My Rewilding Journey (Chapter 01)

Welcome to 🌿🌙 THE EARTHY WRITER: My Rewilding Year’ 🐝✨

This is the very first episode in which I explain what you can expect from this show. I also introduce my first monthly rewilding challenge and take you on a trip into my own past, to tell you about my own rewilding journey, from a failed childhood-dream to backpacking-trips throughout my twenties and a career as a tv-producer in Berlin, which left me feeling disconnected from Nature and forced me to make a radical change in life…

In this rewilding-episode you’ll learn:

• about the two different aspects of rewilding and how they complement one another
• why it’s important to look at things that make you ‘cringe’
• why the guilt you might be feeling for your ‘priviledge’ to choose a path in life isn’t serving anyone (not you and not the world)
• what to do when you don’t know what to do with your life

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About your host:

Hi ♥️, I’m Gisele Stein, author of feel-good novels with a little magic and places like characters, which i craft from my cosy cabin on Wadandi Boodja in Western Australia. Have a look at my books here. I’m also podcasting as The Earthy Writer, to document my rewilding year: Every new moon, I set a new rewilding intention for the month, and every full moon I share my learnings with you…

Episode Transcript 🇬🇧:

Happy New Moon, everyone, and thank you for choosing to spend some time with me today.

Before we begin today’s episode I would like to respectfully acknowledge the Wadandi People, the traditional custodians of the land I’m speaking from today.

So yeah, this is it guys. I’m finally doing it and finally doing my own podcast. I’ve been wanting to do this for years and years and years, but truth be told, I was always really scared of it. There’s something incredibly vulnerable about showing up like this and speaking your truth, but at some point, I also knew that that is exactly why it’s a good idea.

If there’s one thing to know about me, it’s that I tend to go where the fear is, because I’ve learned over the years that wherever fear is, that’s also where most of the growth can be found. So it takes a lot of training and it takes a bit of courage, but I have… I can’t not do it at this point. At this point, whenever I’m scared of something, I know that I have to do it.

Podcast Structure: from New Moon to Full Moon

Now before we dive into today’s episode, I actually wanted to talk about the structure of this podcast and that is that there will be two new episodes each month. The first one will be at new moon and that one will introduce this month’s rewilding intention or challenge, and then another topic that will be related to this month’s challenge. And then for the full moon episode, that is when we dive deep into my learnings of this month’s challenge.

Now, I said I was going to do each challenge for three weeks 21 days, but you might notice that between New Moon and full moon there is only 14 days. So what I’ll do is, I’ll start every challenge a week before the new moon so at this point, I will have done the challenge already for a couple of days so that by the full moon. That is when I’ll finish challenge and we can chat about it.

That is the idea.

For today’s episode, I thought I’ll split it into three different parts. So the first part will just quickly introduce rewilding, and why I’m actually doing this podcast, and what rewilding means to me. The second part will introduce this month’s challenge. And then the third part will dive into this topic, which will be my own rewilding journey. And we’re going to split that one into two different chapters because I think it’ll be quite long, and I want to take my time. So we’re going to do chapter one today and then chapter two, in not the full moon episode, but the next new moon episode.

 That’s the theory. We’ll see how it goes. I think it’s also very important to note that this is supposed to enrich my life and make it better and not worse. So the last thing I want to do with this is to force myself or to, you know, make it become a chore that I’m not looking forward to. I’m committed to do this for a year. But if I’m having a bad day, or if something goes wrong, I think that’s also part of rewilding. Listen to what your body needs and what you feel like on that day. So we’re gonna keep it a little bit flexible. This is not open heart surgery. We’re here to have some fun, and we’re here to hopefully learn something along the way.

So why am I doing a podcast about rewilding?

There’s plenty of them out there already. It’s almost become a buzzword these days hasn’t it? Rewilding is everywhere, and some people might even be over it at this point or might even feel triggered by the word. And on that note, I actually wanted to talk a little bit about triggers. Because as we embark on this journey together, you might very well encounter a trigger or two you might encounter a word or a concept or idea that makes you go oh, I don’t like this… I don’t know, I don’t I don’t want to go there. And in my experience, a trigger or something that makes you cringe is usually something that’s worth looking at. It’s always… when you cringe, it’s always an invitation to look at why you’re cringing because you need to remember: it’s never it’s never the person saying the word or speaking about a certain idea that has the cringe. It’s actually you. So as someone who’s had plenty of experience with cringing, I just, I would encourage you to to look at that not just in this podcast, I hope you don’t just cringe the entire time, but also in life or when you come across something on social media, if you cringe is usually something interesting to look at as something to overcome.

What rewilding means to me:

So the first thing most people probably think about when they think about rewilding is the rewilding of the self. It’s an inner journey and it usually starts from a feeling of lack. You feel like you are missing something, you feel like you’re not seeing the whole picture and you consciously make the effort to go outside more, to feel connected to the earth and to nature, and to realise that the separation, the story of separation that we’ve been told, is not the whole story. It’s not even half of the story.

And then there’s the second part of rewilding, which is the rewilding of the land itself, to acknowledge the damage that has been done to our planet and to repair that, because we as humans, what we need to realise is that we are very powerful creators, whether we know it or not, we are creating this reality for ourselves and for our collective all the time.

And this leads me very beautifully into this month’s challenge.

The February Challenge

For my first, my very first, challenge of this rewilding year, I have chosen to learn how to manifest with the moon phases.

Now I think we all know something about the incredible power, the incredible wisdom to be found in the moon. And especially as women, I think we have a very strong connection and a very strong bond with the moon and that is what we’re gonna aim to strengthen, or what I’m going to aim to strengthen this month. Basically, what moon manifestations are is, you set an intention during the new moon and you follow that intention through the different moon phases during the moon cycle, harnessing the different powers and the different energies of each moon phase.

Now, they say you should commit to this for at least three months to see results. So what I’ve done is, I’ve actually started with the moon manifestation in January already, so I have a bit of a leg up, and I can tell you already, it has been an incredible month.

I’m not gonna, I’m not even joking: It really made a huge difference and it’s something that I definitely want to keep going. What I’m going to do for this next month’s cycle is, I’m going to add another layer: I’m going to add daily affirmations to the mix, which I’ve always been a firm believer in. I always thought that affirmations have incredible power, but I’ve never committed to them myself, which is, you know, a bit weird because I really think they can work.

So I’m going to add this to to see if that can strengthen the moon manifestations even further. So that’s it that’s going to be this month’s challenge. I got my journal ready. The New Moon is coming up and I’m going to take you along for the ride and hopefully we’re all going to learn a lot along the way.

My own rewilding journey

So this third part of the episode that we’re getting to now might get a little messy. I’m totally just gonna streamline this and tell you about my own rewilding journey, chapter one. I’m not going to start with my childhood. Let’s just say it was a happy one. I also feel like some things deserve to be private and my childhood is something I really, really cherish. I was one of the happiest kids alive and it’s also just not my story to tell. It’s my whole family. And that’s why my childhood is going to remain in the past. And we’re going to start this journey after I finished high school. So I grew up in a small village and went to high school in a very small town. And after I finished high school, I packed my little car and I moved to Berlin and the dream was throughout my teenage years all I ever wanted to do with my life is I wanted to become an actor.

And even saying that now, it’s very interesting to me because there’s a lot of ‘cringe’ coming out. There’s a little trigger coming up when I say that I wanted to be an actor, but truth be told, I think it’s an incredible profession like I love watching actors on stage and I love you know watching movies to this day I’m so in love with good acting.

But I moved to Berlin and I started taking acting classes and then actually applied for an acting school a very, very prestigious acting school. And throughout this process, there was about a year of me preparing for the acting school that I realised this wasn’t for me. This dream that I had throughout my teenage years didn’t live up to the hype.

I was in that environment and it just wasn’t for me. And that was a very strange, strange sensation for me to have because throughout my whole life that’s, you know, my young teenage life, that was all I wanted to do, and that’s why I moved to Berlin. And then I was there, and I realised that I wasn’t going to pursue this. I actually wasn’t going to do this. And that left me in… left me and my first sort of little pool of depression in my young adult life. How old was? I was 19 at the time, and I literally… and I’m laughing now, but like when you’re 19 and your dream shatters, and you realise everything you ever wanted is not what it’s cracked up to be… That leaves you pretty… pretty devastated. And I still remember that for months on end, I wouldn’t even go outside my room. I was renting a little place, a little flat a shared flat at the time ,and I just wouldn’t leave the room because I literally didn’t know what to do now.

A Career in TV

And it was actually my mum then who eventually had this idea and said, well, maybe you should try getting an internship at a TV station or something. Because there’s a lot TV stations in Berlin, obviously.

So that is what I did. I started working for MTV Germany at the time. And that’s how I got into the TV business. And for the next couple of years TV would always fill my fridge, TV was always what paid the rent. And I sort of stumbled into that. I think what was clear from the start though, was that that was not actually the dream. That’s not actually what I wanted to do, and soon, I decided I needed to get away for a while.

Australia: Where my love for writing began

So I did what many people especially in Germany, did at the time. I went on a work and travel visa to Australia. Quite a nice full circle moment for me now because this is where I live now permanently. This is my home, but it would be almost 15 years in between before I would return here. So I went to Australia for a year and it was here in Australia that I discovered my love for writing. I had always loved to write. I had always kept a diary and, you know, writing essays and stuff like that always came easy to me in school. But I never considered it as a career path. But while I was in Australia, I started writing a travel blog and I had a lot of fun with that blog. And so, I remember that I wrote in my journal that that is what I am meant to do one day. I had no idea how to even write a book and I always thought that writing is something for… for older people. That’s when you’re wise enough to write a whole novel. That’s when you become an author. But I had it in my mind then I was going to do this one day.

After Australia I came back to Germany and started working for television again, but then also on the side, I dove deeper into travel writing and travel blogging. The TV projects, they usually went on for a couple of months and then I would go off travelling again, backpacking again. Whenever I had enough money so that I could go I would travel around Europe or Asia… I went to Morocco once, that was fun. And that’s sort of how I dabbled along throughout my 20s. Until I was 25,26. Looking back on it now, I can very clearly see that there was this divide. There was that television world that I was drawn to, this superficial egotistical world that I wanted to be a part of with, you know, my fancy Berlin life and fancy clothes, and everything was so hip and cool. But that didn’t make me happy. That didn’t bring me joy.

Finding Joy.

And at the same time, I had no idea what brought me joy. The only thing I knew was that I loved travelling, but I didn’t really know how to make a career out of that. I have always had this very, very strong longing for place. Place is something that’s very important to me. So while I loved travelling, I don’t think travel was what I was after, what I was really looking for was a place to lay my hat. A place that felt like home. And that place was probably more within myself than an actual location. So, there was always this divide between that TV world and then breaking out of that and going travelling to try and find myself.

And for a long time, I felt I’m not allowed to say that I am unhappy, because I had a good life. And this is something that I think many young people feel that way: that it is hard to choose what you want to do with your life, but at the same time, that is such a privileged thing to say. And we are so connected in this world today that we know what is going on in the world. So, to say: I’m so unlucky, I have to choose what I want to do with my life… It… you can hear the privilege in that.

But what I’ve come to believe is that… that guilt is not helping your cause. That is really not… that is not going to help anyone. It’s not helping you in finding what it is that you want to do with your life. And it’s also not serving the world, so… and I took longer than anyone I know to… to get to a place where I feel like I have arrived. But take your time. Take your time. I think it’s really important that you discover who you are, that you discover your gift and what it is that you want to give back to the world. And then it will be all the richer for it, the world but also you. Like. your own cup needs to be full first before you can give back to the world. And you will. When you discover something that you love doing, even if that is just, you know, caring for your friends and your family, or cooking… it doesn’t always have to be a job. But when you find, when you arrive at a place where you feel safe, where you feel passionate about your life, that is the place you want to get to and that is also rewilding in my opinion.

So I wasn’t at that place when I lived in Berlin at 25. All I had back then was, and I always say this to people: if you do not know what to do with your life. You always know something. There will always be something. And for me, it was a very strong longing. It was a longing for one thing, and that was: to be outside again. To feel the ground beneath my feet.

I remember vividly that I wanted to use my hands again, I wanted to learn how to make fire and wanted to walk barefoot… and it was that longing that I took with me on a holiday that would change absolutely everything.

And that is where we’re going to start off again for the next new moon episode when I’m going to talk to you about chapter 02.

And that’s it, friends. That’s all I have for you today. Thank you for choosing to spend some time with me today. I know there’s a lot of other things you could be doing, and I really appreciate you being here. Head on over to Instagram, let me know what you thought of today’s episode. What do you think of this month’s challenge? Have you maybe done moon manifestations yourself? I’d really love to hear from you.

And I’ll see you back here to talk about all my learnings during the full moon which is in two weeks time.

Hi ♥️, I’m Gisele Stein, author of feel-good novels with a little magic and places like characters, which i craft from my cosy cabin on Wadandi Boodja in Western Australia. Have a look at my books here. I’m also podcasting as The Earthy Writer, to document my rewilding year: Every new moon, I set a new rewilding intention for the month, and every full moon I share my learnings with you…