The turning point

I’m going to talk about a time that felt like a turning point for me. I’ve mentioned this before in previous blogs, but I never really fully zoomed into the specific moment in my life.

It can take quite some reflecting and talking to different people in different places under different circumstances to realise something small caused a major shift, without realising it. And what impact it has made on your life.

I know this all sounds pretty vague now, but bear with me.

In one of my most recent blogs, “Back to basic” I’ve already touched on this subject. You can read it here in case you haven’t yet and you’re curious.

In this blog I talked about my time in New Zealand after having ended up in a sort of identity crisis during my travels in the months prior. It zooms in on how I hadn’t been feeling like myself for a while and after 6 weeks of spending on my own, I felt more and more like myself again and I found my internal compass again, which pointed me into the right direction.

That direction was moving overseas again to start studying in Australia. Intuitively, I knew this was the direction I had to go in. And lucky for me, I had 6 weeks of quiet time to actually listen to my intuition mindfully and act on it with care and patience.

I was well on my way of figuring my life out and getting ready to get back out in the world again, but I was also “stuck” in my hometown, living with my parents, and working my ass off at my old workplace. It all was pretty contradictive since I knew that I was working towards a major life goal, but at the same time I felt like I was taking 10 steps back. I was happy to do it, I am so grateful for all the chances I got to realise my dream and especially the quality time and good conversations I had with my family and friends during those 3 months, but it was a lot too.

And during this last European summer (at least for a while), I read a book. A book my mom gave me after having a few of our “morning talks”, a routine we developed while I was living there where we went into deep and meaningful conversations over breakfast. The book is called “The Night the Stars Danced”, and it’s a book where the author draws a parallel between the present day where societal parameters control most people’s lives and a time roughly 1000 years ago where a group of people lived together in harmony in a little village in France while it was the church that was threatening there peaceful and harmonious life. The main character in the book is mentally connected to a woman who lived in 1145 and only by opening up his mind to it, he was able to reach her.

Book: The Night the Stars Danced

After reading the book, I felt strangely connected and almost envious of the people living in that little village in France, even though I also knew they didn’t have a happy ending (apologies for the spoiler). They just chose to not live in fear, trust in love and humanity, and live off what the land gave them without manipulating it.

And it took a while before I realised why this resonated with me so much. It’s because I wish I was living in that little village in the south of France in 1145.

It felt surprisingly comforting imagining a life where days were spent quiet and peacefully and existed of walking through nature, fishing in the river, picking herbs, spending time with loved ones in a simple 1-room house, buying fresh bread at the only bakery in town, drinking tea, and just live off the land. Thinking about how life isn’t directed by ego, but by love and respect towards each other and the earth. The matter of course that people respect one and other instead of trying to win at life and compare and consume just to get ahead made me feel enlightened and in a strange way, understood.

I remember telling a friend a while after having read it, I don’t remember which friend, that I would just love to live back in those days but with my e-reader, laptop, and phone. Which doesn’t make sense, I know. But I will also explain why:

1. My e-reader: because it saves a lot of weight on my back carrying around my e-reader.

2. My laptop: because I love writing a lot and my wrist starts hurting after a while writing with a pen on paper.

3. My phone: this is a tricky one. It’s not for social media or access to my inbox, but I do like the idea of having a digital calendar and structure.

And these are also the 3 items that are always in my backpack which I carry around everywhere I go and also the basics of my backpack while travelling.

And the funny thing is, all of those things can also easily be replaced by non-digital things again over time.

What I learned over the past years, is that there is just no point in going from 0 to 100 when you try to change your lifestyle. There just isn’t.

But by taking away one thing that’s been holding you back to get to the next goal and it feels right, I promise you, you won’t miss it so much, if you even miss it at all.

Practical example:

I’ve always been a big drinker. My friends (whom I’ve met me during my drinking days) and family can confirm. I couldn’t really go anywhere without the anxious feeling in my tummy wondering whether there was going to be alcohol and if we could all have a great and drunken time.

It took me a couple of years of trying to cut back, going into a major binge drink, and having to recover for a few days (up to a full week sometimes) feeling all the guilt and shame I would always feel until I decided it was enough. So, I took a big break and it felt like a relief.

And I’m not saying everyone should be able to do this quite so easily, not at all. In my case, it also wasn’t an addiction where my body became dependent on it, it was more of a mental blockage I had to work through.

But as soon as I stopped and enjoyed waking up every EVERY single morning, the need for it just disappeared to the background until the point where the idea of going out just exhaust me by thinking about it.

I’ve tried, but I just can’t go past 10 PM. And I love it.

But that’s just me! And that’s also just one example. And this specific pivot is something that stretched over a period of at least 4 years of getting more conscious about it and allowing myself the time and space to figure it all out and wanting to change instead of making it feel like a restriction.

And it was only after that was sorted, I could zoom into the next energy absorbing thing in my life, and the next, and the next one after that.

Slowly I’m cutting out time and energy consuming things out of my life and replacing them with healthy habits.

But like everything in life, patience had been my best friend AND my biggest struggle.

I still end up finding myself stuck in negative spirals, questioning my whole existence, comparing myself to other people, wondering what other people think of me, and so on.

The only thing I can fully rely on in these moments is that nature calms me down. Going outside, taking a walk, sitting at a rock staring at the ocean, ride my bicycle and visiting my little veggie garden.

And all of the sudden I’m back in my own version of the year 1145, feeling free and loved and wanting to spread joy and light, and not feeling attached to anything materialistic.

So, that was my turning point: reading a book at the right time and surrounding myself with the right people and the right environment to flourish.

Now it’s your turn!

Xoxo Domi