Vienda Maria

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Author: vienda

  • not ready

    Don’t hold back, waiting to be ready. It will never arrive.

    When I was 15 I went on a long overseas trip for the first time entirely on my own. I had signed up to be a foreign exchange student in the States for one year. I boarded the plane snotty-nosed and big, red eyes rimmed with tears and a knot in my stomach.

    I was not ready.

    That year ended up being the happiest time of my life so far and formed my independence and sense of self in an immeasurable way.

    When I was 23 I attended my first-ever electronic music festival. I was resistant and didn’t want to go and thought it would be full of weirdos and absolutely, definitely not for me. My boyfriend at the time promised me we would leave after 1 day if I truly hated it.

    I was not ready.

    At that music festival, I got to know the producers of the festival and other producers of other music festivals and all sorts of fascinating, inspiring, incredible people that I admired who hired me based on my personality and skills and ended up making music festivals my career for 5 years.

    When I was 28 I wrote my first few blog posts. One day I decided to share one on Facebook. I was shaking and started to get all hot and prickly inside as my finger hovered over the ‘post’ button. I took a deep breath, clicked the button and then quickly closed the computer, terrified of what people would say and walked away.

    I was not ready.

    After that, it became easier and easier to share and to post and to write and after 2 years of writing and sharing, I had a popular blog with over 10,000 readers every month.

    When I was 30 I desperately wanted to turn my blog into a business. I came across a course that promised me all the answers and I thought about whether to take it or not for an entire month. 10 minutes before enrolment closed for the year, sweating with fear I assembled all my resources and courage and paid the $2,000 even though it made me feel nauseous.

    I was not ready.

    That investment led me to create a business where I support, mentor and teach people in areas of life that I am educated and experienced in. It has allowed me to do work in alignment with my values and has supported me on every level, especially financially over the past (almost) 11 years.

    When I was 33 I bought a van to travel along the East Coast of Australia. I didn’t know anything about cars (I still don’t) or how to make my #vanlife fantasy reality but I pooled all my resources together and followed my heart, even though


    I was not ready.

    Two weeks later my van blew up, but I fell in love and my entire life trajectory changed in the most wonderful and unexpected ways, that I am so grateful for today.

    When I was 36, heartbroken, sick, confused and torn apart, I booked a flight from Canada to a town in Mexico that I had never heard of, knew no one in, and arrived there the next day with a suitcase filled with hope.

    I was not ready.

    That town became my home for two years where I tended to my heart, healed and grew. It was a safe container that held me in tender ways nowhere else had before and gave me everything I didn’t even know I needed.

    When I was 38 I wanted to bring to the world an undated planner for women based on a design I used for the past 5 years. I spent an entire year trying to find someone who could produce my idea in an ethical and environmentally conscious way. Disheartened, after 100s of enquiries were sent, I gave up.

    I was not ready.

    One day a publishing house in Bulgaria that was run by a small family team replied and said they would love to help fulfil my dream. I moved to the UK to be closer to production and ship those books out myself. In June 2020 Plannher was born. Since then 1,200 Plannhers have been sent around the world. I have 300 left.

    A few months ago I decided to go to a place I had never been to before. Africa. I was scared sad and uncertain about my decision.

    I was not ready.

    The day I left for Africa I let thick tears roll down my cheeks while sitting on the train to the airport. I went anyway. It gave me exactly what I needed: a contrast so strong and difficult that it gave me the deepest appreciation for the life I have. Now, I am so excited to make the most of it.

    I’ve noticed something interesting


    The very best things that have happened to me were the things I did when I wasn’t ready. The things that shook me and tore at me and made me feel the biggest feelings and pushed me and stretched me and scared me and lit a flame of hope in my heart and big dreams in my imagination


    Those things gave me the most, beyond my wildest dreams, even though


    I was not ready.

    Don’t hold back, waiting to be ready. It will never arrive.

    Even if you’re not ready.

     

    A follow-up to this was written a couple of months after the release of ‘not ready’ titled ‘not yet’. Read it here:

  • something will happen

    “The funny thing about those kinds of goats is that they easily get cold so the farmers have to wrap them up and make sure they stay warm.” “That’s like me!” I laughed. He smiled, eyes twinkling…

    “What were you going to do if hadn’t responded?” Rosie asked me sipping rosĂ© opposite me at a long wooden table outside a tiny bar in the golden September afternoon sun.

    She had been the one to return to my plea if anyone knew of any place I could rent next when I only had 10 days left in my sublet in London in August with an offer of her husband’s house to sublet in Margate.

    I snapped it up. I’d heard so much hype about Margate. Until I went and found out the hype was false.

    “Something would have happened,” I replied, smiling. Something always does.

    A week into my stay in Margate I knew the place was not for me. Although, in hindsight, I miss my daily long strolls alongside the wild Northern Sea. They were spectacular and raw. I don’t miss the constant headaches and tension I felt in my body from being in that place, however.

    I started looking for a new place to stay, somewhere between South London and the Sea. A friend of mine lived in Forest Row and started sending me every Facebook and WhatsApp post that advertised a one-bed, a studio or an annexe.

    “No cats!” “The place doesn’t actually have walls.” “Those dates don’t work.” “Not for people who work from home.”

    Weeks rolled past and our next home seemed elusive. In moments of despair, I tried other options. Staying in the spare room of a friend for a month. Putting my cat in the care of someplace else for a little while. And then I remembered.

    “Something will happen.”

    Then one day, an advertisement for a tiny cottage in Forest Row popped up, which I answered immediately, introducing myself, my situation, and what I was looking for. “I have a cat.” I wrote. Twice. Just to make sure.

    The landlady replied quickly. “You sound lovely. And your cat is most welcome! The only thing is, it’s only available until mid-December as my sister is coming to visit and I promised her the place then.”

    Happy, I agreed to a Zoom call to meet and get to know each other a little more. She gave me a virtual tour and we settled on a two-month sublet.

    As the last month began and winter began rolling in, my early morning jaunts to hot yoga were greeted with frost and endless days of rainfall, the cycle in my mind began again.

    I looked for sublets in Brighton and Hove, where I had lived before and some of my friends live, sad to leave the sheltered forest I currently call home. Nothing felt right. Nothing fell into place. Something else had to fall into place.

    “Maybe I am not meant to spend winter here?” I thought to myself. My dream has always, always been to leave for three or four months and live in this little magical corner of England for the rest of the year.

    “Something will happen” I decided.

    One day in late October, wrapped up in more layers than I would like, I met my friend Angela for coffee. “Are you staying here for winter or are you leaving?” she asked me. “Well
 I’ve been trying to find somewhere to stay here but nothing is falling into place,” I said with a disheartened expression. “Do you have any suggestions?”

    “I’m going to Africa for a month. South Africa, and Namibia, where I grew up,” she replied. “Why don’t you come?”

    “Really?!!”

    “Yes! Come.”

    I asked around if anyone would like to take my cat and my car from mid-December. One friend replied but she wasn’t able to until early January. Then, crickets


    “Something will happen” I hoped.

    A few days later my friend Chelsea friend replied. My cat and I had house-sat her and her husband’s home in Ely a few months earlier. “We can take Danger and your car!”

    Minutes later my landlady texted. “I love having you as a tenant. Would you like to continue the lease after my sister comes for Christmas?”

    Everything happened all at once. I had to decide.

    Sunshine and adventure won out and a few days later I replied to my landlady. “I love staying here so much but had made other arrangements as I thought it was only short-term based on our conversation. I’m going to Africa for three months but would love to return when I’m back in late March?”

    “Perfect” she agreed.

    On Saturday, I went to pick up some spring water from the spring that spouts out on a local farm. It had been so cold that night the water had frozen and it wasn’t running. Absently I decided to pick up a coffee at the farm shop instead to warm my freezing hands before I drove to visit a friend of mine.

    Already 30 minutes late I impatiently waited to order a cappuccino and handed the barista Nick my takeaway mug. Standing out in the cold waiting for him to make my coffee and steam the milk I heard a voice ask me “What is that top made of?”

    “Which top?” I replied wearing many layers that day. I peered up at a somewhat handsome middle-aged man wearing a grey hoodie.

    “The white one,” he pointed at my sweater under my sheepskin jacket. “It’s Angora,” I smiled. “Which I think is rabbit.”

    “I’m pretty sure Angora is a type of goat!” he countered.

    “Really?” I questioned.

    “The funny thing about those kinds of goats is that they easily get cold so the farmers have to wrap them up and make sure they stay warm.”

    “That’s like me!” I laughed. He smiled, eyes twinkling in good humour.

    “Where do they live? The goats? I’m assuming it’s not here in England!”

    “Well, some of them live in South Africa.” At that moment I clock that his accent has a slight South African flavour to it.

    “I’m going to South Africa. In two weeks! For three months.”

    “Where are you going to stay?”

    “I don’t know. First I’m going to Namibia with my friend. And then Cape Town I assume, based on what people have told me.”

    I showed him the list of recommendations I had been given that I had saved in my Notes app.

    “But you’ve never been? What are you going to do? You haven’t organised a place to stay? That’s brave
” he looked at me astounded.

    “I might book a night or two and then see
. that’s kind of my modus operandi. Something will happen”, I replied.

    “Let me give you some names and numbers. There’s a duchess I know, who lives right on the beach, she might have a room for you. How much time do you have?” He pulled out his phone.

    “I don’t! I already am late! But let me give you my number. V-i-e-n-d-a” I spelt out my name. Then my number.

    My cappuccino ready, I started dashing to my car. “It was so kismet to meet you! What’s your name?”

    “Andrew.”

    “Speak to you soon Andrew!”

  • a 28-step guide to heartbreak 💔

    You can seek validation that you are loveable from others your entire life, but it will never fill the gaping hole that tells you that you are unlovable and not enough.

    Last weekend I went to London to take care of my friend’s teenager while she was away on a work trip. The boy was still at school and my friend was already gone so I was met at the door by her lodger.

    Twenty-six — a singer-songwriter with wild dark curls, a childish figure and a thoughtful nature — she introduced herself as Victoria.

    “I’m Vienda”, I smiled in response kicking my shoes off and following her into the living room. We sat down and I politely asked her how she was.

    Without taking a breath she dove into a 40-minute detailing of her recent heartbreak.

    “I know, you are going through hell right now. You are sad, confused, angry, depressed, numb. You go from sad to angry then to numb and then a combination of them all. It is totally normal to feel what you are feeling and to even be confused about what you are feeling right now.”

    She continued sharing a verbal waterfall of thoughts and feelings to which I offered consoling sounds for a while, tears in her eyes, staring down at her shoelaces, unsure of what to do with herself.

    “I ended a relationship myself last week. It was only a short one but endings are never easy. Here’s what I know about healing heartbreak.”

    Inviting her for a walk around Hampstead Heath, a city-centre wilderness in the middle of London — a place that offered me solace in many of my own rock bottoms — I told her these truths.

    1. Two things can be true at the same time. You can love someone deeply, want to be with them and grieve them with every part of your being, and they still won’t be the right person for you. Your mind can’t make sense of this paradox, but your heart can.
    2. You have to give yourself the time you need to grieve. Grief comes in waves. It’s not linear. Don’t expect yourself to be ‘normal’ but also don’t lose yourself in wallowing.
    3. It hurts, I know. It really really really hurts. It is going to be like this for a bit but you will get better eventually. Be patient and kind with yourself.
    4. Love is a cocktail of brain chemicals. Dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, endorphin. It activates all of your happy chemicals at once. When a relationship ends you get cut off from all these happy chemicals. You go into withdrawal.
    5. It’s best to have no contact, at least for a few months. Delete their number, unfollow them on any social media accounts, and withdraw any connection you have to them, to give you space and time to heal.
    6. Listen to music that restores your wholeness. I made this playlist, especially for navigating my own heartaches and heartbreaks.
    7. It’s okay to be in shock and denial in the first few weeks but eventually, you will just have to accept it. It will be very hurtful to accept it, but you have to do it in order to get to the next healing stage. Accept what happened.
    8. Stop trying to figure out the ‘real’ reason for the breakup. You can analyse every conversation, every text, and every moment spent together. But you won’t find what you are looking for. Because the choices we make are emotional and not logical, they can’t be explained rationally.
    9. Don’t expect the other person to give you the closure you want. The only person that can give you closure is you. What does your heart tell you? Mystery solved. Remember, if you do reach out to them and try to get closure, no matter what they tell you it will never be enough. Closure is something you give yourself.
    10. Don’t blame yourself. Also, don’t blame them. It’s no one’s fault that it turned out that you are incompatible. Take responsibility for your part: your actions and choices; and learn from the lessons. Hand their actions and choices over to them (in your mind — don’t contact them to tell them so!).
    11. Remember that the way a person behaves when things are hard is exposing who they are. If they handle a breakup with kindness and care, the belief you had that they are a good person is correct. If they handle the breakup with unkind words and actions and are intentionally hurtful then they have a lot of growing and maturing to do.
    12. Rejection is protection and redirection. Even though it doesn’t feel like it right now, someone so much better is coming.
    13. Let go of any of their belongings and memorabilia. Holding onto vivid reminders of them does not let your wound heal properly. Getting rid of them signals your brain to let go. It’s a short-term sacrifice for a long-term gain. A lot of people report an immediate boost in mood after they purged the physical reminders.
    14. Develop a non-judgmental inner voice that is kind to you. Instead of beating yourself up with insults, talk to yourself kinder.
    15. Recognise this as an opportunity to reinvent yourself into the person you actually want to be. Find new interests. Meet new people. Read! READ! Increase your knowledge and unlock your full potential. Commit yourself to becoming a better person.
    16. Don’t avoid the parts of your life that you used to share to avoid the pain. Keep going to your favourite places and start making new memories in those places.
    17. Don’t sleep with strangers or do extreme and erratic things to avoid feeling the pain of loss and grief. Let the thoughts come. Cry. Weep. Be an emotional mess. Close your eyes and focus on the pain. Be with the body, don’t judge the pain. Just notice it. Keep noticing it, until it goes away. That is how you process your pain.
    18. At first, every waking moment of your day is filled with ruminating about your ex. This is totally normal. Try going for long walks in nature. Listen to mindfulness meditations. Take up visiting new places alone or with friends.
    19. A break-up is a very tumultuous time. When a relationship ends, we don’t just grieve for our ex. We grieve for every attachment trauma we ever endured in our lives. You won’t grieve for your ex alone, you will unconsciously end up grieving about all your attachment trauma. A good therapist or mentor can help you through that process.
    20. Feeling sad? Reach out to friends and family to vent. Sometimes just straight up tell them that you just want to vent and don’t want their advice. Your loved ones are here for you to utilize them. But do give them breaks from venting here and there. They are human and they sometimes can get tired of your break-up story.
    21. Rebuild your identity. Now is the best time to reclaim that part of yourself that you lost. It is also the best time to figure out who you are and what you truly want. If you always wanted to travel and live in some country for a few months but you couldn’t because you were in a committed relationship, now is the perfect opportunity to do so. You aren’t tethered by anyone, fly free.
    22. Move your body. Of course, heal in your own time, there is no timeline to grief. But eventually, start exercising regularly to pump your brain with all those feel-good chemicals. 15 to 30 min a day is a good start, hell even just 5 min is great. You can try yoga too if working out isn’t your thing. Becoming a bit sexier in the process is a pretty good bonus too.
    23. Write them letters, however many letters you want. Write whatever you want to write. Whatever you ever wanted to say to them. Go ahead and say it in the letter. Pour your heart out, leave nothing unsaid. Burn the letters. Every time you burn a letter, thank them and forgive them. Forgiving is not for them, it’s for your own healing. No matter what they did, you have to be able to forgive them eventually. In your own time! There is no time limit. Remember to forgive yourself too.
    24. In the first few months, you should journal every day to track your feelings thoughts and emotions. After a 3 or 6-month period read your early journal entries and compare them to your most recent journal entries and you will notice how much better you are doing. It will give you a much-needed boost to healing.
    25. Is there something you always wanted to do or be? Set some ambitious new goals for your life.
    26. Have fun, enjoy yourself, and slowly be open to meeting someone new. Take it slow and be weary of any early red flags. Trust your gut. Maybe you knew your ex was an alcoholic but still went out with him (like Victoria did). Don’t make the same mistakes you made last time. But if you want to stay single for a while, that is okay too.
    27. Heartbreak commonly shows symptoms of clinical depression. The antidote to this deep suffering is finding meaning in it. Find the meaning, the lessons and gifts of your suffering.
    28. You can seek validation that you are loveable from others your entire life, but it will never fill the gaping hole that tells you that you are unlovable and not enough. You have to develop a closeness and intimacy with yourself that closes that gap so that no matter what happens you will always have your back, because you love you, no matter what. Spend time cultivating the relationship you have with yourself so that any future heartbreak simply lands you back in the cushion of your own heart instead of torn to pieces across your inner emotional landscape.

  • the rules of reinvention

    Reinventing yourself is about how you carry yourself through a season of becoming while bridging the gap between fear and creating or doing what you’re called to.

    This morning I woke at 5.30 am — a time that I would much rather be sleeping peacefully, unlike some of those overachieving insta-people who like to boast about their 6 am ice baths — to meditate on a question that has been haunting me recently.

    What is next?

    I nuzzled in under the covers, having asked the universe for guidance and assistance and allowed the waves of connection to Source/Goddess/Energy roll through my body slowing down my breathing, smoothing over my nervous system.

    Slowly, softly, answers emerge.

    You are on your path.
    The next thing will come.
    Just not on your timeline.
    Be patient.

    It’s annoying. I want to know now. I’m in a self-inflicted cycle of uncertainty and my entire Being is trying to escape the discomfort of that.

    I have had to make peace with the fact that my life journey and path as a human is centred around reinvention. To not judge myself harshly for it. To softly acknowledge and accept it. To even celebrate it. One of the ways I’ve been able to do so is to understand it.

    If you’ve been journeying alongside me for a while, you will know I’m a master at reinvention.

    Life took me on an incredible healing journey in my early 20s while I was studying psychology and experimenting with various things. Then, struggling with the broad systematic approach to individual mental health, decided I didn’t want to become a psychologist. Instead, an opportunity to work as a contractor for music festivals arose and I spent 5 years sent to far-flung corners of the earth acting as an artist coordinator for large-scale events. It was a wonderful wild time. Soon, that life became tiring and no longer supported my growth so I stopped for a year and worked as an event coordinator for a dance school in London before heading to India and deepening my spiritual journey there. During this time I realised that our world didn’t have moulds that I could fit and that I’d have to create my own. Inspired by the ethical organic textile industry I created a small conscious clothing label called ‘etica & ella’ but quickly realised that while I had lots of creative ideas I knew nothing about marketing or running a business and disliked having to manage lots of stock. When that idea didn’t work I felt like a failure. It hurt my ego for two years during which I lived in Sydney and worked as a business manager for a small marketing firm, gathering as much knowledge and experience as I could to start my own business. Alongside that, I started a blog, which became the platform for the work that has supported me across the past decade. During the first few years, I travelled the most: a month in Portugal, three months in Amsterdam, four months across Central America, six months in the States, five months in London, four months in India, almost a year in Australia, nine months in New Zealand, six months travelling across south-east Asia. Then things slowed down. My partner and I at the time moved to Canada, where he was from. We tried to do the ‘settle down’ and ‘buy a house’ thing, but he and the life he was offering was not for me so I left. I moved to Mexico for two years. All the while, growing and teaching and offering my work to the world through my online business. With the addition of my stationary brand Plannher, I decided to come back to the Western world for a while to support the growth of that. And then the global panini happened. I had no choice but to stay and made the seaside town of Brighton in the UK my home for 18 months until I decided the winters were too cold for me and swapped it for Mallorca which was beautiful but confining, and returned to the UK five months ago. Since then, I have moved five times, trying to figure out what corner of the universe I belong in.

    That’s a lot of iterations of myself and the life I have lived. I have had to reinvent myself and recreate my perception of the world at every corner.

    I’m at these crossroads. I feel like I need to choose between 3 lives.

    1. The online entrepreneur life, selling programs and products and refining my sales funnels. 2. The corporate career life, getting a job with a company that aligns with my values. 3. Becoming a wayfarer, chasing the summer and beach life at low costs in other countries.

    As I feel in and consider each option, none delight me.

    I’m in a season of life where I’m considering my future. Who do I want to be? What kind of life do I want to have? What am I setting myself up for?

    I want it all. I want a beautiful home in Forest Row where I live right now. I want to teach and write and make art. I want a sense of community and belonging. I want to spend months at a time on wild unkempt beaches in less civilised places.

    My whimsical 20s have come and gone. What am I building the foundation for into my wise woman years?

    Maybe they’re questions I don’t need answers for but they are something I feel to consider now.

    I have a financially successful online business doing and creating things I love (alongside the less-loved administrative side of things) that’s offered me incredible location and financial freedom but it’s been increasingly lonely and the mental health impact of that is something I can no longer ignore.

    The corporate career world baffles me. I have this enormous skill set and range of experience that doesn’t fit into any of the boxes and when I look at the expectations of time and input vs wages
 36 hours per week in an office for £16 an hour! It’s a joke. My friends who know this world well tell me it is no more stable and secure than working for yourself.

    The drifting summer and sea-chasing life is one I adore, but it has limitations too. I enjoy it to the extent that I feel invested and involved in a place. I need to be anchored into my environment to feel at peace and unified with it. Community and connection are as important in this context as any other.

    Plus: I am tired of the pseudo-spiritual digital nomads that are all noise and little substance. They are not my people.

    All I have is questions and no answers at this point but it’s the discovery journey that I find brings the most unexpected solutions.

    What I do know is that all change in the universe is cyclical rather than linear as demonstrated by the highly scientific paradigm known as yin yang or polarity. Or ‘the medicine of opposites’ as I like to call it.

    Reinventing yourself is about how you carry yourself through a season of becoming while bridging the gap between fear and creating or doing what you’re called to.

    It is a balancing act between waiting to be shown and choosing your destination. And then finding the way there — weaving between working with energetics and taking action — to create the foundations and integrate with practical measures to witness the changes.

    If there’s one thing I know about reinvention, it’s this:

    Don’t rush life. Don’t chase superficial ideas of success over inner contentment and satisfaction. Don’t force yourself to do things for external validation. Too often people settle for things that don’t satisfy their wants and needs. Stop looking for the next new thing. Let the things meant for you find you. Your soul already knows and will guide you on your path if you get out of your way.

    When I began ruminating more deeply on ‘what is next?’ during a long walk in the woods this weekend I decided to share a little piece of those thoughts on Instagram. The conversations that ensured — the most potent parts of which I shared and saved in the highlights under ‘crossroads’ — were astounding. So many women are struggling.

    This world was not made for us. Or we were not made for this world.

    We don’t live life in a straight line.

    Life is a spiral: a series of cycles through which we are learning and growing.

    Renew is a practical insight offering practices and ways to navigate this cycle. A 5-part digital video and audio program that takes you through the renewal cycle. A gift for paid Substack subscribers.

    There are 5 phases to the renewal cycle.

    1. FLOW
    2. SPACE
    3. EDIT
    4. AWAKEN
    5. EXPAND

    The past few years have left an after-shock reverberating through us. The stress of not knowing what was happening and nothing making sense left most of us reeling and grappling for new coping habits.

    Now, at times we feel vulnerable, unsteady, stripped of our prior confidence and bravado. Not only in ourselves but in the world we live in. And yet
 we know…

    It’s time.

    For a reset
 to reinvent ourselves and our approach.

    We have an opportunity to recreate ourselves and our lives based on a whole new set of rules and values. We’ve grown matured, wisened, become more compassionate, de-armoured, sat with our trauma and felt it all so deeply.

    Renew is about becoming radically aligned with what gives you pleasure and makes you come alive in your life and the world. It is the process of teasing out what is most important for you.

    Download it here.

    Enjoy!

  • do you need that?

    There are 7 billion people on planet Earth. Seven billion ways to enjoy each other, to connect to spirit, to see colours, to succeed in life, to be happy.

    13 years ago, I went to India by myself, for the very first time.

    I packed a bag, filled it with what I thought I needed most: clothes, shoes, a couple of books, a notepad and journal, and my laptop, kissed my boyfriend goodbye and boarded a 9-hour flight to Delhi.

    I started in Goa — to soften the culture shock — where I spent three weeks acclimating, naval gazing and pondering the life I had lived so far.

    Then I wandered around the steaming backwaters of Kerala, climbed the tea plantations in Tamil Nadu, sat in meditation on the ancient ruins of Hampi (still one of my most precious memories of my entire life) in Karnataka, and did a 10-day silent retreat.

    Two months passed.

    Every day, I carried my bag of things from train to bus to hotel to yard to street to car etc. Across those two months, I noticed something unexpected.

    I did not use most of the things I thought I would need.

    Then I spent a week with two sisters who were famous wedding dress designers in Delhi. They let me stay in their apartment in a gated community and showed me India from their perspective. The world has as many faces as it has people.

    There are 7 billion people on planet Earth. Seven billion ways to live, to love, to work, to create, to exist.

    I asked them if I could leave the bag I was travelling with, with them, and they generously agreed. I wanted to try an experiment. I went through my things and with each item, I asked myself


    Do I need that?

    I ended up with a large handpainted sheet and a light sarong I had bought from a street seller, a cashmere blanket shawl, a handful of cosmetics: toothbrush and paste, a mini shampoo and conditioner in one, a face oil, some coconut oil for dry skin, a kohl pencil and mascara I had bought in a tiny shop crammed with too many things. Plus the five outfits I was wearing on repeat, seven knickers and a couple of bras, one pair of shoes, one book, my journal and a pen.

    No phone.

    Back then Nokia phones were still the mainstay and I had unintentionally left mine at the Vipassana centre in an ethereal trance after calling my boyfriend to tell him I no longer wanted to be together.

    Everything fitted into a school backpack I had picked up at a market a few days ago.

    I kept a small woven handbag with my purse, water bottle and snacks to the side.

    On the day I left for Rishikesh, I lifted my much smaller bag on my back, feeling light and unencumbered and said goodbye to the sisters.

    For the next two months, I travelled north India with only those things.

    They were the happiest two months of my life.

    I had everything.
    I needed nothing.
    There was no fear of loss because I had nothing to lose.

    Whenever I am unhappy now, I ask myself


    Do I need that?

    And let go of anything excess.

    I also ask myself


    Do I have to?
    Is it actually true?
    Could there be another way?
    What would happen if I just
 stopped?

    And act on the answers to shift my trajectory back to happiness.

    There are 7 billion people on planet Earth. Seven billion ways to enjoy each other, to connect to spirit, to see colours, to succeed in life, to be happy.

    The key, I think, is to keep asking these kinds of questions.

    To stay awake and curious, not complacent. It’s so easy to get lulled into the undertow of “what everybody else is doing.” (And what everybody else is “feeling” and “insisting” and “offering” and “saying.”)

    What about you?

    Is it true?
    Do you have to?
    Do you need that?
    Could there be another way?

    There usually is, if we open our eyes and minds to the possibility.

    There are 7 billion people on planet Earth. Seven billion ways to make money, to root yourself in nature, to move your body, to receive love, to market yourself, to be.

    You get to choose how you do it. And maybe show others the options they have for themselves.

    Love,

    Vienda

     

    P.S. Enrolment for The Mentor Training closes in exactly one week, on Tuesday 31st.

    Fun fact: most people who call themselves coaches are actually mentors! Here’s why.

    With The Mentor Training mentoring becomes a professional paid service, that isIICT-accredited for holistic practitioners, alternative therapies and leaders with unique and non-conventional skill sets and values who want an intuitive and practical framework to hold space for, lead and guide others.

    Enrol here, or book a final chat for me to answer all your questions this Thursday.

     

    P.P.S. A reminder:

    For all of us, our life is rooted in the principle that whatever hurts other people hurts us; that injustices experienced by others are also injustices experienced by us.

    None of us can truly be free and fulfilled unless we work toward the goal of ensuring everyone is free and fulfilled.

    These are not vague abstract ideals. They’re the central source of our soul’s code and how we organise our beliefs, emotions, and actions.

  • the medicine of opposites

    When we don’t have enough money, enough love, enough joy or pleasure… when our core needs are out of balance, what do we do?

    I spend a lot of time looking for ways to bring harmony and balance into my life. I can hold a greater capacity for more, bigger, beautiful, evolving and confronting experiences because I reach for the medicine of opposites.

    It’s a concept that originates in both Ayurveda, the principle that “everything can be medicine” and Traditional Chinese Medicine, the basic idea of the ‘yin- yang theory’.

    Ayurveda recognises that our daily choices and lifestyle habits have the potential to influence our overall balance and promote homeostasis. Like increases like, and opposites cancel each other out. It is natural to warm ourselves when it is cold, to moisturise our skin when it is dry, to eat cooling foods when we are hot, and to need more rest when we are stressed.

    TCM nods to the two natural, complementary and contradictory forces in our universe, the principle of opposite polarity and duality. The meaning of yin and yang is that the universe is governed by a cosmic duality, and sets off two opposing and complementing principles or cosmic energies that can be observed in nature. Yin and yang elements come in pairs. The moon and the sun, female and male, dark and bright, cold and hot, passive and active, and so on. It is believed that to be healthy, one needs to balance the yin and yang forces within one’s own body.

    This is not only true for our bodies.

    It’s true for our minds, thoughts and as a result life experiences as well.

    At its very core the medicine of opposites states that all is energy and all energy needs to be in balance to achieve well-being. The theory is all-inclusive, intuitive and seated in your own inner knowing.

    Everything has inherent qualities of polarity in its energy.

    The magnificent miracle of life is that we are essentially tiny oceans bound by skin somehow walking around having conversations, inventing smartphones, writing on the internet, reading memes and spending far too long watching cats do weird stuff.

    The water in our bodies is balanced out by the hardness of our bones. That’s the medicine of opposites at work. Otherwise, we would be highly sophisticated slugs.

    This medicine of opposites plays out in every sphere of life. We are living in a world of interdependence.

    Applying the medicine of opposites to our challenges, how do we intentionally harness this cosmic principle to bring about positive changes and in essence, more harmony in our lives?

    When we don’t have enough money, enough love, enough joy or pleasure, a sense of direction, stable health and wellness, a life that we adore, the perception of belonging, feeling connected to something larger than us
 when our core needs are out of balance, how do we find that balance again?

    We do the opposite.

    — When there’s something we want to avoid, we lean into it.

    — When we feel financial lack, we seek abundance in our lives.

    — When our intuition has abandoned us, we repair our connection with it.

    — When we want more of something, we find out where it already exists.

    — When creatively stuck, we don’t give up, we summon our inner muse.

    — When life feels like it’s ending, we recognise the cyclical nature of it.

    I teach the concept and application of the medicine of opposites in my work. It’s the primary principle of my approach in life. Life topics covering: money, creativity, intuition, manifesting, starting life all over again (renewal), and running a heart-led online business


  • moving and changing places

    I often receive questions about how I process and deal with a lot of moving and changing places. About how I do it with a cat in tow, how I navigate loneliness, what I do with my things, and more…

    As I begin this article I am sitting in a London-esque retro-replica cafe in Margate beside a row of freelancers tapping away on their keyboards to the left of me and mums with their toddlers to the right of me.

    Six days ago, never having been here before, I drove the two-and-a-half hours from Islington in central London to this coastline lapped up by the North Sea. It holds remanets of Viking violence, poverty and fear.

    I won’t stay long because the energy is too murky for me. Every morning I wake up here I find myself completely spaced out and like I am moving through an underwater world. It’s the most geographically, architecturally and energetically disjointed place I’ve ever been to.

    Yesterday on a walk it occurred to me that my body keeps trying to dissociate to avoid feeling the dense pain and suffering that has been imbued into this area over centuries.

    So I focus on what’s beautiful here.

    The wild beaches, the unexpected late summer heatwave, the occasional spontaneous free sauna by the sea, the tiny details that offer beauty.

    Some places are for me. Some places are not. I can never know until I’ve spent time in them.

    It’s all part of the current journey of discovery I am on to find the ‘perfect’ place to base myself for the next few years here in the UK.

    This journey has taken me from Mallorca in late May to a month in Nottinghamshire (not for me!), a month in Ely (adored it but maybe a bit quiet in the winter?), a month in central London (I will always and forever adore London but city life is not the season I’m in right now) to here, on the south-east coast.

    So I am looking for the next place and referring to my astrocartography for guidance. Ideally, I want to be between the blue line on the left and the red line on the right.

    I often receive questions about how I process and deal with a lot of moving and changing places. I have curated those questions into the following to answer them.

     

    How do you root yourself and deal with the fear of uncertainty?

    I have come to the conclusion that life is uncertain. And so, instead of resisting uncertainty, I’ve learned to embrace it. The more I lean into uncertainty — the more I give up my need to ‘know’ — the more opportunities, gifts, and unexpected solutions are revealed to me. Ultimately, giving up on feeling in control, offers me an abundance of life experiences that are far richer and more aligned than I would otherwise be met with.

    Having said that, I have spent 20 years cultivating practices that allow me to remain centred and secure or ‘rooted’ as the question poses. They include practising trust and relaxing into what is, getting plenty of rest, and knowing and honouring my boundaries. A non-negotiable is listening to the cues from the intelligence of my body and following them, no matter what. I don’t care much for others’ expectations of me. This allows me to make choices that are honest and in integrity with myself and my truth. Living like this means I never waver or am affected by the external. I’m strongly anchored deep within my being which remains a consistent and safe space.

    You might enjoy reading my 6 tips for dealing with uncertainty and this article about navigating uncertainty: so much can change in 20 seconds.

     

    How do you bring your nervous system to a place of arrival and security with frequent moves?

    I have little rituals that I begin and end my days with which means that my nervous system is harboured by the external changes within a container of familiarity. They are very simple, nothing exuberant or fancy but because I have done them for years and years they immediately make me feel safe.

    In the morning it’s:

    • meditate / feel into my body / listen while still in bed
    • take my retainers out (I wear one at night to keep my teeth from crowding) and wash them
    • wash my face with cold water
    • scrape my tongue with a copper ayurvedic tongue scraper
    • spray my face with lavender hydrosol
    • make a warm drink, often lemon water, lately red ginseng tea
    • roll out my mat to do some stretches/intuitive movement/dance

     

    In the evening it’s kind of the reverse:

    • wash my face and brush my teeth if I haven’t already
    • sometimes I give myself a face massage
    • simple skincare routine (lately: lavender hydrosol, FADED by Topicals, Heritage Store Rosewater Moisturiser)
    • get into bed, journal and review the day
    • write a ‘to-do’ list for the next day
    • feel into my body and notice anything that wants to be witnessed and felt before I go to sleep

    Having said that, I’m not militant about these. I am not militant about anything but I naturally gravitate back to them which makes me feel really good and grounded.

    I write more about these in my love list.

     

    What makes you feel at home in new places?

    I go and explore the nearby surroundings to get a lie of the land very quickly. It’s like I need to feel out my new environment to settle in and feel at home in the new place. I like to know where the closest nature is, where I can go for walks, cute cafes I can work in and the easiest place for me to get fresh produce and groceries. I’m a natural explorer so this part of ‘settling in’ is really fun for me. I love discovering new places and meeting new people.

     

    How do you process and handle the transitions of moving frequently without it feeling heard or heavy?

    It’s very much about mindset for me. I have chosen this way of life for this season of my life and so I choose it to be a joyful, playful, inquisitive and easeful experience for me. If I decided it felt too heavy or hard, I would stop. Every day we get to make a choice about how we live and perceive our lives. Every day I choose what feels fun, freeing and expansive for me.

     

    Do you ever worry about not having a safe, quiet space for the days that you need to retreat and rest?

    I am really sensitive to my environment and feel incredibly uncomfortable in spaces that don’t meet a standard of peace, beauty and calm so I intentionally choose and put out to the universe my standard of living. Therefore I am fortunate enough to always land in places to meet that. If I didn’t, I would very quickly make a new decision. For example, here in Margate, the apartment I am in is a delight and I feel so safe and peaceful and sleep so soundly, but the area itself is not a good fit so I am choosing to leave sooner rather than later.

     

    Do you have storage somewhere for furniture and winter clothes?

    Nope! I left a lot of things behind in Mallorca and am currently moving with everything I own: a big bag of winter clothes, a big bag of summer/transitional clothes, my toiletries, my cat and his backpack and litter tray, a 150-year-old morrocan rug that I can’t seem to let go of and 7 baskets filled with shoes and trinkets from my travels.

     

    How do you deal with your books? I find it hard to reduce my collection!

    I’ve stopped collecting books. I gave most of my recent collection away, and have 5 that I hold close with me and the rest I read and then pass along as I go. Once you let go of things you begin to realise how little you actually need.

     

    How do you manage loneliness and transient connections?

    This reminds me of the opening line of a poem by Brian Chalker. “People come into your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.” I truly believe that the relationships that are meant to stick, will. And the ones that aren’t, don’t. So I don’t worry about transient connections because on some level they’re all transitory.

    I have meaningful, intimate relationships with people that span across time and space in the strangest ways, and I am so grateful for every one of them. Some of them are with people I have only met for 5 minutes or a few hours or a couple of days. We leave each other long voice notes and share pieces of our hearts in unexpected moments. Some of them are with people I have shared large potions of places and times with. Any many of them we connect for the moments that we are in each other’s lives and then we let each other go. I find that some of the more toxic relationships are the ones that have lasted a long time based on mutual expectation and fear instead of being grounded in open-hearted integrity.

    That doesn’t mean I don’t get lonely. I do.

    But I have been far lonelier in a group of people that I felt disconnected from than alone, on my own.

    And because of that I have learned how to seek out my people and have discernment around who I spend time with.

     

    How do you build community and new friends in new places?

    I heavily rely on connections I have already made and ask them to connect me with others as well as happily and willingly go to events and have experiences that are new to me where I meet new people. I’m fortunate in that I have a worldwide community from travelling all of my life, plus the addition of having an online business that connects me to people everywhere I go which I think makes this piece easier.

    I speak to this question in my article 4 tips on how to find your people when you move to a new place and in this podcast interview and this one too.

     

    How do you keep living, like meeting new people, joining classes, etc., when you know you’re not going to stay?

    How does ‘not staying’ stop you from living and doing new things? For me, it encourages me to do so because otherwise, I would be floating about the world with nothing and no one to tether my experiences and existence to.

     

    You inspire me so much moving with your cat, Danger Zone! How do you manage to do it with such ease?

    It may look easy from the outside but I get a little bit stressed and anxious each time I move with him. He is such an angel of a being, he just accepts everything as it is. He’s such a teacher for me. Fortunately, unlike most cats, he is oriented to being close and connected to me as opposed to his environment, so as long as he gets all the affection and care he needs from me, he settles into every new place just fine. Together we have travelled through and lived in 6 countries now including lots of hotel stays (we lived in a 5-star hotel together for s month once!) aeroplanes, trains and cars.

  • everything I know about how to write…

    I learned from other writers and from writing for hundreds of hours. Here are 10 tips that have helped me become a better writer.

    I don’t know what I think until I write it down. — Joan Didion

    When I first read those words I finally understood why I write. It gives me pause. I need to be a witness to my life, my feelings and my processes. Unlike some, who move through life with a continuous external monologue, I internalise everything and have to allow it to move through my body, to my mind and then out of my fingers to make sense of it.

    At first, I only ever wrote for myself. Notebooks of blank pages that became illustrated by the stories, musings, heartbreaks, growth and challenges of my life.

    When I started travelling in my early 20s, before social media, I had a Hotmail email account and would collect email addresses from the people I connected with, sharing musings through the lens of my perspective in a group email to all my contacts every month.

    It was like the original Substack or newsletter.

    One day a man I had met on one of my trips to India who read those emails told me I should start a blog, an idea I resisted, at first, but then embraced. It was 2012 and what else was there to do on the internet?!

    At first, those articles were rough broad strokes of bland writing but with experimentation and practice, I slowly started to find a way to tell my stories.

    Here are 10 tips I have learned from prolific writers about writing.

    1. When you write, write to ONE person. Remember that on the other side of every screen, article, email, social media post or book, is just ONE person. Decide who they are, and write to them. I like to imagine I am writing to a close friend. Someone who knows me, that I can trust, and feel safe to be vulnerable and honest with. Because that’s what I want that ONE person on the other side of my writing to feel. That person is YOU.
    2. Be as micro-oriented and detailed as possible. Notice the difference between: ‘It is raining.’ and ‘The soggy smell of fresh rain on a warm summer evening is drifting up into the second-story window as I lay on my bed typing these words.’
    3. Brevity is beautiful. This means say as much as you can with the least amount of words and keep sentences radically simple. I often go back through my writing before I press send or publish and take out as much as I can, simplify as much as I can, with my focus on the message being potent and emotive.
    4. Start at the beginning, write what happened, what it looked like, how it felt, and keep going until you get to the end. Then go back and edit it for flow and fluency.
    5. Remember that the entire world hinges on storytelling. Don’t tell people what they should or shouldn’t do. Don’t explain your points. Tell your stories and allow those stories to speak for themselves. Your reader will take exactly what they need from that.
    6. Write often and write in various formats. I write every day. I journal for myself. I write business emails. I write poems. I write single-sentence prose saved in the notes app on my phone. I write idea lists. I write articles. I write stories. I write newsletters. Writing lends itself to more writing. If you want to write, write.
    7. Read. Read whatever you feel drawn to. Read whatever you enjoy reading. Not only will it expand your vocabulary and grammar but it will give you different perspectives on how to write. Some of my favourite examples of very different styles of writing that inspire me are ‘Circe’ by Madeleine Miller, ‘The Chronology of Water’ by Lidia Yuknavitch, and ‘Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World’ by Tyson Yunkaporta.
    8. Your life, your experiences and your unique perspective are fascinating. Don’t withhold that from the world. If there is something inside you that compels you to write, please, write. For all of us. Even if we never get to read it. Having your words drift into the ether of our cosmic universe is a gift in itself.
    9. There are no rules. You get to write in the way, the length, the prose, the rhythm and the style that feels most you, to you. That’s what is going to bring your gifts out of you. Just write in the way that it pours through you.
    10. You will not always love your writing. Keep writing anyway.

     

    Here are some of my best reading recommendations:

    — 5 fiction books that changed me

    — my summer 2021 ‘best of’ reading list

    — 9 books I read (+ loved) during lockdown

    — 8 ridiculously awesome + useful books + resources you will love

    — 5 latest books that have made me feel empowered, alive and vibrant

    Enjoy!

  • I need to remember what I am.

    It’s been two months since I left the tiny bubble of Mallorca and tore open my life for anything conceivable to enter. In that time a lot has happened.

    I woke up rolling amongst sheets and pillows this morning, my cat stretched out against my back in his feline slumber, a cool summer humidity hanging in the air. Last night I had promised myself to take an early morning walk around the village I call home for the last few days so I step out onto the aged hardwood floor and softly pad barefoot down into the kitchen to make warm lemon water, refill the cat bowl with food and open the back door to the garden.

    A whoosh of fresh sticky air from a night of opaque rain infuses the room as I fill the kettle with just enough water for my drink — a supposed energy-saving trick a friend of mine had shown me — and pour some filtered water and then hand-squeeze half a lemon into my thermos mug while I wait to fill the rest with hot water.

    Back upstairs with my mug, I wash my face and spray it with lavender hydrosol. The only thing that keeps my sensitive skin from flaring up in protest against the constant climate changes I render it to. A light cover of bb cream, mascara and blush later I continue sipping on my morning lemon concoction as I shimmy into an old pair of Levi’s that have been worn too loose from wearing and a soft grey men’s sweater and pick up my phone to go back downstairs to slip on brown loafers, pick up my basket with purse and keys waiting inside, coax my cat back in before locking the back door and depart from the front.

    It is a grey July day. Not so much summer as I know it but I appreciate the rainforest vibes of this green British isle while the world is burning in other parts.

    Morning walks before the world is fully alive bring about a different kind of peace. Ones that make my thoughts feel clearer and more certain than at other times.

    As I walk I remember the panic attack I had on the northern line tube in London this day a week ago.

    As soon as I stepped into that car I felt it. It was hot, the air stale and stifling. I could not, did not want to, breathe it in. The people around us, big and filling up all the space. My companion watches me freeze and recoil at my environment, panicked and unable to move or communicate. He asks me if I want to get off and I say “No, I just want to get there,” as I gasp for small pockets of air wishing I could hold my breath until I can come back up from underground. At our station, I rush out through the barriers focused on the open space and trees outside and cross the road without looking back. Finally free, I immediately burst into big, heavy, body-shaking sobs.

    Removed from the intensity of that moment on my walk I notice how sensitive my body is to subtle emotional changes and thoughts as they stream through my subconscious.

    On the surface level, my response was simply a small moment of claustrophobia, enhanced by the heat and crowds and the very strong coffee I had had earlier adding a backdrop of anxiety to my day. Deeper, it was a cosmic blend of fear, feeling out of control, overwhelm and grief bubbling over from within me that I could no longer hold in.

    It’s been two months since I left the tiny bubble of Mallorca and tore open my life for anything conceivable to enter. In that time a lot has happened.

    I have moved twice and am about to move a third time, my cat in tow. I met someone and am slowly falling in love. He has asked me to move to Bangkok with him on account of his work. Which I am willing to do. And with that, I am grieving: a) the end of a life that was entirely my own for the past few years; b) having to relocate my cat with a friend for some time and being parted from him; and c) feeling a lot of fear and loss of control because it’s all happened so fast. Meanwhile, continuing my work with private clients, my 4-week writing course, and my annual mentor training that is opening again for enrolments in September. It’s a lot.

    I stop to pick up a flat white and flirt with the cute barista at my favourite coffee shop, and then walk through town to pick up raspberries, strawberries and cherries at the market stall before heading down to the river.

    Change always takes a toll and I have a lot to integrate.

    Two people choosing to merge their lives to run parallel to each other is imperfect and messy. Each has their own set of habits and coping mechanisms. When emotions run high our uglier parts are revealed and it takes tremendous courage, compassion, respect and patience to hold space for one another. Relationships are enriching and challenging.

    I walk past the narrow boats and then take a sharp right up the hill back to the cathedral that dates back to 600 A.D. and a gothic time of medieval mystery.

    I know everything will turn out exactly as it must. I need to get out of my way and let go of the illusionary notion that I am in any way in control. I need to breathe space and trust into what is happening and remember that I asked for all of this in my dreams and prayers. I need to remember what I am.

    The universe expressing itself through the kismet life form that I am.

  • let go of control: body leads, mind follows

    I have intentionally reduced my commitments over the past few months to allow life in, in a way it hadn’t been before. There’s a cost to this though — lost productivity, lost progress, lost income.

    I’m sitting with my back cushioned against the headboard of the bed I call my own for this month. When I left Mallorca I chose a life that would exist in a state of flux for a while. The first 5 weeks in a small village in the north of England, now a month in a market town in the mid-East, then a month in London, and after that, possibly Asia.

    Still in my pyjamas at 4.30 in the afternoon, I am getting to the business of my work: emails, admin, articles
 finding my flow amongst the tasks that tether me to the physical world more than anything else. I enjoy the familiarity and comfort of it.

    Yet


    The truth is I haven’t felt much like working for a long time now.

    Since April I find myself a season of life that is asking me to allow rejuvenation by ‘not doing’. Some seasons are imbued with unparalleled productivity and abundance and some seasons are fallow.

    I have intentionally reduced my commitments over the past few months to allow life in, in a way it hadn’t been before. There’s a cost to this though — lost productivity, lost progress, lost income.

    I have this feeling that maybe this season of not knowing how life is supposed to look like is a fragile invitation to discover how life wants to be lived.

    People talk about thriving inside a busy life. I don’t want a busy life. I want a slow life. I want an empty life. I want a life that I can fill with ordinary passing-by moments that only I can witness. A squirt of lemon juice fired in the wrong direction. A single butterfly seeking shelter in a bougainvillaea. A patch of grass, soft and cool, under my feet. I want a life that is pregnant with stillness.

    So
 I have let go of control: body leads, mind follows.

    I act from the advocacy of my body’s wisdom and while systems are necessary and valuable, at times they get in the way of what wants to land.

    Even the structures I used to pin my productivity on have fallen away.

    Binding my tasks to the energy of the days of the week which I infused into my Plannher stationery brand has naturally dissolved, for now. Showing up to specific timelines and time zones is relaxed and limited until I find a new flow. I pay attention to my cycle and endeavour to have fewer commitments around my menses and am more available for social and travel engagements around ovulation. And that is it.

    There is very little planning happening in my life right now.

    I am allowing life to move me.

    It is an enormous privilege to be able to do so.

    It is a privilege to be able to disentangle myself from the hyper-productive capitalist world we live in and to be able to take a step out of that. To surrender and wait and hold out for where life is wanting me to go.

    It takes courage and determination and trust and willingness to let go.

    It is clear to me that the more controlled life is, the less it is actually in control. The more out of control we feel the more appealing the illusion of control becomes. That the way to gain control is to let go of control.

    Allowing ourselves to let go isn’t a revolutionary solution to everything that ails us. Instead, it is a process and a practice.

    To let go is to let life wash over us. To let it redirect us and renegotiate the timelines that we exist on, to teach us things we otherwise could not see. Things, feelings and experiences we cannot access when life is tightly contained and managed.

    Letting go of control — letting your body lead and mind follow — is about opening up space. It’s about allowing another dimension of life to open up for us to slip into.

  • where have all the grown-ups gone?

    Maybe protracted adolescence is the anxious state of millennial life.

     

    “I hate it when people call me on the phone,” I say between bites of a cheeseburger I had pulled the top off, sitting on a wooden bench outside a British pub opposite a good friend. It was a warm early summer’s eve and we had slipped out to have ‘girl time’ while baby and baby-daddy stayed at home. She nodded in agreement, laughing, the bubbles in her champagne uplifting spirits.

    “Sometimes the calls are from people I actually want to hear from and I still avoid them. And then have to call them back.”

    She giggles. “It reminds me of this meme I watched about how different generations open the door. The millennials are the only ones who want to crawl away and hide.”

    “That actually makes me think of this tongue-in-cheek article I read about how the ’90s was the best time to be alive and someone in the comment section added that they felt like there are no grownups left anymore.”

    “Right?! Who is coming to handle things and sort this world out?!!” We laugh.

    But it’s something I can’t stop thinking about and talking to anyone who is willing to. Where have all the grown-ups gone?

    On one side we have shrugged off many of the markers that have traditionally defined adulthood. Owning a home, a car, having children, staying in the same company and progressing through it over a long period of time
 This may be due to constrained monetary realities but, more broadly, there’s an attitudinal sea change evident here.

    Even those of us who do eventually have any and all of the above continue to focus on things unseemly in previous generations like prioritising lifestyle and living in the present and determinedly throwing ourselves into our passions and turning them into “dream jobs” at the cost of said markers.

    We are stressed and confused but we are also very interested in the social justice system, a stronger healthcare system, the environment
 all those things have pulled us to the traditional political left.

    Politically millennials aren’t moving to the ‘right’ and to a more conservative mindset as is common with age. That’s just not happening for us. Partly because we are not acquiring those markers but also because we are just not thinking with that conservative mindset which could be seen as not thinking in a very ‘adult’ way.

    This disinclination to grow up is reinforced by popular culture and technology. Our millennial lives aren’t stacked with a lot of adulthood or the perception of being adults. We didn’t change our behaviour at all when we moved into a much more adult stage of life marked by something like having a child or buying a house. We keep living the way we did in our 20s but will bring our kids along. We are able to devote our attention and income to self-improvement and self-indulgence almost exclusively.

    In that conversation in the setting summer sun outside over burgers, I brought up the idea of how the loss of ‘the village’ meant that we were never initiated into adulthood because we were not tied into those kinship and tribal systems that previous generations were.

    Our parents became unstuck from the village but they still had remnants of that experience remaining and remembered models of that. Then we failed to grow up because the ones who were supposed to show us how did not. They did not know how to or that they had to or were not there.

    As adolescents, we entered a globalised world and often moved away and travelled for various reasons which meant that the village is now gone and we don’t have any memory of it.

    Perhaps we could argue that if you destroy or abandon the village adulthood becomes untethered as well.

    We imagine a world where no one is in charge and no one necessarily knows what’s going on, where identities are in perpetual flux.

    The world is our playground, without an adult in sight. And we’re largely okay with that.

  • wave after wave after wave…

    how to pull yourself out of depression, grief and other dark places…

    Wave after wave it hits. The feeling of slipping beneath the surface. It can feel like no amount of struggle lessens the power of those waves. Wave after wave after wave after wave. No reprieve, no relief, no peace. you’re just being pummeled by these waves of emotions bigger than a human body can contain. Grief, depression, long anxiety


    Then with time, the waves are still there, but each wave is accompanied by several minutes of peace before the next wave. A little more time to breathe and be. The desperate sense of slipping under is replaced by a feeling of still being submerged, but no longer having to endure the grapple for a breath between each wave.

    Ultimately, the waves never go away. But the space of time in between each wave gets longer and longer. Eventually you go a whole day before another wave hits. Then a week. Then a month. Eventually it’s a whole year

    And maybe you feel a big wave of those familiar feelings that might haunt you on an anniversary of that loss, or the when you first started feeling this way before being okay for another year until another wave hits.

    Depression, grief and other dark places move through us like waves. When you have a really, really significant loss in your life it’s never over.

    You carry that with you forever. But the waves get farther and farther and farther apart as you grow and heal and grow into your new life. Being really honest about that is really comforting to know.

    And then in that new space that all that depression and grief has carved out of your soul opens up for beautiful things that weren’t available to you before

    Every single journey is different, but there are some life changes and circumstances that feel like a death of the life that you had, an identity, a future, a world view even.

    You don’t have to be okay. Until your ready. It takes as long as it takes to consolidate.

    Still
 how to pull yourself out of depression, grief and other dark places?

    “Life is a whole journey of meeting your edge again and again. That’s where, if you’re a person who wants to live, you start to ask yourself questions like, “Now, why am I so scared? What is it that I don’t want to see? Why can’t I go any further than this?” — Pema Chödrön

    I’ve always felt things very deeply. It’s a sensitivity that I cherish yet in the most difficult moments resist. This feeling of going under, head barely above the water, treading lightly, where everything hurts


    There have been times in my life where I have fallen into a depression in response to the world, my experiences and and perceptions of it. One of those times has been recent. Life isn’t all good at all times. But the depth of feeling gives me a breadth of compassion that extends beyond the superficial and that’s where the beauty and true kindness lies.

    When I talk to my therapist about being depressed and not wanting to be anymore he says things like:

    “This is what you do. You try. You do everything in your power to feel better. At first these attempts may be feeble, seemingly pointless. You accept and love yourself for drinking water and eating nourishment that day, for talking to a friend for ten minutes, for taking that shower, for working out, whatever small accomplishment you managed. You stop comparing yourself to what everyone else is doing and love yourself for making an effort. You stop insisting you need to be a certain way and support and encourage yourself for whatever steps you can do, and you try to see beauty in it.”

    He is very pragmatic.

    The thing is, I can do all the ‘right’ things. I make my bed each morning and exercise and wash and eat well and take care of my emotions and my mind. I understand that these small and simple gestures are necessary and meaningful.

    Maybe I’m a high-functioning depressive. Maybe I’ve just learned to love myself enough to treat myself like I would a child taking myself through the motions of what I know is good for me even when I feel completely disconnected and apathetic to it

    Here is what actually helps me pull myself out of depression, grief and other dark places…

    Deeply engaging with nothing but what is present for me in each moment. It means focusing my full attention and being fully conscious of what I am doing each moment, like making my bed. That kind of focus leaves no room for the noise of internal dialogue and in that moment gives me a sense of stillness and peace.

    Allowing depression, grief and other dark emotional journeys to happen to me. When I am willing to see them as a gift, and allow them the space to move through me without resistance
 When I feel them all the way through, even if sometimes they last for a year or more
 At the other end they open up a space for something significant that wasn’t there before. That couldn’t have existed within me or my life prior to the painful inner journey.

    Noticing what in my life is causing this deep sense of loss and disconnection from life. This been a really interesting… I have been taking some time off work and unpacking, around hustle culture and productivity, toxic productivity and productivity addiction and worthiness being attached to busyness, and how all that is connected to money as well.

    I keep circling back to the fact that we live in a sick society that values superficial things which causes a disconnect.

    “Illness in this society, physical or mental, they are not abnormalities. They are normal responses to an abnormal culture. This culture is abnormal when it comes to real human needs. And.. it is in the nature of the system to be abnormal, because if we had a society geared to meet human needs.. would we be destroying the Earth through climate change? Would we be putting an extra burden on certain minority people? Would we be selling people a lot of goods that they don’t need, and, in fact, are harmful for them? Would there be mass industries based on manufacturing, designing and mass-marketing toxic food to people?

    So we do all that for the sake of profit. That’s insanity. It is not insanity from the point of view of profit, but it is insanity from the point of view of human need. And so, in so many ways this culture denies and even runs against counter to human needs. When you mentioned trauma.. given how important trauma is in human life and what an impact it has.. why have we ignored it for so long? Because that denial of reality is built in into this system. It keeps the system alive. So it is not a mistake, it is a design issue. Not that anybody consciously designed it, but that’s just how the system survives.” — Gabor MatĂ©

    I’ve been on a journey of trying to integrate a way of living that is inclusive to meeting my human emotional, spiritual and physical needs alongside supporting myself financially.

    I’ve had to face my fear of running out of money and replacing it with the reality that I am capable of earning more money whenever I want to, or need to and that I will always be supported in my endeavours. That I don’t have to compromise my needs and values for money.

    At times I may choose not to exercise my capacity to makes money. I may that it’s not my priority for periods of time and that is okay. And that whenever I want to turn on the money faucet, I have that capacity.

    Understanding that has been a huge revelatory attitude shift and so empowering, and something that spills over into other areas of life, not just financial, that realisation that “If I really want to or need to, I can. There’s always a way.”

    Taking uncomfortable and unconventional risks. I just left a beautiful island in the Mediterranean and a cute 1-bedroom flat overlooking the sea for a greyer, colder country. Intellectually it makes no sense I had a good life in Mallorca but my entire body couldn’t settle there. I was always anxious. I couldn’t relax. I kept asking the universe in my personal form of prayer to show me where I needed to be. Then at the start of the year a whole domino effect of events guided me to leave the island and return to the United Kingdom. I could have ignored the signs but I chose to listen and take that risk even though it makes no sense. It’s still to early to tell but I already feel much more at peace, safe and see the dials of momentum and opportunities ticking up for me in a whole new way.

    Let it happen.

    Let the depression, grief and other dark feelings swallow you whole and chew you up and spit you out.

    Because on the other side of this is always a new version of you a life that wants to be lived. New things that yearn for your love.

    You can’t get to them without going through it all.

    This is the art of life.

  • go, do, eat guide: Mallorca

    go, do, eat guide: Mallorca

    Folklore tells us that in Mallorca the majority of the population lived in the country, from the country and mostly in poverty. Agricultural land was the most prized possession which was located mostly inland away from the more barren, rocky sea-side.

    As is common in patriarchal culture, the most productive and fertile land was handed down from father to eldest son(s) and the least desirable land was inherited by the lesser members of the family, the women.

    Until the 1950s came around Mallorca when became a luxury destination with stars such as Liza Minelli and Frank Sinatra who came and stayed at the Grand Hotel in Palma and went to Palma’s finest club, Tito’s.

    Across the next 10 years, the island experienced a transformation of epic proportions with 360,000 tourists visiting the “Isla de la Calma” — the island of tranquillity — and the once undesirable land underwent a building boom to house these visitors.

    The women suddenly became rich, while their older brothers continued their agricultural struggle inland. A great discord began between families. One that continues to rival siblings to this day.

    I was based in the southeast, San Augustine (or Sant Agusti in Catalan) a short 15-minute drive outside of Palma. Just far enough out of the city to feel peaceful and close enough to the sea to be in that turquoise body of water within a 5-minute walk.

    When people ask me for tips on places to go when they come to Mallorca, which is often, I can tell you the places I have most enjoyed. And some I will keep to myself because not everything is for everyone and some things need to remain sacred and secret.

    Let me add
 if you want to go anywhere outside of Palma, you will need a car.

     

    GO: My favourite places to visit.

    Sant Elm (also known as San Telmo in Spanish) is a charming coastal village in the far southwest corner of Mallorca. Mostly abandoned by locals, it is inhabited mainly by tourists and vacation homeowners.

    The Sant Elm to La Trapa hike is one of the best coastal trails in Mallorca. Along the way, you’ll enjoy breathtaking views of Sa Dragonera (Isla Dragonera) and the Tramuntana Mountains.

    Valldemossa is a village steeped in old-world charm that lies in an idyllic valley in the midst of the Tramuntana mountains.

    DeiĂ  is an idyllic village of green-shuttered, honey-coloured houses that has become a millionaires’ hideaway in the shadow of the Teix mountain, part of the Tramuntana mountain range. Although it could have been just another pretty Mallorcan village in the west of Mallorca had Robert Graves not decided to make it his home…

    Fun fact: The English poet and novelist first moved here in 1932 with his mistress Laura Riding and returned in 1946 with his second wife. Muses followed, friends came to stay and, before long, Deia had established a reputation as a foreign artists’ colony. However, Graves was hardly the first to discover DeiĂ , an 1878 guidebook noted its “collection of strange and eccentric foreigners” and it has stayed that way ever since.

    Pollença in the north of the island is an ancient town of attractive narrow streets and an impressive main square, lined with cafés, restaurants and bars. It also boasts a larger and very busy market on Saturdays.

    Costitx is a sleepy little village located in Mallorca’s rural es Pla region, in the heart of the island. It has its own Natural Science Museum and beautiful sights worth a visit.

    Santanyí is a historic rural town famous for its gold-stone architecture. It’s charming, with quaint cobbled streets, and a majestic church and appeals to most for its slow pace of life. Market days are on Wednesdays and Saturdays and are the best day to come and soak up the atmosphere, as locals (mostly Germans) come out in full force to buy local produce.

    Botanicactus is one of Europe’s largest botanical gardens, with bamboo and palm trees and dozens of varieties of cacti. These gardens were opened in 1989 in Ses Salines because of the scarcity of rain in the area. The centre of the garden is full of cacti, surrounded by Mediterranean species.

     

    & SWIM:

    Cala DeiĂ  is a tiny, cove beach just outside of the much-loved mountain village of Deia, in the heart of the Tramuntana mountains in the northwest of Mallorca.

    Bugambilia is a beautiful small beach with a restaurant that serves excellent paella, where the owner and staff treat everyone as family.

    Illetes Beach Club is a beach I walk across to get to the next one on my list but sometimes stop for a smoothie. It is beautiful but feels pretty built up and touristic.

    Cala Comtesa is the beach I go to most as I find it the wildest and most beautiful close to home. It also has a restaurant with decent food.

    Es Trenc is magical and there is also a super cute beach shack/magic forest right next to it which is amazing after the beach.

    Cala Lombards a stunning cove beach in the southeast of Mallorca, near the small village, Es Llombards.

    Cala s’Almonia is a beautiful inlet with limestone walls and turquoise water. No sandy beaches, but a stunning area for swimming.

     

    DO: The most fun things to do.

    Sa Fonda: in Deia, and across the island, these famous summer parties attract everyone from boho people to celebs.

    Flea Markets: Mercadet de Segona Mà in Plaça de Porta Santa Catalina-Palma every second Saturday of the month, Consell Flea Market on Sundays (the best!) & Mercadillo de Son Bugadelles on Saturdays.

    Vintage Stores in Palma:

    De Tu A Mi

    UNICO Vintage Store

    Rita’s House Of Vintage

    Secondhand First Brand

    Seattle Vintage Store

    My Michelle Vintage

    La Simo

    Festivals: Mallorca Live Music Festival, & all the local festivals in each season.

     

    EAT: The best places to eat in Palma.

    Zaranda

    Ramen Otaku

    Surry Hills Coffee

    Taqueria Manataco

    Tiki Taco Palma

    Mistral Coffee House

    Temple Natura Café Garden

    La Molienda Bisbe

    NU Market & Coffee

    Mama Carmens

    IZAKAYA

    MestĂ­s

    Boski

     

    The truth is, I never fell in love with Mallorca.

    There are places that light you up and make your soul come alive. And there are places like this one, that are beautiful on the surface. But lack substance.

    I found things to love about it. I adored the nature and the sea and felt connected to the land. I was fortunate enough to meet and be a part of an eclectic community. But if it weren’t for the people I befriended, I would have left after my first 6 months.

    Mallorca is a very transitional place that is overflowing with tourists. In the height of summer, the energy becomes frenetic from people landing and leaving.

    People — often starved of sun, relaxation and connection — come to devour as much of everything that is missing in their lives. Which leaves this island feeling depleted and devoid of soul and essence.

     

  • shoulder to shoulder with friends and strangers

    I have one month left on this island and after that, the story is yet unwritten.

    I untie my espadrilles from around my ankles and tie them to a tree. My feet dig into the sand/soil/pine-needle ground and I let myself sway and roll to the rhythm of the beat that the DJ is enchanting us with.

    A man I dated for 5 minutes last summer comes charging at me with determination. He holds my shoulder tenderly and kisses me on both cheeks with an intimate “Que tal?” whispered into my ear before wandering off like a lost soul.

    In that moment I catch a flash of a different life, a different story that could have turned into. There is a stretch of unknown rolling between each music track lingering with potential gyrations and side-stepping. Feet grinding into the ground.

    I find another barefooted being and touch his toes with mine in camaraderie. We smile at each other and high-five before returning to our dance floor stations shoulder to shoulder with friends and strangers.

    I have one month left on this island and after that, the story is yet unwritten. A cacophony of possibilities, undreamt dreams, unseen connections. I can’t think too much of the future because it brings me waves of sadness and uncertainty.

    Instead, I hold a steady gaze on the here and now. The only thing that can save me until the next wave of life comes.

    Too much has happened in too short a time that has brought me to my knees and I am afraid of my own vulnerability. So ready to falter. I have had to let life break me all the way through these past few years. And from the fragments and shattered parts, I will rebuild a life that holds more of me.

    I am still very much in existential crisis mode. I am simply trying to get through each day with as much kindness and care as I can. I really yearn for life to make sense and hold meaning and feel like I belong somewhere or a part of something.

    The only thing holding me together in some way in my writing and hope in my heart that one day soon the future will unfold with promises that are more fulfilling and brighter than the past.

    I keep dreaming of lands, tropical and lush, swollen with heat and humidity, free from glorified ambitions and Western ideas of gentrification. I don’t know. I don’t know.

    There is no perfect one place. I will always be torn by the many parts of me. Am I just trying to escape a world that has become more unfamiliar to me year by year?

    It is strange to me to have existed in such a beautiful setting whilst being grief-stricken and under psychological duress for the majority of my time here. The past 18 months have been amongst the small handful of deeply difficult times in my life.

    I have always felt life too deeply and had depressive phases and seasons, but none like this. I wonder if this sense of caged heart and mind will stay here when I leave or will accompany me on my journey onward.

    I hope the former and fear the latter.

    Either way, I have learned to welcome and accept all that is.

    One day it will make sense.

  • inside my closet…

    It takes more than 200 years for a t-shirt to decompose in a landfill.

    That same t-shirt was grown in a field and then passed through a minimum of 24 people’s hands, over 13 stops spanning 3-5 countries, sometimes on 3 different continents to go from farm to closet.

    We live in a culture that values speed in all things — instant payment, lightning-fast downloading and streaming, same-day free shipping, tap-post-click-swipe, and immediate gratification.

    When something doesn’t happen immediately, we often shrug and decide “it’s not meant to be” and give up. In our feverish pursuits, we forget what it takes to bring all our material possessions into being.

    Many years ago — out of necessity — I decided to embrace the capsule wardrobe philosophy because I was living my life out of a suitcase.

    Stuffing our closets with fast fashion isn’t just harmful to the planet, it’s a lot of work. Hence the emergence of the capsule wardrobe, the philosophy of paring down our clothes to a few key pieces that all work together. Forever.

    It works because most of us spend 90 per cent of our time wearing 10 per cent of our clothes.

    My approach isn’t perfect. I’m no saint nor immaculate in my purchases. But I strive to do better for myself and the world, in the best ways I know how, every day.

    This is how I sustainably curate the wardrobe of my dreams.

    1. I get clear on my style by developing a ‘style guide’ for myself for the season or year ahead. I have one mapped out in my Plannher. This gives me the vision and direction that I filter all my clothing investments through.
    2. I ‘shop my closet’ before I buy anything and only then make purchases based on ‘missing pieces’ that will carry me through many seasons. I don’t go shopping because I’m bored or lonely or feel like I should. I don’t go clothes shopping much at all, and when I do, I do it 90 per cent online.
    3. My favourite place to buy clothes is second-hand on Vinted. The way I find the perfect pieces is by knowing what brands I know and love and searching those brands by size from time to time to find those beautiful, essential investment pieces.
    4. The brands I search for the most include Doén, Christy Dawn, Spell & the Gypsy Collective, Sézane, Rouje, Tigerlily, Faithfull The Brand, Chasing Unicorns, Lack Of Color, Zadig & Voltaire, Reformation, Maurie & Eve, Loewe

    5. My special, unique pieces and jewellery either come from local designers when I occasionally pass through their shops and pop-ups or from Etsy, where I know my purchase is directly supporting a maker. I don’t have a favourite Etsy shop but rather go in with a specific vision in mind and search until I can find someone who can make it for me. I recently had some beautiful gold handmade pieces made for my birthday by the lovely Ieva from Dzerve Jewellery here in Mallorca. I also had a couple of silk slips made by Tu Anh Nguyen from Lela Silk on Etsy.
    6. I buy active wear from Free People. Yes, I know that they are not the most sustainable brand. But the quality is good, I wear their pieces for years and the cuts suit me so at a pay-per-wear level they make the most sense for me
    7. Most of my underwear comes from French niche brands like Le Petit Trout, YsĂ©, Noo Paris and Icone. I love delicate, lacy bralettes and panties to give me a ‘put-together’ feel no matter what I’m wearing over the top. My girlfriends are often more excited about my lingerie than the rare man that gets to strip them off me.

     

    Buying and wearing clothes in a sustainable, conscious and intentional way has had a ripple effect across all of my life.

    It has taught me that the things we treasure hold more value, that being resourceful with what you have makes looking and feeling good now more important than waiting to look and feel good in the future when you have that coveted piece that you don’t need, and that not everything needs to be fast.

    Sometimes, the best things move slow.