exist without consciousness? And can you be consciously aware if you are not defying the odds while living your most authentic life?

As we play around our old ways of thinking and being, at some point in our lives, we reach a cardinal moment where we could say, ‘destiny presents itself’ and gifts us an opportunity to fulfil our dreams and visions. At this point, they still seem far far away just like a mirage for those travelling in a desert, but for the first time in a long time, you can get a glimpse of your desire outside of your mind’s eye. As you continue to follow that unseen force that is pulling you towards your passion, the scenery gets more magnificent, and it starts filling your heart with warmth and happiness never felt before. You move forwards with conviction, confidence and purpose. Your inner light starts shining brighter than ever before, and it becomes contagious to the others around you. However, somewhere in the background, you can still hear some noises, whispers and people’s warnings about the dangers of going towards a mirage, a vision only you can see in that far distance. “No one has ever been that far”, they say, “what makes you think you will be able to go beyond that extent”. But to your own surprise, you push those words away, and now you start running faster and faster, wanting to reach that desire of yours even sooner.

Days of travelling make you feel exhausted, tired, but you continue running because, with every step taken, you get closer to your desired goal and very soon it will be within arms reach for you. But suddenly you feel forced to stop as you notice the precipice. You have seen many obstacles in your life, but nothing like this before. You feel stuck and unsure. Again. “Maybe I should have listened to the others”, you think to yourself, “I am not good enough to be able to jump that far”. So you find yourself on the edge of the precipice from which you have the best view to your most authentic, wonderful and fulfilling life and its only one jump away. But as you look down, all you can see is an empty space, and if your jump isn’t perfect and precise, you are risking of losing everything: old life you just left behind, future of your dreams and as a matter of fact you might never be able to recover after the jump if you fall.

After hours and hours of contemplation, self-sabotaging, and pity you realise that the pain of not even trying to get to the other side will be much greater than the pain of falling. So you take off all the unnecessary items from your pockets, empty your bag and prepare to jump. And as you jump, in that glorious moment you feel deeply moved as you realise that you were never terrified of the actual jump. What scared you the most was leaving everything you have known of behind: your old conceptual mind and a framework of your old life. The only way for you to get beyond that and enter your dream life was to change those concepts and lose unnecessary baggage of limiting thoughts weighing you down.

A new chapter of your life demanded new ways of being and was separated by a precipice, which forced you to reevaluate the “heavy belongings” you have been running around for all these years. You had to remove all the cultural expectations, strip bare to your truth and get ready to meet your destiny. In that moment of total freedom and conviction from which you leapt towards your heart desires, you realised that even if you were to fall and be at the lowest in your life, you would always find a way to come back up. The spirit and your inner being knew, in that particular moment, that life is never just a straight road and consists of dangerous mountains that you will need to climb up, precipice to jump over, and holes to get out off. Sometimes, you will fall in the holes dug by others, the other times you dig them yourself, but as Maya Angelou says “When we know better we do better”. No matter the circumstances, there also will be the days when forces are with you, and you will gloriously land on the other side of fear straight into the arms of your destiny.

Living an authentic life is not easy, but the powers and depths it will give you are extraordinary. I am talking from my own experiences, and I am sure you, the reader, could tell me many stories too about the times where you overcame challenging and life-threatening circumstances in your life. And that little story you just read is reminiscent over many last pages of my life chapters, and I felt the need to share that symbolically and metaphorically. As every new chapter of my life always requires, almost forces me, to evolve and re-evaluate current paradigms that I live in. And funny enough, today feels like one of those days where I need to leap, and I am just preparing myself for the new challenges awaiting for me in the horizon. I guess it goes back to the point I made earlier: World is undoubtedly changing, and things will not be as we know them now. So instead of fighting things that are beyond our reach; let’s control the outcomes that we can and let’s consciously manifest and create our reality. Let’s fill our lives with good intentions and deeds, clarity and thoughtfulness and let’s spice it up with courage, discipline and perseverance. And it doesn’t matter if we are at our highest or lowest in life at this particular moment, rise every day knowing that you already have all the tools within you required to be the best version of you. As Julia Cameron said: “each of us is our own country, an interesting place to visit”, so if ever in doubt go visit and (re-)discover the truth of who you are.

I wish you to become your most authentic, best version of you. Happy New Year!

With Love,

Giedre