In today's reflection, I want to tell you about a woman I met on my very first day in the Azores.
I had just arrived at the hostel. My first time ever staying in one, at 46. It was afternoon and I was in the room when a young woman walked in from one of her hikes. She had a beautiful presence. She looked at me with her blue eyes and I knew we had a connection.
We went for coffee that same afternoon. A few minutes into the conversation, I knew I wanted to invite her to the podcast. A week later, after my yoga retreat ended, we hiked a trail together.
Her name is Alexandra Belousova. Short Alex. She is an expedition guide in Antarctica and the Arctic.
Meet Alex
Alex grew up shy, in a family of seafarers. Her father worked in the polar regions for more than twenty years. When she was a child, he showed her photos of polar bears, penguins and whales. She thought they looked like Photoshop. Too beautiful to be real.
She never dared to dream that big. She imagined a settled life: a job, a husband, children. She wanted to study languages, but her scores and the cost pointed her to marketing. She felt out of place from the first day.
Then one afternoon her father picked her up from university and asked what was wrong. The next day she was sitting in front of his former boss. A few minutes later she signed a contract to work as a stewardess on an expedition ship to the Arctic. She was 21.
Ten years later, she guides expeditions in Antarctica and the Arctic. And she is heading to the Amazon for the first time.
When I asked her what it means to catch more green lights in life, she said: store the light within, and reflect it.
What Stayed With Me
"I feel like I have the life of another person." That is what she told her father that day. She did not have a plan. She had a feeling she could not ignore anymore: this life is not mine. So many of us feel that and keep going anyway. Knowing yourself often starts right there. Not with an answer. With an honest admission.
Say yes, then let the path teach you. She signed that contract in minutes, with zero understanding of the job. Then she spent five years cleaning cabins, doing laundry, and watching the guides. How they spoke. What they knew. How they cared for people. The yes opened the door. The years of paying attention built the life.
The side door is still a door. Silence. The third time, one reply came: a café needed a barista. She took it. She made coffee for the guides she wanted to become, and she was hard on herself. But that café was her ticket in. While serving coffee she took a guiding course, and a local company offered her a guiding job.
My Reflections
What I learned from Alex: all our pains, dreams and fears are the same, regardless of our status, the title we have, or the amount of money in our account. Everyone’s definition of success is different, and that is okay.
I don’t want what so many people have. I don’t want their mortgage, their stress levels, or their hunger to run after more money. I am building a different definition of success. One in which I am free to choose whether I stay or go, in a romantic relationship or in a job that doesn’t fit me any longer. One in which I allow myself to keep growing every day, without the need to justify who I am becoming.
Alex told me she needed to break free from her mother’s control, from parents who wanted her to follow the conventional script. She couldn’t stand that. It made me think of how I hated the conventional script all my life, and how hard I fought not to follow it. Maybe I gave myself the permission to live my own life because I saw what a system like communism does to people. It forces them to live a life they didn’t plan and don’t want.
A question for you
When did you last feel you were living someone else's life? And what would one small yes look like this week?
I’d love to hear. Reply in the comments or reach out. I’m collecting these stories.
It does not cost you anything to share. And sharing is caring!
Until next time, gorgeous: keep moving. Keep questioning. Keep being brave enough to not fit the mold. Your non-linear path isn’t a failure. It’s evidence that you’re paying attention.
And the world needs that.
See you in the next one,
Cris