Do you happen to have a place that you tend to find yourself returning to without necessarily planning it, over and over again? Well this place for me has always been the city of Prague. I never had any distant family here, or friends living or studying here, but for some reason life kept taking me back here; some sort of impression in my subconscious mind from early on kept leading me back here, in the most unpredictable ways.

When I was little I would spend hours and hours just looking at the titles that filled the dark walnut bookcase my dad had made in the family home. Some books would always stick out, though it never crossed my mind why; this is the beauty of the young mind, it doesn’t wonder why, it just wants to experience, take it all in, lose itself in that magnetising force of something that has you daydreaming deeply on an instant. One of those books was Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, a book I would see my mother read here and there; the greek version from the eighties, on its cover a modernistic drawing of a woman being held by a man, unbearably fragile, utterly beautiful, surrendered to his firm hold, the two of them flying over the city of Prague. I remember clearly not understanding what that title meant, something that for sure was making the whole thing extra intriguing for child me; but in these few words and image of those two archetypes there was something that made me daydream of a grown-up life of passion, lightness, surrender, and utter beauty. Prague was engraved in my mind forever as the place of such a dream.

Finally in my late teens I got to read my mum’s book, and even later I watched the film, which to this day I can watch over and over again as one of my all time favourites. That same book would follow me around moving from city to city from apartment to apartment in Edinburgh and London, and even now in Amsterdam where I live since two years ago. That same eighties version of the Greek translation, with that cover, the edges slightly curled from all the packing and traveling.

First time I physically found myself in Prague was in my early twenties, a new year’s holiday with my school friends, and one of the last times we would all have the energy to come together as most of us were scattered around the world for university after we graduated from high school in Athens, Greece. A few years later, my first ever job for a tech startup in London would have me travel around Europe meeting train operating companies discussing fitting their vehicles with internet systems (yes I did that back in the day!) and one of these places was the Czech Republic, and therefore Prague was a frequent business meeting destination. Right after this gig, my next job would send me to Prague recurrently for training and such as that London based tech company had a major operation going in this eastern and thus cheaper for tech talent emerging hotspot. And finally, some years later I found myself wondering the streets of Prague on a December night after having the most mind blowing experience of my life having climbed a mountain in Poland in -20deg in my swimsuit the week prior in the Polish mountains..little did I know that three years on and I would be visiting Prague over and over again, twice per year at this stage, to offer this experience to others through my work of choice (the work we do with Joren for @intothewild.within).

The experience of being here has always felt very different to my early teen daydreams of staring at that book cover, sometimes even wondering - was that just in my head? Every visit, even though for work, a little piece of me would be craving to find what as a little girl I had once dreamt of to find here one day. Wondering the streets of the old town, overflowing with masses of tourists everywhere taking pictures, pastry and glu wine stands in every corner - the romanticism of that world I was looking for felt long gone, or even as if it had never existed.

Time and time again here, as my psyche expands and my perception widens, the city becomes like a canvas for me to create my own reality on it. I close my eyes and I’m back in that world, where ideals, human passion and surrender to the ephemeral nature of life wins; and just like that, what I choose to live inside me I bring out to my external reality. It’s not as dramatic and romantic, and beautiful as I once envisioned, but I can tap into whenever I choose to, and I can make it as potent as I have energy for.

My 32 year old psyche finally gets it - what I’ve been looking for outside I can create from within.

In tech fuelled and super fast visual gratification style modern times we live in, it’s easy to lose touch with your imagination. It has become so easy and readily available to see externally what satisfies us that the practice of creating from within is becoming something we get unaccustomed to. I believe in the power of our minds to create the life we want for ourselves, and I also believe that part of why we don’t have what we want is because we have trouble knowing what we want, and that is because it’s so hard to even imagine what it is that we want.

Recalibrating your imagination will do wonders for your focus and direction in achieving what you want in life. It just takes some practice in getting it going again.

Try at home:

• pick something about the place you live in that has always intrigued your fantasy

  • an event in history, a movement of a certain era, or even current, a film, a book about a story depicting culture or a common perception that you can trace back into a story. In Athens I do this a lot by looking at the abundant ancient monuments, behind the marble there is a whole world that can be recreated inside my mind.

• find the qualities of this something by tracing back in its origins, how has it always made you feel when you brought it into mind?

  • I like to feel myself as a character from the book, or the story, I feel the energy in the air, I go into how this character must be feeling within this world and what is happening at the moment

• take a deep breath, relax your jaw and your eye gaze and feel it all deeply

• watch as the place comes alive before your eyes, your imagination going wild sweeping your mood and energy sky high..life is a wonder!

TIP: this is really a meditation, go out alone, don’t think of the time, take a break from whatever you need to do and just allow yourself to lose track of time. Leave your phone at home..!

In the meantime, while in Prague, some of my favourite places this time around:

Havlikova Apoteka | I absolutely love this local, all natural skincare brand, I make sure to visit every time to restock some of my favourite products, like this one. (right-click on the page to choose for translating the page in english)

Maitrea & Lehka hlava | Amazing vegetarian sister restaurants with similar or even same menus I believe, although the interior of Maitrea wins and I recommend going to that one first.

Kofarna Cafe | Loved spending time here doing some work on my laptop, amazing coffee and cute, less touristy part of town.

Cafe Savoy | Perhaps my favourite corner of the city, and the place for all things food, from brunch, to dinner and all in between. This time we had our own version of the tasting menu (after half an hour of pondering on the best combination of dishes we got the praise of two of the waiters for the best choice of menu ever!). All local seasonal ingredients from Czech producers clearly listed on the menu, and amazing in-house bakery to die for (when I travel diet goes out the window, which is I practice sat kriya for digestion support).

ABOUT ELENA & LIVING ON SOURCE

Welcome to my online portal!

I am a former Googler reborn as conscious living advocate, transformational mentor, conscious business advisor, yogini, sound healing practitioner and workshop & retreat facilitator.

I help people connect to their authenticity and harness their innate power so that they can manifest the life they truly desire through individual sessions, group events and retreats.

It is my passion to inspire people into reconnecting with their true desire; I write regularly on the Living on Source journal and curate events to bring the LOS community together in London & Amsterdam.

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