love

Rethinking Fulfillment

We treat satisfaction like a finish line — permanent, polished, waiting for us if we hustle hard enough and heal “right”. And yet, what if that’s the wrong map? What if satisfaction isn’t a destination at all — rather, a weather pattern: passing through, beautiful when it visits, impossible to domesticate?

What if the baseline isn’t seamless fulfillment?

Psychoanalysts called it jouissance: those bright, disorienting flashes of more-than-pleasure that visit and vanish. We get moments, not permanence. Yet we keep trying to retrofit life into a continuous high: more goals, more apps, more “optimised mornings”, more distractions polished to look like purpose. We stack our calendars like sandbags against an inner tide we don’t want to feel.

And then something tears through the fabric. The diagnosis. The layoff. The quiet Tuesday you crumble for no obvious reason. The void you’ve been outrunning steps into the doorway, and the light goes strange. It feels like descent — like a cold, locked crypt — but it’s also a threshold. The ache isn’t evidence that you’re failing at life. It’s evidence that you’re alive.

We’re not built for perpetual plenitude. Every wisdom tradition has said this in its own dialect: dukkha, exile, the wound that opens the heart. Jung mapped it as shadow and descent. Lacan called it lack. Mystics describe a dark night where the old scaffolding collapses so something truer can breathe. Different names, same contour: there’s a gap at the core of things. We suffer when we try to plaster over it. We grow when we learn to relate to it.

So here’s the unsettling invitation: stop trying to seal the crack. Sit beside it. Let the draft move through you without rushing to fix the windows. Notice how much of your life is designed to outrun this exact feeling – the tabs, the tasks, the tiny screens that promise relief but deliver numbness. Notice the bargains you make with yourself: “When I get there, I’ll finally feel whole”. There is no there. There is only here, and the momentary sweetness that visits like birds at dusk.

This isn’t a call to resignation; it’s a call to intimacy. To meet the void is to meet yourself without costume. It’s to put down the role of the one-who-has-it-together and become the one-who-is-honest. It’s to trade the anesthesia of certainty for the medicine of contact. Paradoxically, that’s where steadiness lives — inside the willingness to feel the wobble.

Look around: when we refuse the ache, we outsource it. We build cultures that run on distraction, economies that monetise our longing, feeds that flood the cavity with glitter until we forget it’s there. The collective chaos is the echo of a shared refusal. We think we’re avoiding darkness; we’re manufacturing it at scale.

What shifts when we stop? When we let the void speak in plain language?

Sometimes it says: Rest. Sometimes: Tell the truth. Sometimes: Cry. Sometimes it says nothing at all, and you learn to sit with silence without turning it into a problem to solve. You breathe in the unfinishedness and, somehow, it stops feeling like a threat and starts feeling like a horizon.

Practically, this looks smaller than your ego wants. It’s making hot chocolate and tasting it. It’s putting your phone in another room and letting loneliness introduce itself by its real name: longing. It’s prayer without performance. It’s a page in a journal that doesn’t have to be profound. It’s a walk where you practice being a body, not a brand. It’s telling a friend, “I don’t need advice; I need witness.” It’s letting satisfaction be an unexpected guest, not a lease you’re trying to secure.

And when the next tear comes — as it will — you’ll recognise the terrain. You’ll know that the crypt has a back door, that the darkness is not empty but full of seeds. You’ll remember that you don’t climb out by force; you grow out by contact. The more you befriend the gap, the less power it has to terrify you. Not because it disappears, but because you do not abandon yourself inside it.

Maybe this is the quiet revolution: to stop demanding wholeness behave like a product, and start letting it behave like a rhythm. To become someone who can hold sweetness without gripping and hold sorrow without drowning. To build a life that isn’t a fortress against pain but a hearth that can host it.

You don’t have to wake the whole world up. You don’t have to prove you’ve “healed”. You don’t have to turn your ache into content. You just have to strike one small match in the dark room of your own life and look honestly at what’s there. The flame won’t seal the crack. It will make it visible. And in that light, you might find a needle and thread.

Not to stitch the world shut — but to stitch yourself to it. To the gap, to the gust, to the gorgeous, fleeting weather of being here.

Gratitude Journal Entry No 3

Today I’m grateful for the quiet recalibrations — the subtle ways life keeps bringing me back to myself.

I’m grateful for the stories I no longer tell about myself. The ones that said I had to earn rest, or be conventionally productive, proactive or constantly performing in order to be worthy. I’m learning to meet my own needs without an apology attached. Boundaries are starting to feel less like fences and more like front doors.

I’m grateful for the body’s loyalty. Even when my mind argues, my body tells the truth — tightness when something is off, warmth when it’s right. I’m learning to listen sooner, to stop negotiating with signals that are already clear.

I’m grateful for the parts of me that used to feel inconvenient: the sensitive one who notices everything, the cautious one who double-checks, the fiery one who speaks up. They’re not problems to fix; they’re internal teammates with different jobs. They’ve become my compass. When I honour them, I move in alignment; when I silence them, I drift.

I’m grateful for work that asks for my heart and my brain. For words that show up when I’m truly present. For projects that teach me patience. For the reminder that progress is often a quiet accumulation of small, honest efforts.

I’m grateful for detours. Plans that didn’t unfold have redirected me towards what fits. The invitation I didn’t receive, the door that stayed closed, the path that forked — each one was a quiet act of care I didn’t recognise at the time. It’s easier now to release what isn’t a match without making it a story about my value.

I’m grateful for the work that lets me alchemise experience into service — taking what hurt and shaping it into language, tools, and presence that might ease someone else’s pain or mind. Meaning doesn’t erase pain, but it does give it a direction.

I’m grateful for ordinary comforts that feel like anchors: sunlight on tiles, cold drink after a walk in the heat, a playlist that hits the exact frequency my nervous system needed. These are my daily stitches — how I mend the day while it’s still in my hands.

I’m grateful for the future I can’t see yet. Not because I know what’s coming, but because I’m learning to trust who I’ll be when it arrives. I don’t need every answer to take the next kind step.

Healing: A Gentle Unfolding

I’ve walked through the terrain of healing, and if there’s one thing I’ve come to understand, it’s this: healing isn’t linear. It may come in recognisable stages, but it doesn’t follow a timeline. It loops back on itself, unfolds unevenly, and often catches you off guard.

It moves in layers. Cycles. Spirals. It stalls and it surges — often revisiting the same path from a new depth.

It can feel like progress one day, and total regression the next. But what I’ve learned is that every part of the process — every step forward, every stumble, every still moment — is part of the return.

The return to yourself.

Even when it feels like everything has fallen apart, what people are really in is a sacred unfolding. A slow, aching, deeply intelligent movement towards healing. They are falling into alignment.

Healing doesn’t come all at once.

It reveals itself in waves, in seasons, in ambiguous moments.

It comes in that morning you wake up and realise you’re not bracing for the day ahead.

In the sudden softness of your breath when someone holds your hand without you pulling away.

In the moment you let the tears come — not out of despair, but relief.

And it doesn’t begin with joy. It begins with honesty.

The first stage of healing, for many, is rupture.

That moment something breaks — a relationship, a belief, your nervous system. Sometimes, it’s loud. Other times, it’s the quiet hum of “I can’t keep doing this anymore.”

Then many enter a state of shock. You might be filled with a thousand emotions all at once: disbelief, pain, rage, confusion. The ground feels shaky. The body instinctively retreats into itself. Let it. Meet the vulnerability with presence, otherwise…

Then comes the resistance.
This is the part we don’t talk about enough. The pushback. The “maybe I’m fine.” The instinct to numb, distract, avoid. It’s not weakness. It’s protection. The body’s way of saying, “I’m scared.”

Then comes the numbness. The protective freeze. The disbelief. You go through the motions. You’re functional, but far from whole.

Then comes the awareness…A flicker of knowing that something doesn’t feel right. That the ache you’ve been carrying wasn’t always there. That the exhaustion isn’t just from a bad week, but a buildup of years. Recognition… A dawning sense that something important is surfacing. That the story you’ve lived with isn’t the whole story. And with recognition comes acceptance — not the kind that makes everything okay, but the kind that says, “this is mine, and I can face it now.”

What follows is grief — deep, confusing grief. Grief for the things that happened, yes. But also for the time you lost pretending you were okay. For the versions of you that never got to bloom.

After that, often, comes anger. Rage, even. The fire. The “why didn’t anyone protect me?” The “how dare they?”

Anger is not the enemy. It is sacred information.

It protects your boundaries before you know how to. It says: “I deserved better.”

It comes in waves, or sometimes all at once. And while it’s not easy, this is the part where things begin to shift. The dam cracks. Emotion moves.

After the fire, sometimes there is emptiness. A hollow quiet where the old self used to be. This is not a failure — it’s the shedding. The space left behind when you let go of what doesn’t work for you.

And finally, slowly, there is softening.

Not forgiveness, necessarily. Not forgetting.

But space.

You place gentle distance between the wound and your identity.

You begin to see yourself not as what happened to you — but as the one who survived it, felt it, held it, and lived. As the awareness behind.

That’s when integration begins.

You start living again. Differently. More slowly. More consciously. More bravely.
You try new ways of being. You stumble, relearn, adapt. And it’s hard. But it’s worth it.
You practice micro-choices that add up: Breathing deeper. Saying no. Staying when it’s safe. Leaving when it’s not. Replacing old reflexes with new rituals.

The nervous system settles. It learns safety. Joy peeks its head around the corner. Not the loud kind, but the quiet joy of being present in your life. Of tasting food. Watching films. Catching a captivating scent. Appreciating nature. Of laughing without effort.

And then comes release.
A deep exhale.
Not because everything is fixed — but because you no longer have to hold it all so tightly.
You recognise that this moment, just as it is, holds you. And that’s enough.

Eventually, transformation comes.
Rather than as a grand event, it comes as the subtle, gradual, daily choosing of something new.
You rearrange your life in a way that honours who you’re becoming.
You build your world around your truth.
There’s no need to hurry. Even the smallest steps can lead to profound shifts.

You start choosing.

This journey is not linear. You may circle back, feel like you’re unraveling again, question whether you’ve made any progress at all.

But each time, the return is different. Quicker. Wiser. Kinder.

Healing is a relationship, not a destination. A relationship you nurture over time. One that asks for your presence more than your perfection.

I used to think healing was about fixing myself. Now I know it’s about finding myself again.

The parts I abandoned to survive. The softness I tucked away.

Healing is a series of moments where you choose to come back to yourself, again and again, with love.

And when that love is mirrored by the right people — by safety, by attunement, by presence — something incredible happens…

Your nervous system is shown, again and again, a different story. Through the repeated experience of safety, love, and presence — enough times for your body to finally believe: it’s over now.
And you begin to believe you’re worthy of healing.
And you are.
Always.

Healing doesn’t mean we forget what hurt us. It means we hold it with more care. We bring it to the light.

We meet it with kindness.

Wherever you are in this process, know this:

You’re not late.
You’re not failing.
You’re healing.

Soulmates

Do you believe in soulmates?

I believe there are people with whom you can share a strong, profound, mutually fulfilling, loving bond (not exclusively of a romantic nature), and that this type of connection has the potential to enhance the lives of those involved by enriching their perspectives in life, as well as helping them feel inner peace and become better versions of their authentic selves. This requires mutual transparency, vulnerability, and, implicitly, trust. You can explore the depths of your souls (or minds, if you prefer) and find delight and substantial meaning in your explorations.

I believe in serendipity. I acknowledge the importance and influence of brain chemistry and mental configuration in experiencing soul connections, the ontological subjectivity that requires us to design and give meaning to everything, to every encounter, every thought about others, every experience. I believe that when it comes to profound connections, this design really fluctuates from person to person, because of both nature and nurture (literature, philosophy, exposure, upbringing, family models, attachment theory), but that we can all find relatable ways to describe these intimate experiences, although language is ultimately limiting. I believe in passion. And I believe that sometimes passion can be a fleeting thing, and it can also be associated or confused with obsession (limerence) or infatuation.

However, I’m not fatalistic, I don’t really believe in destiny; I don’t believe or agree with the view that you are incomplete and need to seek your other spiritual half – even though some people function better and grow within a (healthy) relationship. Self-development and awareness can be achieved outside a conventional romantic formula, and outside the parameters of romance altogether (through art, spirituality, hobbies, your career path, etc). I would also deem a mentor, an academic tutor, a friend, or a family member as my soulmates, depending on how well we connect and how inspired or close to my authentic self I feel when I’m around them.

I also don’t believe strong, meaningful bonds need to persist throughout time or be lifelong in order to be valid, impactful, or life-changing. What I do believe is that each human being ultimately creates their own meaning and narrative in life, and for many people, the concept of soulmates makes a lot of sense in the way they construct their world, as they’re more likely to reach their potential that way; and poetic, dreamy souls may attribute otherworldly or cosmic connotations to this connection. There is always the other side of the coin- some people tend to ‘lose themselves’ in a relationship, in which case it’s better to nurture your soul first in other ways.

Personally, for the majority of my life, I have found myself on a paradox-resembling spectrum, between a dominant rational view on this subject & a poetic one, with a tinge of romance and magical realism and sprinkles of “je ne sais quoi”. Ultimately, in my case, intellect tends to rule over my feelings, and even my feelings seem to go through the filter of my intellect first. What I aspire towards is love in a wide sense, as a state of being and seeing and relating to the world.

It would be amazing if love surpassed fear as the driving force in the world, if people were not maneuvered by their shadows and emotional baggage. The first step is acknowledging this aspect. And then, the harder part, is re-structuring the mind in your favour, to form beneficial patterns. To get back to the topic of romance, whenever I think about or try to describe my thoughts vis-à-vis romantic connections, my discourse comes across as ambiguous, even contradictory, and that’s because of that area of “je ne sais quoi”- I find this hard to describe. It’s one of those things where I tend to know it when I see it or live it; where a new experience might shape a different answer, or my perspective might shift when I enter a different chapter of my life in which this aspect will be re-contextualised.

Aquarium

On the other side, I see your face distorted among plants and fish; you smile and I’m happy because I know you know how I love rivers, lakes, and the sea from afar, and how I used to take swimming lessons when I was little, yet was never eventually able to swim for long distances as I always ran out of breath. You might also remember that I loved facing gigantic waves during storms, letting myself be lifted up and carried by the motion of the sea. Despite this, we probably talked about how I would not want to live by the sea, rather, I always wanted to find out what it would be like to live up in the mountains for a while, with the people I love, a dog, and a cat, surrounded by the warmth of a fireplace, drinking hot chocolate, watching the snowflakes tracing patterns on small windows. Would it be nicer than getting lost in the chaos of a big city?

Pleasures in life

My happiness is sometimes derived from:

The scents of acacia flowers, honeysuckle and snowdrops; the taste of greengages.

Moments when I feel I love what I am doing: when I get excited while reading research or creative writing – and, consequently, when I feel like I can contribute to the research or I can create stories – either through words or photographs. When I am inspired – to create and to live fully.

Meeting people I truly connect with. Everything is genuine and pure, everything flows, the masks are left aside, and no one questions another’s words or feelings. You just know what is happening, share the same smile, and are able to live, truly live in each other’s company without performing. The feeling of belonging.

Peace of mind, in general, or moments of blissful lightheartedness. When every veil of worry, gloom or heaviness is lifted up and I feel unconditional love and self-love within. This is also when I can appreciate every simple aspect of being. It even feels like my body is lighter, like I float, just as my thoughts do.

Wandering in fantasy worlds reminiscent of my childhood.

Running. Setting goals and accomplishing them.

Finding a film I am profoundly touched by. If you know me, you know how intensely I can immerse into films. I become the character, I live the films when I watch them. The pleasure consists in the experience itself, in losing and finding yourself in a concept or a story. It can be revealing, too.

Adventures. waterfalls. explorations in nature; admiring its grandeur, but also the grandeur of an old temple or a rich urban or futuristic noir-looking area.

Those rare moments my writing always eventually comes back to; the ones I try to grasp through words, but fail. Those surreal moments.

Living in a place decorated by me, where I can have my own space, a secret garden where my pet would dwell, and arch-shaped windows. The decor would be elegantly dark in some rooms, fantasy-like in others, and there will be at least one room with everything in it white and light (see Valerie’s room from “Valerie and her Week of Wonders”). There would be Gothic art, paintings spanning different cultures, motifs, and ages – with a preference for Pre-Raphaelite depictions of mythological scenes, candlelit rooms at night, and classical and dark atmospheric music filling the hallway. Ideally, I’d have this variety of design styles to suit my whims.

To mention a one-off: Hearing Sharon den Adel’s angelic voice for the first time, and seeing her on stage at Artmania Festival.

What makes you happy?