1/ the day you start living

I am on a journey of waking myself up from the illusion that is me, who I think I am and how I think the world works. After my meditation, I sit down and let a stream of consciousness manifest on paper. I am writing without stopping nor thinking. They are reflections on life and the deep transformation I am going through - with the purpose to inspire you. From thinking to being. Daily.

What I am realising is that we are educated into serfdom. We are told, implicitly and explicitly, that we need to strive to be successful and to be materially affluent and then we will be happy. We are trained that an intelligent and smart mind is the device to bring us those things and will navigate us to happiness and fulfilment.

Nothing could be further from the truth. In a way it is the very opposite that takes us there, it is us listening (even though we are always discouraged to do that) to our heart and to our dreams, the ones that come from deep inside, not from the craving mind. It is our soul speaking to us and it expresses itself through us as things that come easy to us, that are somehow effortless and do not strain us. It is the type of work that doesn’t feel like work and that just flows.

And it can be anything, really. If you can’t put a name on it or label it then it is most definitely one of your innate talents that tries to express itself. You might wonder how can I make money with that. That is again the mind trying to tell you to do something it understands, that the world understands. But this is not why you are here, you are here to express your uniqueness and that means by definition doing something new, something that only you can do, that only you can shine at because it is your very essence, it is who you are deep down, it is simply you expressing yourself and it flows through you.

There is no thinking or strategising involved. It is simply a natural expression of who you are. And it is not meant to be labelled or categorised. You will in time give it a name or people will find a name or they will just give it your name. And it doesn’t have to be that innovative. Maybe you “just” like to paint but your paintings are unique, you are the only one who paints like that. So that’s what you are, a painter. You bring beauty to the world by painting. There’s no soul searching needed of who you are, you are a painter, and all you have to do is the courage to paint, and the faith that everything will take care of itself from there.

Your 9 to 5 job that you currently have is not your calling. It might be painting or something else. You know deep down. It is the thing that you would do if you had no fear, no fear of not having enough money, no fear of what other people think, no fear of not being good enough or it not being good enough, ask yourself, if nothing could go wrong, what would you do? And even if you think or say “nahh” that can’t be it, the thing that intuitively and sometimes even with an of course just comes to you, if you could do whatever you wanted, that’s your thing. The thing that makes your eyes shine brightly.

You might already have forgotten what that is because you have been put into a box of needing to fit into society for so many years, decades, of your life, to fit in, to please what your parents wanted you to be, to do something reasonable, to stop dreaming, yes, you might have forgotten about it but it is still there, deep down, maybe underneath all the clutter of the mundane and “you have to be like” life, there’s a diamond that is waiting to express itself and to shine brightly. I know we all have this diamond. It is always ready to come to light and shine brightly.

Sometimes it doesn’t happen in a lifetime but it’s always there, always waiting for you to bring out the courage to leave behind all the fears and have the courage to live your true life. As Picasso said: The purpose of life is to find your gift and to give it away as in to gift it to the world. You are the gift. It’s you. There’s nothing that needs to be added or learnt or a skill to be trained. It’s already inside of you. All you have to do is to listen to yourself, to this calling, to this pull, and then have the courage to give into it.

Paulo Coelho was not meant to be a writer. But after going through a conventional education and job, he realised he had to write. And it wasn’t always easygoing. He wasn’t an overnight success. But it was what made him happy and ultimately extremely successful and even rich. And how many lives have been enriched through his books. Tens of millions. This is you. We are all Picassos and Coelhos in the making.

We just never find the courage to trust the universe and ourselves, to be who we truly want to be. Because we have been told to leave our dreams behind in childhood. Nothing could be further from the truth. And it is never too late to come alive. Today could be the first day of you finding back to yourself and expressing yourself in your full authentic beauty. And thereby touching all the people around you with your gifts, innately and effortlessly just like I write down these lines. There is no thinking involved, I just type and it flows.

Because this is my gift to you: To encourage yourself to become your empowered brightly shining self. Love yourself with everything you’ve got, forget everything you have been told and start living life fully and authentically listening to your inner callings and truths forgetting everything that’s standing in the way.

As Mark Twain said: The two most important days are the day you were born and the day you found out why. You already know what it is and to me, the most important day in your life is the day you stop listening to what you are told and start being and doing who you really are. And that will be the most beautiful day and the day you really start living.