stepping into my next version
Wednesday, 28th January 2026
Exactly 4 weeks have passed since I left my parents’ place to start my 3 months trip around Thailand and Bali. My entire life is packed into two suitcases that I parked at my parents’ house. One of them I took with me on my trip. It’s been over three months now since I left my corporate job. I haven’t worked for over three months. Shall I feel guilty? Society has taught us, the more you work, the more ‘productive’ you are, the more you push hard… the better you are as a person. Almost two months ago I left London, my home since summer 2023 (I am German originally).
As I am sitting here now, in front of one of the many beautiful Chiang Mai temples, I wonder if a life full of authenticity and alignment is even possible. I just can’t get used to the thought of 8-10 hours of work per day being life’s ‘standard’. That’s just what society defines as normal. No, that can’t be all. Not for me. I am here for more. I have already experienced how amazing life can feel. 
I have experienced the ‘real life’. And it is beautiful. I remember summer 2025 felt like a full holiday. It was the last summer when I had given up to force myself to make it work. I had just… let go. I didn’t care anymore, really didn’t care.
I remember clearly the fullmoon of August 2025. I was having drinks with a friend at the trendy restaurant ‘Kinu Gawa’ in Saint Tropez, watching the clear bright full moon over Mediterranean pine trees and vineyards and it became so clear to me… I am truly not meant for hustling. I never was. I always knew it deep in my core but I had tried to force myself into that dress called ‘The System’ or ‘The matrix’ or ‘The hustling world’ -whatever you want to call it- and it just wouldn’t fit. It never will. 
Never had I achieved any major career steps. I changed companies a few times, yes. And with those switches, I managed to improve my salary from time to time. However, and this now becomes so obvious and logical to me, I was never able to make any career steps in one company. I was always the one most excited about leaving work, completing tasks quickly but never well. I was never the one bringing the team forward and contributing towards milestones, even though I used to be quite a pleasant team member (just for the vibes, you know), to create a nice friendly team environment. Well, even this side of me died more and more during the past 2 years… the more I woke up.
The past 3 years I began to not even care about whether coworkers (or people in general) would like me or not, include me into their groups or not and so on…. This once was very important to me but it stopped completely. I was kind of an outsider by choice.
The ‘issue’ that I have is…. I just love life too much. Did you ever feel pure bliss, happiness and luck without any reason? Just out of nowhere… bursts of happiness, joy and gratitude. I am unsure if anyone is even able to experience this or if there are just few people on earth who are able to experience such overwhelming joy. 
I felt that many times, especially during summer 2025. Once you feel the real life, you start questioning all your current concepts. ‘There must be more to life’, you start asking yourself. Once you feel so happy and love your life so much, you will find yourself avoiding -and even rejecting- anything that feels like a waste of lifetime.
This last summer 2025 felt like a whole movie scene. After around 1.5 years of living in an awful flatshare in London Pimlico, I had finally moved to another place as the circumstances in that Pimlico flat got worse and worse. I loved my life in London at any time, even in that awful Pimlico flatshare, but still…. When I moved into a beautiful Marylebone townhouse which was located on Marylebone High Street -one of the nicest streets in London- a whole new, upgraded chapter was unlocked. 
I still shared that new place in Marylebone with 2 others, even though I was trying to find a place for myself in London, one of the world’s most expensive cities. The Marylebone place was a beautiful townhouse on the iconic Marylebone High Street. It was so full of love, so cozy, full of positive energy. We were 3 people sharing that flat: myself, a 22-year-old IT/tech guy and the landlady herself, 66 years old. There was also a cute old puggle ‘Rambo’ (a pug-beagle-dog breed) who belonged to my landlady.
I absolutely loved living here and treated this place like it was my own home, even though I was used to those endless fights over whose term it is to clean, whose term it is to bring out the trash etc etc… . you name it (Welcome to flatshare life!). I did never never mind doing all this housekeeping in that Marylebone flat. After all the flatmate drama I had gone through in Pimlico, I was just so happy to live in a beautiful Marylebone flat and, as you can imagine, with the landlady herself living in that place as well, we never had such kinds of fights. I loved this cozy home. It was iconic. Everyday felt like a movie scene.
I was only living there May to December 2025, because my last corporate role ended in October 2025 and this also caused my UK visa to end, so I had to leave London… leave the UK… leave behind my 2.5 years chapter in London which I also like to call my ‘initiationphase’. The phase of my life which gave a first glimpse, a first touch and feel, a sneakpeak, a preview of that life I am truly meant for. The life I visualize during my meditations. I got to experience it, so I know what this life feels like and it’s this or nothing for me. Of course, you need to know, when connecting with and tasting your visions, it’s mostly not the refined final end version of that goal (otherwise life would be unspectacular). It’s that initial taste, that first touch… that makes you go ‘Wow, this is what I want. How amazing does this feel?’
Just for clarity, please be assured, in my visions, I do not share flat and I do not work 9-to-5 and I do not overthink whether or not I can afford another £30 Pilates class. But even though I hadn’t unlocked my final version, I was already living this lifestyle and embodying that woman.
London was truly lifechanging to me. And Summer 2025, in that Marylebone townhouse, gave me a taste of what I am really meant for. Well, besides that fact that I was still sharing flat with 2 others -which didn’t bother me too much- I was living the exact life of my dreams. Every day felt like a movie scene. I still had to work my corporate job, with homeoffice days making it much more convenient, but I was really living the romanticised beautiful life that I was so incredibly grateful for every day and still am. Pilates classes, coffee walks around Marylebone, walks down New Bond Street and through Burlington Arcade, Jazz bars and upscale restaurants in the evenings, a bit of shopping here and there… ‘This is what I want. I want only this. I will never settle for lower.’ – I kept thinking to myself. 
You know what I’ve learned? In order to attract the things in life that you desire, you need to first feel them... get in touch with them... get a glimpse of what the life you desire actually feels like. How does the life you desire truly feel? How do the old wooden floors underneath your feet feel when you walk through that iconic townhouse of your dreams? What sounds do you hear? How does the cup of coffee feel, smell, taste… that you’re holding in your hands while enjoying a slow morning in your dream house, listening to the big city wake up?
Example: You cannot manifest 10 million dollars. What is 10 million dollars? You wouldn’t have an idea about what 10 million dollars even feel like. How could you? You never had that amount of money in your bank account. It’s just a number.
But what you can feel is… the soft summerbreeze on a South of France morning, drinking Café au lait at Place des Lices watching the busy market stalls selling local herbs, going on morning walks through Manhattan’s West Village, enjoying a relaxing facial treatment on London’s Harley Street or trying on that Birkin Bag at Hermès you’d love to own one day.
All these things surely aren’t cheap either but there has to be a first upfront move towards your desired direction in order to reprogramme your mind and to slowly grow into that person you want to become. You’ll unconsciously adjust your decisions in line with that direction. A subconscious alignment of choices will take place in your life, even if the straight path isn’t always visible at first sight (especially not to other people).
You’ll forget about the 10 million dollars along the way because it was never about the 10 million dollars. You’ll find yourself enjoying the things you dreamed about. It has become your normal life, your day-to-day life. What started with a treat, a holiday, a special gift to yourself will become your normality. It will just become part of you. The girl who always lives in the coolest cities… of course she does.
But it’s important you go on that initial holiday to get a taste of that life. It’s important you give yourself that special spa treatment or go on that trip in the first place in order to experience what life can feel like. Experiencing the desired feeling is crucial when it comes to attracting your dreamlife. Never safe when it comes to experiences. It’s the only thing no one can ever take from you.
And then of course, it’s gratitude. Whatever you’re grateful for in life, multiplies x10.
The reason people stay stuck where they are is that they never even dare to taste the sweet life. They just prefer to stay in that same old environment they had always been in. They adopt to their bad surroundings and habits and complain about their circumstances. I hear people say things like ‘a life in abundance is only for the rich.’ Wrong, it’s for those who reach for it.
But the key point is, that the initial move always has to come from yourself. The first step towards your dream life has to come from yourself even in uncertainty and even if you cannot see the full path, yet. Every major life change starts with a choice. Sometimes, that first step is just stepping away from what you don’t want anymore or saying ‘No’ to something, even if you’re not sure what it actually is that you want. Saying no is powerful. Say ‘No’ to something you don’t want and you’ll probably end up where you want to be.
Be, Do, Have.
Oh and don’t forget… Your path and decisions do not have to make sense to everyone. They should make sense to you. Noone else needs to understand or know your next move. 
Even when I was still living in London Pimlico, I used to always go to Marylebone and think to myself ‘What kind of people live behind those doors? How can someone achieve living on Marylebone High Street?’ Few months later, it was myself moving into a townhouse on the famous Marylebone High Street. It was a shared flat, but wouldn’t life be too boring if I had achieved my dream that quick at the age of only 30? Of course it was ‘only’ a shared flat, because a girl cannot achieve her enitre lifegoal by the age of 30 already LoL… There has to be a bit more experience along the way to let her learn some important lessons.
To me, moving into the Marylebone High Street flat was that glimpse that I just mentioned that you need to experience first in order to attract what you want. You cannot attract something you don’t know. You need to know exactly what you want, you need to know how it feels to live that life, how it feels like to be that person. Then keep remembering this feeling with gratitude multiple times during your days, let it bubble up in your mind. It’s giving you smiles. …Once you experienced that kind of joy, there’s no way back for you. You already felt what you want and there’s no other option for you than achieving this exact lifestyle or nothing.
I have big dreams. One of them refers to my living / house situation which I imagine in such kind of an upscale neighbourhood in a metropolitan city -doesn’t have to be London necessarily- but that kind of vibe… you know what I mean. That’s 1 of my life goals, beside many others.
‘OK’ is not an option for me anymore since I found out that the essence of my true personality is nothing but pure beauty and joy. I love life. I love life’s pleasures, food, drinks, laughing, dancing by myself in my room, talking to myself and others, indulging in the nice things, shopping, spoiling myself, beauty treatments… I’ve never been a saver or ‘save for later’ kind of person.
I’ve always been a grateful, always found the beauty in things where others had seen darkness. Always made situations work and held onto the positives and ignored the negative side of things. Looking back now, at the age of 30, I feel like on life’s journey you have to make sure that in any given phase you have to ‘inhale’ the good things and ignore the bad things, so at the end of your life you’ll be left with a bunch of positive things. I once read this quote ‘You can have everything in life. Just not everything at the same time.’ and it makes sense.
Only people who have experienced true abundance, who know that feeling… might understand this and understand what I mean by ‘nothing else than this is an option for me’. And so I stopped holding onto my life… letting universe in and allowing god’s plan to happen on me. A whole life chapter came to an end in 2025, an entire identity. An old version of myself fully collapsed and I don’t know what’s next. I even don’t know what to pray for or to manifest or to meditate to anymore. All those things I always wanted… do I really want them? Unsure.
I am in the middle of a transformation phase right now. I left behind a past life, a past identity whilst the new one hasn’t fully unfolded, yet. This is called ‘The Void’ phase of a spiritual awakening.
I miss London, my London chapter -or well I’d better say ‘the London version’ of myself. The London-Lena, always tired, constantly stressed, sleepless at night, tired during the days, so positive, so attractive, so full of energy, so put together, so chic, pretty… everything. I loved her. But where is she now? Feels like I had given my 29-year-old self a handshake, said ‘thanks for everything, thanks for bringing me here’ and now… I’m left alone, at 30. Who am I?
I come from a family of non entrepreneurs and people who work for heir entire lifetime, or starting families if they wouldn’t go down the corporate route. Almost like you have 2 options in life: a) Going to university and having a Corporate career with the final goal being to own a house somewhere in a boring suburb village, whilst your biggest obligation in life is to pay off that house or b) and this one especially applies to the women in my family, starting a family, being a mum and under this circumstance, you’d be fine not having a career and relying on a man instead (I’d better not count on that last option nowadays LoL). Neither of these 2 options suit me.
Whenever I shared above mentioned feelings to family members, I really felt they have no idea what I was even talking about and I am not mad. Given their background, I can actually really understand them. They come from a different world, a different time also. I am slowly developing into that ‘crazy off-track daughter’ in my family, even though I somehow love to be in that role. I love my family. It’s just… They don’t see what I see. They cannot grasp my life’s path. For them, it’s just chaos and I do understand why they think like that. I know they love me. But they don’t see the full picture of me. They are not on that level - spiritually, emotionally. What I want from life, you can never achieve with a corporate career.
I don’t know what exactly my life path looks like, but the people I look up to the most are those being 100% authentic, who create (not work), who inspire, who speak up for themselves. Those who are unapologetic about their opinions. Those who are unique, different. I think these skills lead to real security in life. In general, I don’t like the word ‘security’ as nothing is secure. Authenticity, meaning having a strong ‘personal brand’, is what gives you power in today’s world.
Well, long story short, and to bring this essay to a close… I experienced the beauty and joy of a slow, fulfilled and soft life in London Marylebone (and before, but Marylebone and that August 2025 fullmoon were really the peak points when I fully decided to no longer force myself into anything).
After 12 years of being in employed corporate environments (and in none of these I did ever perform well), at 30 years old, living in a London flatshare …I left this life… and now I am here, in Chiang Mai Thailand, in front of Wat Chiang Man temple, writing these lines… no job, no man, no home, no friends.
Who are you when you have nothing but yourself? Who are you becoming when all past identities fall apart and you’re left with 2 suitcases that hold your entire belongings, a grateful heart and 30 years of life’s ups and downs? What’s your life mission?