Behind The Glass with Charlotte Eriksson

"May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you're wonderful, and don't forget to make some art -- write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. And I hope, somewhere in the next year, you surprise yourself." – Neil Gaiman

About rediscovering yourself in your 30s ♡ www.CharlotteEriksson.com If I could share one revelation with anyone out there navigating the transitions in life, it would be this:   Rediscover those passions or objects that made you feel free before the world told you what to do and who to be. The hobbies you picked up before you asked yourself if they were cool or would pay your rent. Dig them up from wherever you've buried them, and engage with them totally anew - as the grounded, self-assured person you've maybe become, or are becoming. No more pressure to make a career out of them, to get graded or judged. Now it's just for you. Because life is short and long and time is all there is. It's there inside you, those passions. That essential part of you that never left, it just got mislaid along the way. All it takes is a little courage to find that voice again, to say "Excuse me, this is me we're talking about here. My bliss, my loves, my ecstasies."

I have always talked about turning fear of the unknown into excitement for the endless possibilities. When you don't know what's going to happen, anything can happen. Everything is possible now. How exciting is that?! So instead of being scared of not knowing what's going to happen, you can learn to view uncertainty as something exciting. Honestly, I believe it's one of the greatest mindsets to learn because fear of the unknown will hold you back like nothing else. It will keep you hostage in dark relationships, stuck in a job you hate, or stuck in a city you don't love because you're simply scared to make a change. There is no better feeling than being on your way to unknown lands, truly feeling deep in your core that you're driving towards unlimited opportunities in life, and now it's up to you.

Losing people is a part of life, I do not think we can avoid it. So it's the way we move forward that counts. I've moved on from people without looking back; without wanting to spend any more time dwelling or thinking or reliving. But I also think you can move while also treasuring a place for them in your heart, forever. Moving on doesn't always mean forgetting. Moving on can mean: building on, honoring, treasuring, and remembering. And maybe one day, when we're old and grey, we'll find ourselves back in our hometown on Christmas Eve at the same old pub. "So, Dave, tell me about the last 30 years of your life". And he'll go… "it started when I moved to Nashville". And I will smile and listen and laugh and cry and then I'll tell him about Porto, where it started for me, and where I went after that. We'll have another whisky and drink to life, for its wonderful and cruel ways of turning friends into strangers and, on lucky days, strangers into friends and friends into family.  Find my books, music and links at www.CharlotteEriksson.com

I'm back ♡ I missed talking to you! I sold all my belongings and moved to Portugal. To start over, once more. Let's chat about it. Life is weird and strange and uncertain and absolutely wonderful. DM me your thoughts and stories on IG: @justaglasschild Find all my books and music and links at www.CharlotteEriksson.com “What is that feeling when you're driving away from people and they recede on the plain till you see their specks dispersing? - it's the too-huge world vaulting us, and it's good-bye. But we lean forward to the next crazy venture beneath the skies.”― Jack Kerouac

A writing from my book Everything Changed When I Forgave Myself ♡ They say you can trace a person's history, hidden emotions and unhealed scars in their appearance. How you act, how you walk, how you laugh. Do you have a broken heart? It shows. Are you in love? It shows. They say bad skin reveals stress or anxiety. Do you blink a lot or do you keep a steady gaze during a conversation? Do you talk clearly with strong support from your stomach, or do you speak quietly and fast, running over your words? Have you ever tried not to eat, just to keep some sort of focus? Sad people either sleep a lot or not at all. I often wonder what people see when they look at me. What energy do I send out? Do I look happy? Do I look sad? Do I look friendly? Do I look like someone you'd want to hang out with? Do I look like someone you could like? Do I look insecure, or like I'm strong and sure, a role model to follow? Do I look like someone who threw my fist into a mirror because I simply saw myself in there and couldn't stand the thought of it? People say there is sadness in my eyes but the sadness sits in my chest so I wonder what it is they see in my eyes.

An excerpt from my book Everything Changed When I Forgave Myself. Pick up a signed copy of my book in my store here, or find it on Amazon ♡ They tell me I have an interesting life. Going places, seeing people, and I shrug my shoulders as I pour another drink, sitting lonely on my floor in my empty room, another Sunday, in another city, like I've done so many times for so many years and they tell me I'm lucky and should be grateful. And yes, I am grateful. I was grateful walking lonely through a freezing Berlin on Christmas Eve last year and I was grateful as I lied about my name and job and age to everyone I met and meet and if you seek the papers where I've been the last years you will find nothing. Or at best, or worst, a spread-out girl leaving small traces here and there, covering it up with different states of mind or jobs or name and there was a time they said I would go places. I would go places, they said, once, way back when. And this is what I think of as I'm sitting lonely on the train home from another night of beautiful people, welcoming me into their homes with open arms. I played some songs and they hugged me like I've never been hugged before, by anyone who knows me, and they told me “thank you” and “I love you” and hugged me again, like I've never been hugged by anyone who knows me, and they were grateful. For me. And so was I. For them. Human interaction: the most complicated form of happiness I will never figure out.

Come find me www.CharlotteEriksson.com

This is a writing from my book Everything Changed When I Forgave Myself

What does it actually mean to be an independent creator (artist, author, photographer...) and why did I become one? In this replay episode [from the archive!] I share my own story of how I built my little career and how you can too ♡ www.CharlotteEriksson.com

Come hang with me as I answer ALL the questions about vagabonding, loneliness, travel hacks and more! www.charlotteeriksson.com

The number 1 most popular episode of all time is back! “Your relationship with your future self is the most important relationship in your life.” Future me, whom I looked up to 3 years ago, is me now, and that's why I feel so familiar with myself because I've communicated with future me for years. I'm really grateful to past me for putting in the work, pushing on, making plans, and creating, because without past me doing this, my life would look very different now. So when I go through hard times, I try to think about future me in a year from now, or just 6 months from now. What can I do today, that future me will be really really grateful for? What can I do today, to make life for future me a little easier and more beautiful?

Today we're diving into the topic of living a wandering or vagabonding life on a minimal budget. We'll explore how it is possible to create any lifestyle you want for yourself if you just want it bad enough. If you're ready to sacrifice the lifestyle you have right now. If you're willing to paint a little bit outside the box. We will talk about how to create a remote working career and what doors it might open up for you, how to be smart with your money, how to live simply and minimally, and how embracing solitude can unlock a life filled with incredible experiences and long-term travel. So, if you've ever dreamed of wandering the globe but thought, "I can't afford it" or "I'm not born into wealth" or "what about my job," this episode is for you. My goal in life is to show by example, how it's possible to live a life on your own terms, a life that gets you excited to wake up every single morning, and how this life is 100% possible to create, if you just want it bad enough.  The books I'm mentioning in this episode are: The 4-hour work-week by Tim Ferriss Vagabonding by Rolf Potts On The Road by Jack Kerouac The Nomad by Isabelle Eberhardt Find all my books, links and story at www.CharlotteEriksson.com ♡

“What matters most is how well you walk through the fire.”― Charles Bukowski

“Nothing behind me, everything ahead of me, as is ever so on the road.” ― Jack Kerouac, On the Road Hi! Let me introduce you to one of my absolute favorite writers, Jack Kerouac, and three incredible books that have had a profound impact on me as a writer: "On The Road," "The Dharma Bums," and "Big Sur." What makes Kerouac so special? Well, he believed in embracing the present moment and fully immersing oneself in life, breaking free from societal norms and expectations. His words beautifully captured the raw beauty and intensity of his experiences, treating life itself as a work of art. With his philosophy of "spontaneous prose," he encouraged writers to follow the natural rhythm and flow of their minds, avoiding rigid structures and rules. Trust me, once you dive into Kerouac's world, you'll understand why I'm so passionate about him! If you decide to pick up one of his books, I'd love to hear about your experience.

“The Unbearable Lightness of Being” by Milan Kundera is one of the most beautiful and complex novels I've discovered. It's reflecting on something that I'm struggling with a lot right now: lightness versus heaviness. Commitment versus freedom. As I'm writing on my 6th book, I'm going to share some of the books and authors I'm reading, studying and finding comfort in and that will massively influence my new book.

7. Don't think you know yourself. You're an ever-evolving incredibly vast thing. You're not static. Wake up every day excited to discover new sides of yourself. New passions, new hobbies, new talents. Be your own biggest change-supporter. 8. Have less, do more. Simplicity is the key to everlasting peace. Learn to live on as little as possible. 9. Embrace unexpected opportunities. 10. You can never save people, but you can inspire them to believe they can save themselves. 11. Build a connection with the natural world. Greet Father Sky, thank Mother Earth. Meditate. Walk barefoot. Eat foods from the ground. We're all under the same sky. 12. It's ok to spend a year on your own if that's what you need right now. It's okay to go quiet. It's okay to pause that dream, pause that project, cancel the contract and just sit and watch the waves come and go in some lonesome town in Portugal. It's all ok. Trust your story. Be where you are and don't be sorry. 13. Your only task is to live.

Part two of the 13 truths I have learned about being alive. Part 3 coming next week! 3. Don't underestimate yourself. If you don't have the necessary skillset now, you can develop it. If you don't have the resources now, you can get them. If you haven't met the right people yet, you're just getting ready for them. Everything is possible if you just want it bad enough.
 4. Slow down. Stay in bed an extra hour. Sip your coffee while watching the clouds drifts. Read the instructions one more time. Fast is no longer useful. Slow, steady, conscious, and aware—that's the way to go. 5. Uncertainty can grow into excitement if you learn to trust your own path. 6. Friends are hard to find. Take care of them when you do. Find all my books, music, and story here: www.CharlotteEriksson.com Find me on IG: @justaglasschild Signed copies of my books: www.charlotteeriksson.com/shop

What I've learned after 32 years on this planet ✦ People will come into your life to present you with moments or hard truths about yourself, and then they will leave. This is the law of constant movement. Life is not static & you must learn to flow with each season without looking back. Don't desperately hold on to people who are meant to move on. Send them love & be grateful for the memories. When you forget about the HOW, go back to the WHY. When you know WHY you want to do/become/feel/achieve something, you will easily find your HOW. The books I'm recommending in the episode: The Desire Map - Danielle LaPorte Find Your Why - Simon Sinek Start With Why - Simon Sinek Come find everything I do and create at www.CharlotteEriksson.com ♡

Relationships with cities are very much like relationships with people. Sometimes even stronger, or more formative. You fall into them feeling like a child. Everything is new and exciting, endless opportunities, everything is possible. You wake up in a rented bed, smiling not knowing what the day will bring, and you lie down at night taking a long exhale, perfectly overwhelmed by all new smells and sounds and sights and sounds. You feel like your life has restarted. You imagine yourself in this new relationship, who you could be now, who you could grow to be, the life you could live out. Shiny. Everything is shiny. But you change and sometimes the person, or city, you're in a relationship with does not, or just changes in a different direction, and one day you find yourself in an argument and you can't seem to reach each other. Like suddenly you speak two different languages and nothing translates. You flail your arms, raising the white flag, not understanding where you're being misunderstood, but off you both go and there's a separation growing in between you. Something has changed.  I left Berlin many times between then and now. Asked for a break, needed to see if maybe there was another match for me out there. Something always felt a little off but I never managed to put my finger on it. I felt in love, but also constantly daydreaming about something else. You know those people who say you just know it's right when you meet the right one? I guess I still want to believe in that. I guess I still want to feel that, certain, knowing this is it. I had secret affairs with Bali, with Barcelona, with Lisbon, with Prague… but I always came back. For a person, for a job, the wind brought me back, a flight… I always ended up riding a bike through Friedrichshain in July. Flip flops and cheap wine from the corner shop. And I always found my way back to moments of falling asleep smiling, thinking, “maybe I could be happy here”.  Joan Didion describes her time in New York as never really realizing she lived out a life there, like she only planned on staying for a few more months. But suddenly 8 years went by and she had lived out a life there, without meaning to. That's how I feel about every place I've ever lived out a life in, I never actually meant to stay anywhere, just a few months, which sometimes turned into a bit more. I wonder what it would feel like to actually intend to stay somewhere, live out a life, make some plans. It was somewhere on the streets of Budapest that I realized I have reached the beginning of an ending. I have started my leaving. Like that moment in a relationship when you know there is no saving. You stand empty in front of someone who used to make you feel a million feelings per second and suddenly you feel nothing at all. And even though it will take months, maybe even a year, you know the breakup started for you in that second, and one day you'll say goodbye for the last time and it will feel heavy and free at the same time, because endings are always beginnings and they carry you forward, always to something new and different.  Where to next? Not sure, I know I'll find it when I get there. Maybe Porto. Maybe Prague. Maybe I'll spend a few months dancing to rhythms in Ibiza. Maybe something brand new. I always wanted to visit Canada. Maybe a few months in New York? I have no one who will miss me, nothing pulling me back. Maybe I'll go nowhere at all, for a while. Floating somewhere in between, feeling everything, holding on to nothing.

Hanging out sipping coffee, answering all your questions ☕️ More stuff from little me here: www.charlotteeriksson.com

What inspires you most? Will you go back to Bali? What's your biggest reward from sharing your creative work online? What makes you feel free and at peace? Advice for making friends when you're in a new place and have social anxiety? Come have a Sunday morning coffee with me while I'm answering all your questions ♡ Find all my books and music at www.CharlotteEriksson.com

This conversation is for you who, like me, need a challenge in order to feel alive. We thrive on creating personal challenges as a way to feel fueled and fired up, excited and motivated. Nothing drives us more than growth, development, change, moving forward. Stagnation is death to people like us. And this conversation is about what happens when you find yourself without that kind of challenge, and as a consequence… feel unimpressed by life.

Have you ever dreamt of reinventing yourself in a new city where no one knows you? Do you know that there is something more out there, destined for you, waiting for you? But maybe you're scared... scared to leave your safety, your family, the place you've called "home" your whole life? This episode is about moving away from home, starting over in a new place, chasing your dream and building your home in moments of belonging, no matter where in the world you might find yourself. If you like my podcast and want me to keep sharing my thoughts and ideas with you, it would mean the world if you took 10sec to leave a 5-star review wherever you're listening. It tells me that you want me to keep doing it, but it also makes me feel less alone ♡ Send me your stories, questions and concerns about moving away from home and I will do a part 2! www.instagram.com/justaglasschild www.charlotteeriksson.com Find all my books here: www.charlotteeriksson.com/books

Everything that has ever happened to you is yours to keep. You own it. No one can ever take that away from you. Your experiences, feelings, cities you walked, people you loved, and fights you fought: they're yours and yours only. And every single thing you've done and every single person you've met will stay with you, grow with you, and it's these things that slowly build your character. These things make your life story, and you will only lose the things you actively decide to let go of. You can leave someone without leaving them behind. You can keep the warm, safe feeling of loving someone without wanting to be with them anymore. You can keep your love for someone, even when they say they don't love you anymore. Think about it: what's beautiful about human relationships is the feeling we get from them. Think about a time in your life when you were hopelessly in love with someone, romantically or as a friend: you had so much love for this person! It filled you up with energy and heat, made you smile and sing, and the thought of this person being alive made you feel both calm and excited and most of all just grateful. Maybe something happened. Maybe that person decided to leave you, maybe you decided to leave her or him, or maybe it was a mutual decision to simply move on. Either way, it was not the other person that created that feeling of love and warmth inside of you, YOU created that for yourself. You let yourself feel love, for this person, but you can let yourself feel love for anything and anyone, life or yourself even, at all times. No one can take the feeling of being in love away from you. It comes from you. You can carry a gratitude of hope and safety with you, even though you have physically left him or her behind. You can say goodbye to people without losing the beauty they gave you.

I know a lot of you also left your home town, or even home country, to move out in the world and change your dream, whatever that might be. I guess we all have reasons for leaving, or running away. A big reason for me was that growing up, I never felt like I had people around me who I actually looked up to. I didn't see an adult person doing anything impressive to me. No one who lived in a way that made me excited to also grow up and take on life. I saw adults around me who were uninspired and uninspiring. They were living lives that I did not want to take on. Young as I was, I fled to the books. In books I found inspiring breathtaking extraordinary people, real and fictional, but who were so defined, in a way. Even if it was a quiet small poet, like, I discovered the American poet jack Gilbert and loved his poems but even more the fact that he fled the limelight in America when he became a little bit famous and moved to Europe and lived in kind of random hidden places, quietly, simply, just writing. He lived on a small island in Greece called Paros, where I actually later on went to spend a few weeks myself. He lived in Denmark and Germany, and just quietly wandered and wrote. I was inspired by that. What a wonderful way to live. Of course I also discovered Jack Kerouac. Reading On The Road was my ticket out in the world. You can leave and live on the road and not chase material success but float from experience to experience and live with no belonging and just soak up the blue sky???? WHAT? It was mind blowing. I was in awe. .... ... A great leader will be aware of his or her own strengths and understand when they are useful and when they are not useful. The dark side of their strengths will show when those strengths are used in the wrong context. So let's say again this new leader took on his or her team with the same energy and independence and stubbornness as he or she did while climbing up to that position. He or she would then become a very harsh, critical, judgmental leader. That's when strengths become weaknesses. Another example, in my own life. My strengths are pretty similar to this example. I'm independent, I don't need anybody to make things happens. I make things happen myself. I believe in my own ability to learn and figure thing out and I count on myself to always make it work. I believe these are strengths, that I am proud of. But let's place me in a context of a relationship. And let's place those strengths inside of a relationship, and I say to my person: I don't need anyone. I don't need anyone or anything to make myself happy and to build my life and I can do this all on my own. Yeah— Strengths used in the wrong context will become your weaknesses. So what I have learned, a huge huge game change of a lesson, is that my strongest strengths, need to be my biggest awareness point, because let's place me in that relationship, knowing I am independent and strong and don't really need this person. I need to be aware of how I let those strengths shine through. I don't mean suppress them, I need turn them around. How can I instead, turn them into terms like: Stability. You can count on me. Loyalty. I will not let you down. I got your back, just like I have mine. If things get rough, you can count on me to not give up. Because I never give up. See, if I can learn to be aware of my strengths, and learn to be aware and conscious of how I communicate them in certain context, they can stay strengths. But if I am unaware of them, they will become my weaknesses. Being independent inside of relationship. I am still using my strong, independent never-giving-up attitude, but in a gentler way. Saying, “I'm not giving up on you and or me or this. You can count on me.” What are your strengths? If you would ask your friends, what do you think they would say? Then ask yourself, in what context, if you're being really honest to yoursel

Today I'm sharing one simple idea from the book Yes, And by Kelly Leonard that actually changed the way I speak to myself and to other people. I'm very critical of myself. I have high standards, I am my own worst critic and toughest coach. Whenever I stand in front of a decision, I used to always say.. “yes, but…” “Yes, but… I am not skilled enough, good enough, pretty enough, popular enough,.. “Yes, but, I don't have the contacts, the resources, the energy.” “Yes, but, remember what happened last time, yes but things don't ever go that way, yes but be more realistic, yes but but but but…" What happens the second you say BUT is that you interrupt the flow of the yes. It's basically a no. The premise of this book I'll be talking about in today's episode is: imagine switching that but out to and… Yes, and… You will then start saying things like ... “Yes, and... this has been challenging before so I'm going to have to be real smart about the plan forward." “Yes, and, since you don't have those resources you're going to have to put in some extra research”. "Yes and, since it feels little overwhelming right now you can ask for help or take your time. “Yes, and you did the best you could.” See that difference? Switching out one word changed the whole vibe! It went from highlighting the obstacles and negatives to focusing on the ways around them. BUT indicates an argument. You're saying NOT REALLY. You're saying I DON'T AGREE. AND indicated that you're building upon something. You're adding. You're adding another angle, another twist, another thought. Instead of cutting down your own or someone else's idea or thought with BUT, you can just add to it and invite them or yourself to see things from a new angle by using AND. _______ Find my books at www.charlotteeriksson.com/book Download a free digital version of my third book Another Vagabond Lost To Love HERE Come say hi to me on instagram, twitter, tumblr, TikTok!

What if the universe really truly has your back. What if, every time you find yourself feeling comfortable in life, the universe will make sure that something happens so you can keep evolving. As a person, on all levels. The universe is making sure that you, as an individual, becomes the highest version of yourself. And to become the highest version of yourself, you have to always be tested, challenged to think in new patterns and leave your comfort zone. What if you could learn to see setbacks and rejections as gifts: you're being challenged to grow and evolve. I have always had a deep, powerful belief in the universe's ability to guide and direct. I do believe we are the creator's of our own opportunities and we can make things happen, but the universe will direct us, slightly, sometimes without us noticing. That guidance can appear as people. When I look back at my life I can see how every person who showed up in my life ultimately taught me something, or led me somewhere, or introduced me to someone, that in turn led me to the next chapter or opportunity or stage in my life. When I have fallen into moments of feeling like I have done all the work I could possibly do on myself and I am now complete and all healed, I suddenly randomly meet a person who makes me aware of all the sweet spots in my heart that I still need to work on and heal. When I believe I'm ready for a certain opportunity, I'm presented with a rejection, or a hurdle, or I make a mistake that in turn leaves me thinking: I need to work a bit more on that specific area. This summer I found myself with a very effortless daily living. Everything was calm. I had calm, stable friendships, good health, making slow but stable progress with my creative projects and I slowly made myself comfortable. In the past I had moments when I was chasing something, I was on a mission, being challenged, growing every day, and I woke up with wide opened eyes ready to fight! But this summer.. I transitioned into long slow mornings, no challenges in sight and I might have made myself a bit too comfortable. 
Then suddenly, POOF, out of nowhere, things were turned around and thrown up in the air and I found myself yet again sitting wide awake at 4am plotting out a new plan. For you, it might have been losing a job, losing a person, being kicked out of your apartment, the stock market crashing.. whatever it was that disrupted your peaceful existence—how did you handle it? How did you react? Did you curse the people and the situation, or did you take a deep breath a glance at the sky, and then thought: “how exciting. I wonder where this will lead me?” See, the world is not static and the idea that we will get to a point where we got it all sorted is a fantasy that wouldn't serve us. Trauma, loss or rejections CAN catapult you into action that speeds up your personal transformation in a way that slow and peaceful living never can, and looking back at my life, all the most important big moves in my life happened as a consequence of being forced out of my peaceful stable living. So how can we handle unexpected hurdles or redirections? We can panic. We can curse. We can cry. Or we can learn to feel the universe placing a hand on our shoulder, saying “that's not for you, keep looking, I got your back.” When we're presented with a person who's triggering us, challenging us, breaking our hearts… we can learn to feel the universe saying: “I sent this person to you for a reason. Your job is to find the lesson that will get you ready for the next person. Maybe the right person.” Things will happen, that are out of our control, we can not stop them from happening because they were always meant to happen. All we can do is choose how we respond to it. Do we panic, wish for different circumstances… or do we trust in our story, take on the storm like a growth opportunity and embrace the lessons? Can we even learn to take deep, calm breaths in the

The podcast where we ban shallow conversations and go deep

Maybe, today, I know that I am more interesting internally than I will ever be externally. My thoughts and ideas and goals and visions are grander and more magnificent than any external achievement I've ever achieved, so telling my past story feels small and empty because I carry bigger things inside, so I don't often talk about myself anymore. I don't need to. I know one day it will materialise and maybe some people will notice, or they won't, and I no longer care. As long as I took pride in my past achievements I couldn't actually completely move towards the future; I held myself back by trying to still fit inside my past story. But you will never fit your future story if you're still trying to play small and fit in the past one. You've grown! Future you shouldn't be able to go back, she or he should have evolved so much that there is no going back, and the past shouldn't even be realistic or nurturing anymore because you are now a new you. Evolved. Bigger. More refined. Connected to this is of course also living through past failures. Introducing yourself with a small tone of sadness because of something you went through, or a little bit of shame because of something you did not achieve a few years ago. We can not show up in the present as our full magnificent new us if we're still carrying younger us on our shoulders. We have to learn to move on and let go, good and bad. And that doesn't mean we let go of the lessons. We hold on to the wisdom, it's ingrained in us. We carry lessons and wisdom and knowledge with us, but I think we should place the actual experience that let to that knowledge as a painting on the wall and only look at it with nostalgia and not as anything to introduce ourselves with. It was then, younger you. Be proud of younger you. But look up to older you. _________ ✦ Find all my books, writings and music at www.CharlotteEriksson.com ✦ www.instagram.com/justaglasschild contact@charlotteeriksson.com

An honest, vulnerable and intimate deep talk session with songwriter and artist EVELINE!

But life is not a static object or a one-way-street. It's an ever-growing ever-evolving movement, a fleeting process that will flow in whichever direction it can, just because it simply can, and I'd like to mention amore fati; trusting your fate. Every single time something crashed my plans or dreams, I was forced to write a new plan, new goals, and take a different road. I cursed the moon and the stars and all the people walking on this earth who were in my way, because I thought I was being challenged. I thought I was being stopped from reaching my goal. But I can see it crystal clear now. Look back on your life, a month, six months, ten years, and you will see how it all connects. Every time you were forced to change your ways it led you to something that led you to the next dot and suddenly you see how it's a beautiful well-crafted story with wonders and defeats, leaving and arriving, and that's why they call it a life story and not just a life. Life will keep redirecting you until you're on the right path, and it will feel like hurdles or obstacles in your way, but it's all in your favour. You just need to trust your story. Trust your path. Trust your place. So I know you sometimes feel like you've lost track of that well-paved road you think you ought to take to get to where you want to be, but you're exactly in the right place exactly where you are. Trust the process of how things go and don't fight them; don't curse them. No story is worth telling without the twists and turns. Make them count instead. Now go be where you are, and don't be sorry. // in this episode I'm sharing an excerpt from my book “Another Vagabond Lost To Love”. You can read more about my books and find links to purchase on my website: www.charlotteeriksson.com ♡

“As a young poet, reading is a search for your lost family. You're looking for your secret poetry fathers and your secret poetry mothers. And cousins and sisters, people who are like you. Not your biological family, but your imaginative family. The family you'd like to be reborn into. Every time you've found a poet you absolutely love, you've found another relative. People who are spiritual relatives. And that means you're not alone. It means that you read Walt Whitman and you feel that recognition and think ‘My God! This is my strange great uncle Walt!' It makes it easier for you to live. To know that you're not alone. And so these poems become a part of your life.” // Please come find all my books and links to social media on my website: www.charlotteeriksson.com

In this episode I share 7 life lessons I've learned from becoming obsessed with court trials on YouTube lol. 1. Know what you want before you begin. 2. Don't make assumptions. 3. Don't speculate 4. State “Irrelevant” and move on. 5. Move on quickly. 6. Listen and ask more than you speak. 7. Tell a story. Please come find me on Instagram @justaglasschild, and pick up signed copies of my books at www.charlotteeriksson.com/new-album

“I don't have another job other than being me and serving my life mission, which is to make people feel less alone and inspire people to design their own lives. But that involves more than just strumming my guitar or writing prose for a book.” Another episode in which I talk about questions, thoughts or struggles you've sent to me. I would love to hear your thoughts on the things I talk about on this podcast! Send me a DM on Instagram @justaglasschild, and we'll create a community of support and belonging ♡

Will I move to Portugal permanently? What is my daily routine? Life-changing book recommendations? A massive Q&A episode coming your way! www.CharlotteEriksson.com

You can never go back to the same place twice. Something has always changed a little. You have changed, the place has changed, the people in it ... it's not the same and you need to visit it with new eyes, no expectations, no lofty thoughts of wanting to go back to something. You can't go back to anything, things are in constant movement and so are you. You must keep moving forward, on and on and not fight it. The ones who fight the natural flow of life will go against the current and nature is stronger than will. www.CharlotteEriksson.com

Welcome to a brand new podcast season where you'll get to join me and some of my most inspiring, intelligent, creative and driven friends for deep talks over a bottle of wine or two! In this episode you'll get to meet Elto, a singer/songwriter from Austria who's currently working on a new album here in Berlin. Elto and I always get lost in conversations about everything and nothing, so we decided to catch over some wine and let you in on our conversation. We talk about everything from finding hope in the middle of a lockdown, crypto and NFTs, my winter in Portugal and much more. Go give Elto some love at www.instagram.com/eltomusic If you know someone inspiring you think I should invite for a deep talk, please let me know! www.charlotteeriksson // contact@charlotteerikssom.com

If I could say anything to 17 year old me, it would be this: 1. Don't be so scared. Don't waste your days worrying about the next day, next month, 5 years from now. Just do what you can with today. Be what you are right now, and work with it. You're exactly in the right place, at the right time, doing the right thing. Trust your story, you're going to be something wonderful one day but now you are something too. 5. Learn to let go. People, seasons, cities and feelings will come and go. it's the natural flow of life and nature, and you must be a part of it. Nothing is static and you don't want to be, you want to learn to grow and flow with the seasons, being in constant movement. Learn to treasure what you what when you have it. When they leave you, learn to smile, say goodbye and move on being grateful that you now will go on being one experience richer. Lastly, live a little. Put your feet up. Laugh, loud, with strangers and friends. Take a night off. Go to the party and stay the night. let someone kind walk you home, a warm summer night in July. Go to the cinema, read more books, visit museums and go to spain with that kind boy from ... wherever he was from. This mission of yours is really nothing else but an experience, a collection of moments and thoughts, feelings and lessons. Don't waste it being tired and scared. Say yes, say no, think with you heart and go against the current. Life will be as wonderful as you make it, but it's up to you to make it so. It's on your side, you know? You just have to join it.

How to handle grief and loss What is grief? Grieving, to me, is loving. Grieving is honoring. Missing is honoring. Missing the space this person used to take up on the planet, and now that space is aching, it's empty. The problem with grief is that we make it about us. We always make things about ourselves, when it's really not about us at all and neither does it serve us to believe it is. It's never about us. I've had this one ringing line repeating in my head lately, saying: “There is no wrong way for reality to play out. There is no wrong way for reality to play out.” David Kessler is an author who's written several book on the subject of grief, and I really recommend you to google him if you're going through something heavy. In his book “life lessons”, he says: “But like it or not, change happens and, like most things in life, doesn't really happen to us - it just happens.” The second we really truly start to live from this belief, so much will shift. Things don't happen to us, they just happen. It's not about us. There is no wrong way for reality to play out. We are just here to observe the way reality plays out and what we control is how we choose to respond and react. This is the world. Terrible things happen, and beautiful things happen. You can't change that, and you can't stop that. All you can do is decide how you want to move through the world and respond to things. This doesn't mean that you won't go out and try to make a change, help where you can and create your own opportunities, it just means that when we're talking about things like death and loss and grief, acceptance really is key. You most probably have heard of the 6 stages of grief. If not, it's a formula used by therapists when they work with clients who go through grief. This formula was developed by a woman called Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, and she has documented this whole process in a book called On Grief and Grieving, that I also recommend you to pick up if you are dealing with grief right now. The five stages are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. No matter what you are dealing with, even if it's something a bit lighter and smaller, you can't go from the event to moving on. You have to go through some sort if processing so that you can grow from it, learn from it, understand a bit more about what it means to be a human, and then you can move on. It's the same with the 6 stages of grief. You can't go from stage 1 to stage 6, then you are missing the whole point of grief. Grief, like any other heartbreak, can be the most crucial self development opportunity in your entire life. Don't waste it. Face it and become a better person through it. Healing and moving forward, doesn't mean that the loss didn't happen. It doesn't mean that you will forget about them, let them go or deny. It simply means that you will not let the loss control you. It means you will carry the loss with you but you are in control. Here is an important line I also found in a book on grieving: “What would best honor the years they didn't get?” This is so powerful. Honour them by the way you now will live out your life. Vast, curious, brave, honouring the people who did not get to experience this day. I will end with another excerpt from David Kessler's book “Finding Meaning”: “After all my years working with the dying and the grieving, I have found that in this lifetime, the ultimate meaning we find is in everyone we have loved. Your loved one's story is over. For unknown reasons, their time on earth has drawn to a close, but yours continues. I can only invite you to be curious about the rest of the story of your life.”

The year I changed my own character. The year I stopped fleeing. The year I took responsibility for my own becoming. For my own happening. For my own success and happiness, home and surroundings. The year I learned how to quit being myself, and instead design a new self, deliberately, consciously, maturely. The year my heart broke, quietly dying. The year the vision I've had for a peaceful future was erased and gone, the house I thought I was living in was thrown up in the air during the calmest summer day, and I waved my arms screaming for someone to save me. This was the year I learned to depend on myself. On my own ability to get by, even when I think I can't, and this was the year I became my own saviour. The year I built my own home. From ground up. A foundation to stand on. A stronger character. A loving heart. Because when a heart gets broken, it's wide open. When a heart gets broken, it's wide open to take in and give out. To learn and to grow, stronger and wiser, and an open heart is a brave heart because it can feel and hear and see it all. An open heart is a brave heart, because it knows there's no turning back. Only bravely facing forward, one foot in front of the other, slowly moving on to something better, something new. This was the year I went to sleep some nights thinking, I'm done. Feeling finished. I had a good life. I learned a lot. the year I understood surrender. The desperate feeling of no longer wanting to be here, anyone, anymore, again. alone. alone. alone. This was the year I sat down and faced the sky and screamed out with my arms wide open saying, “I just want to rest! In peace, in quiet, in assuring knowledge that all will be well.” But no one will come and save you. No one will take your hand and guide you to a better life. You must create it yourself. You must collect your mentors, dead or alive, and you must accumulate wisdom and knowledge, visions and goals. You must decide what you want with your life. You must decide who you are trying to be. This was the year I learned to no longer depend on other people to get by, nor be stubbornly independent without any help from anyone or anything. This was the year I instead learned to say: you can depend on me. I will be your stability, you can always count on me. I said it to myself and to others, over and over until I believed it. I will stand like a lighthouse in the storm and repeat over and over you can depend on me. This was the year I stopped begging for things to happen, and instead made them happen myself. This was the year I stopped living my life according to someone else's needs, and instead explored my own. This was the year I learned to stop begging people to love me. If someone wants to go, let them go. This was the year I learned that every person who shows up in your life is there to teach you a lesson, and they will stay until you have learned what you need to learn. Then they will leave, whether you want them to or not, and you must let them. This was the year I learned that you must dare to leave something or someone completely, leaving that space empty and aching, in order to open up space for something new. And you must know that there is a new lesson and a new person, in a new place with a new life waiting for you. This was the year I learned that what's coming is always better than what has been. Don't hold on to things that are over. Let them go, bravely. // from my book “He loved me some days. I'm sure he did.”

I've made life more complicated than it is, believing I need things or believing I am lacking things that I saw other people have. But ever since I came here my practice has been to simplify. Do less but do it with more precision and thought. Make every move matter. Each morning I'm learning the simple practice of just walking. Not while listening to music or a podcast or talking to someone one the home, literally just walking, listening to the sky and the waves rolling in.

I think people who tend to feel or become disposable, are people who don't respect themselves enough. But the good news is, we can change that any day. We just have to start letting people know that if we don't feel appreciated and valued, we will find other friends who will make us feel appreciated and valued. If we're in a relationship where we feel replaceable, we will make the person understand that if we don't start to feel loved and valued, we will leave and know that there people out there who will be HONOURED to get to be with us. They will do anything to get to spend their time next to us. Those are the people we want around us. And you know what, in my experience, the people that right now make us feel disposable, they will step up and start value you if you simply show them that you won't stay if they don't.

Come with me for a slow walk through the streets of Berlin

When you have an important decision to make: If you knew for sure, that you would have a great life and be happy no matter what you decided. Then what would you choose? This is a powerful one. We often base our decision on if it will make us happy or not. And this needs another layer because depending on what sort of personality type we are, we usually lean towards making decisions that will give us instant gratification, we want the happiness now. Or we lean towards being future focused people, and then we tend to make decisions based on if it will make us happy in the future or not. Let's take an example; you're in a relationship that is not necessarily terrible, but neither is it amazing. You're trying to decide if you should stick it out, believe that things can make it work. Or if you should end it and move on. You will walk around trying to decide if you believe that you can be happy in this relationship, OR if you can happier in a different relationship, or even by yourself. But let's imagine that you knew, for sure, that you would be enormously happy and have a wonderful life in both choices. You knew for sure you would be happy in the relationship, and you knew for sure you would be happy if you also decided to leave the relationship. Then what would you choose? This turns so much on its head because now you're left with the question: do you want THIS relationship? The question is not if you can be happy in it. You will. But do you want it no matter what?

This is graceful ageing for me. Entering each age with intention and calm. Not just ending up there, but creating that place. Planning the maturity shift beforehand and giving myself the knowledge I will need, the strength I will need, the relationships I crave … before I get there.

I've written four books about leaving, songs and poems, had an endless romance with starting over, packing light. But have you ever tried returning? Have you tried going back to make things right? Have you ever left a city small and sad, determined to never return but then you're out there for a few years, roaming the streets, intertwining with people. You make a few rounds, collect some hearts, some wounds, and one day you come to one of those lakes where everything is still and quiet. The clouds are reflecting on the surface and it's like you see your own thoughts and past and habitual ways in the sky, everywhere, telling you something. This lake can be real or not, either way this is what it feels like. You run and run and run and run and suddenly there's a still lake reflecting clouds on the surface. You sit down, because lakes like these tell you to do so, and you sit there for a while, tilting your head, seeing your own ways from different angles. Maybe that tragedy wasn't so tragic after all? Maybe that boy just tried to go on well? Maybe this loneliness isn't so terrible to live with as long as you know that you can meet new people any second of any day your whole life through. You can still reach out; you're not an island. You find yourself letting go of all the stories you've held on to, things that happened in these cities, people they belonged to, and now you go back... I've spent the first part of my life leaving places and people and versions of myself, but lately I've started returning. I go back to all the places I once left. I left them angry and sad, broken and small. Usually disappointed in people and situations. I have one person for each city I've ever lived in, and I kept thinking I could never go back because that city belonged to us, how we were then, and I thought I had to leave and never return in order to move on and get over. But that's not wisdom. That's not growth. That's limitation and giving a piece of the world to someone you think acted wrong. So maybe that's what true moving on looks like: learning that nothing is ever attached to something physical. No emotion or heartbreak or catastrophic escape is ever attached to a city or a person or a house: it's all in you. And you can change. You can move on. You can twist and turn around, take a new shape and let go.

Whenever I am transitioning from one thing to the next, throughout my day, I am practicing graceful transitions. This means that whenever I am moving from one task or meeting/conversation to the next, I am completely letting go of what I just did, and completely focus on the next things I'm about to do. Before I start the next task or leave for to meet up with a friend or whatever I might be doing, I go through the situation in my mind: how I will do this, why I will do it, what I want the result to be. This is not a long process. This is literally 30 seconds to one minute. I visualize myself do this next thing in my mind. I see myself doing it effortlessly, connected to source, connected to my nature, working with diligence, and a smile on my face. And then I get started. Even if it's like, I go out to have a coffee with a friend. I quickly visualize what sort of person I want to show up as. You know, I don't just want to show up without having put any thought behind how I want to leave this person. If I go for a coffee with a friend, I want that hour to leave my friend feeling excited about his or her life. I want them to feel good about themselves. I want them to go back home and and have had a positive experience with me. I want them to think about me and say: "every time I meet Charlotte, I feel inspired. I feel supported and understood." That's my goal in life. So therefore, before I go meet him or her, I visualize how I want to show up, what sort of energy I want to bring forth. What kind of mood I want to be in and just go through my character, to consciously show up as a positive light in the world. This has literally changed the way I go through my days. And it also means that when I go to sleep, I can let go of everything that happened during the day and sleep. It's the most amazing feeling to just let go and trust that process.

Do I google myself? Do I read book reviews of my books? What did I edit out of my new book? Do you have to feel a lot to be a good writer? I'm answering all of them questions in this episode