All It Takes Is an Experience
On what I dedicate myself to through three life-changing stories
After quietly publishing a newsletter on Substack for half a year, I recently caught a glimpse of its community. That almost goes against my ideas of social media: generous, kind, and deep. Thank you to everyone who showed up in my feed or interacted with me. I greatly appreciate you!
This writing was prompted by the warm interactions and inspired by this specific piece, “Are we asking the wrong questions?” by
. Thank you, Abby, for the inspiration. 🙏Hmm, what an interesting question, I thought: “What do you dedicate yourself to?”
And my intention with it is to shape this Substack corner for myself and whoever might care to stop by. By drawing out with sounding words my (current) dedication.
What do you dedicate yourself to?
My first reaction to this question is: can I have more than one thing? Can I change my answer tomorrow? When I get swept away by yet another passion. Knowing that it will happen again and again.
Here are some of the stages and passions, with corresponding ideas, not necessarily acknowledged at those moments:
“I will make lots of money” => Doing Corporate Finance in a Silicon Valley startup
“I will save the world” => Fundraising at Greenpeace
“Food will save the world” => nutrition consultant and vegan chef
“Breathing will save me and the world” => Breathwork, embodiment coach
“I will save salespeople” => A startup founder
“Running naked through nettles and thorny blackberry bushes will bring people to their senses and make this world a better place” => Wilderness educator (there is a story to that ;)
But there have always been common themes, of course. So I am going to trace them through three stories I’ve shared more often than others. Together, they give up-to-date color and form to my dedication.
Story 1. Just breathe: “I have a switch inside.”
Eight years ago (coming in February 2026), I found myself in the Polish mountains.
I came there (almost) by accident, for an adventure that would send my life on a big pivot.
It was a “Breath and Ice” expedition by an eccentric and rule-breaking guy — Wim Hof, the Iceman. He became known for pulling off feats that had been thought impossible before, like spending hours in ice-cold water, climbing Kilimanjaro without water, and controlling his immune reaction.
I was full of skepticism. “I don’t think it’s for me. I’ll just be a curious spectator.” But, yes, of course I’ll breathe. And so breathe I did, a lot. Hyperventilating my lungs out. Which was made easier by Wim’s invigorating cheering: “Breathe motherf..cker, breathe in all holes.”
And then just like that, the skepticism was gone. Flipped by a sense of wonder and deep peace that had evaded me, I’d say, my whole life till that very moment.
Lying on a cold underground floor of a sanatorium in the Polish mountains, I felt enough, happy, content with myself and the whole universe.
“Hello, a switch inside of me I didn’t know I had, and my state as a lens that colors the world.” For helping me discover it, I am forever grateful to Wim.
So, I had a switch that, without any change in external circumstances, flipped my experience of the world and the circumstances. And that mental switch had nothing to do with convincing words or food.
I spent the next six years enthusiastically learning about and spreading the breathing cheer in the world. I breathed myself high, grounded, inspired, calm, awake, and sleepy. Until the magic stopped working.
Story 2. The Breath of Life: “So, it’s not about me after all…”
Another floor, just over a year ago. This time in the Netherlands, with my longtime breathwork mentor and his wife, Anna. I am forever grateful to them for creating the space that made the experience possible.
I came there, hitting a bottom in how I perceived myself and my life, that no amount of breathing and other tricks I’d collected could fix.
The essence of the bottom can be succinctly summarized by a favorite saying of my Wilderness Education mentor:
“You can survive for two months without food, for a week without water, and not more than a minute without love.”
Love, it seems, had left me.
The question I was asking, lying on the floor in a culminating event, was:
What else can I do?
Meaning: What’s wrong with me?! How am I not able to pull myself together?
What followed felt like magic.
I felt cold, just like after spending a freezing winter night in a twig hut, filled with wet and rotten December leaves. Even the fire couldn’t melt the ice deep in my core.
And then into this loveless desert of ice came something that made me move and breathe in the strangest ways.
It had me in its powerful grip, twisting and turning till a moment when the block of ice was struck as if by lightning and started melting, giving way to a heat wave that had me throw off all the blankets, drenched with sweat.
The force that came called itself “The Breath of Life.” Which first had me think back to breathwork that had waned to the background of my life at that point.
But as the experience unfolded, something different came to the center.
The Breath of Life is the pulse of life with trees, rocks, clouds, and elements, brimming with love. All I need to do to receive it is get out of my skull and self-obsession.
“My father told me I am a speck of dust and this world was made for me.”
from the song "Resilient" by Rising Appalachia
That experience has been unfolding since. Through my fallen-from-the-skies gardening obsession, through my training as a wilderness educator, through sensing my connection with life itself.
Story 3. Greenpeace: “All it takes is an experience.”
This one takes me almost 15 years back to my time at Greenpeace Russia (now RIP).
As I found myself running a fundraising program, relying on big donations from private individuals, the hope of succeeding was slim: “People are scared; they have better things to care about than the environment.”
My north star was a story told by Thomas, my mentor from the international office.
As part of a campaign putting pressure on a well-known international corporation to change its supply chain, so that others would follow suit, the Greenpeace International team took the company’s executives on an expedition to the Amazon.
They showed them the amazing beauty, and then the destruction, at the core of which were their decisions and the supply chain.
It was an emotional experience, Thomas said. They changed the supply chain. Not enough to reverse the damage or stop it, but the story to me held important answers that are with me to this day.
All it takes to change is an experience. Not necessarily travelling to other physical places, but sometimes just a mind-journey away.
PS. By the end of my five years, around 70% of the national income came from private donations. All facilitated through creating experiences that ended up deeply transforming me.
Putting it all together.
What do I dedicate myself to?
I am an experience junkie. I collect experiences that pierce and deeply penetrate through the sensing bodies that we are. I dedicate myself to spreading those.
By helping others find that internal switch from the first story, by the magic of sensing interconnectedness with trees and birds, also with self and other humans.
You don’t need to work hard for change, self-development, or transformation in the world of experiences. A moment can send you from the Earth to the Moon. Or the Underworld.
Feeling one with life and the Universe, a sense of peace, stillness, magic, and ecstasy is where experiences can take you in the blink of an eye.
„I am nothing more than a single narrow gasping lung floating over the mists and summits.“ Reinhold Messner, climbing Mount Everest
There are also more pragmatic things, like learning universal principles of life through deeply connecting to self and nature, having our primal longings and needs met. As expressed through these beautiful sharings, which help me go:
"How can you be so relaxed and so inspired at the same time? It's like a deep insight into the universe without taking it too far."
"The next time I went for my forest walk, it felt different because I was like, wow, I'm breathing with the trees."
"It made me bring myself alive to my body. There were definitely things that I felt that I hadn't really felt before."
PS If you’d like to receive my occasional invites for experiences that don’t always make it to Substack, pls add yourself to this old-fashioned email list for now. I’d love to have you.
That’s it for now. Cheers to pulling our internal switches. To getting outside of our deceivingly all-powerful skulls and joining the beautiful, alive Breath-of-life party. All it takes is an experience.
Thank you for being here. And for making it till the end. I appreciate you, your time, and the connection.
PS And before you go, check out a couple of recent podcast episodes that I enjoyed creating and being part of.
A wonderful conversation with
on nonduality, that took place as a live here on Substack a couple months ago.
An improvised conversation on connection with two of my flow co-creators
and . Love this episode’s art that gives a peak into one of the biggest insights.
Ways to further explore together:
Listen to the podcast:
The Breath of Life: featuring live conversations on Substack with people who are spreading aliveness and interconnectedness.
Life in Flow: exploring concepts fundamental to Flow in Life in improvised unedited conversations with two flow-co-creators.
Join an experience with me: in Berlin and Zoom room!
Join my old-fashioned private email list for exclusive experiment invites and ongoing events.
Book a Nature Team Walk for reset, fresh perspectives, and systemic insight
Take your team on an inspiring regenerative outdoor adventure. Where breakthroughs happen without being forced. Let’s chat to see if we are a fit.