Two years ago, I attended Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic retreat in London.

I didn’t go there just for creativity. I went there for myself.

What she taught us stayed with me in a different way. She spoke about fear, joy, and creativity as if they were alive.

Not something to fight, but something to understand.

She said ideas visit you, and if you ignore them, they simply move on. That idea stayed with me.

The moment that really hit me was when she said, "You have to sit across the table from your fears." Not avoid them, not hide from them, but actually sit with them.

We were asked to write a letter to our fears and read it to a complete stranger. I decided to face everything I had been avoiding for years.

It was confronting, but it was also freeing.

When you face your fears, you create space for something else. You create space for calm, for softness, and for love.

Even though I had already been doing this work for years, this felt like a deeper level. A level of surrender I hadn’t experienced before.

Lately, that surrender has only deepened. In ways I can’t fully explain.

“It’s God’s will, not mine” has become a sentence I carry with me.

One of my biggest insights came from the word enchantment. She described enchantment as moments of deep presence and joy.

When you live from that place, you stop chasing purpose or trying to figure everything out.

“Every person who liberates themselves liberates others”.

Those moments guide you anyway.

The second day was emotional for me. When we went into inner child work, everything opened.

It wasn’t pretty or controlled. It was real.

I knew I wasn’t there to learn something new. I was there to heal.

One sentence stayed with me more than anything else: every person who liberates themselves, liberates others.

That changed something in me. I realized that if I want to hold space for others, I first have to free myself.

I needed that for everything that is coming next in my life.

I left that retreat with a different way of moving through life. I learned to play with my ideas, to sit with my fears, and to be present in the moment.

And I learned that the most powerful energy you can bring into any space is calm.

The story doesn’t end there.

Because this retreat was not the beginning. It was part of a process that started years before, in Madrid.

And now I can see how everything is connected.

To be continued.