inspiration

Self-acceptance is not a mythical creature everyone knows about but never really saw. It’s real. And unlike a unicorn, whose absence is not that vital for our lives, self-acceptance decides whether you’re going to have the life of your dream or not. It’s also vital for your mental health.

I always say that self-acceptance is where it either begins or ends for you. It’s one of the major keys to having a happy, fulfilling life.

Now, let’s turn to the definition of self-acceptance.

Self-acceptance is, first and foremost, a form of awareness of your strengths and weaknesses (your positives and your negatives) either given by nature or shaped by life circumstances.

It begins with learning all aspects ...

If you were an apple, there would be needed two halves to make you whole. Well, in case with us, humans, two halves would not be enough to form your naturally multisided personality and complete a healthy balance to your cooperation with the outside world.

What I mean by that? In my previous post I wrote about self-acceptance and its importance in acquiring solid ground for personal growth and development. I stressed that self-acceptance is not one-time thing you can get once and for all but rather a journey of awareness where each time you learn better.

Well, these 5 spheres that lie in the base of shaping the understanding of your worthiness as an individual in the society, are responsible for not only sharpening your awareness, which impr...

It’s been always the same, like a badly written story where one human being stands against another. Some use fists to defend their truths, others are sharp at tongue. Each is reluctant to give up.

But does it really matter?

It’s a fact that huge part of people living on this planet struggle to make their lives better. This is understandable. Each has their list of beliefs, deeply engraved on the innate side of their being. But for what I learned, if the life you have today is not yet the life of your dream then surely, the beliefs you’re guarding so much are not simply working for you.

For some reasons, it’s in us to feel like defending ourselves against people’s thoughts, people’s words, people’s actions, in othe...

"Short story is not a sailing ship to take you far in the ocean but a boat to transport you fast on the other side."

Honestly, I had not much of interest in short stories before. I — an experienced bookworm — obviously, preferred full length novels over twelve-page stories. I liked to sail far rather than jump in for a short ride. Till one day, I accidently got The Magic Shop by H. G. Wells in my hands. Unwrapped on a very delicate line between illusion and reality, it was narrated in such exquisite way that I was immediately dragged in, headfirst.

This was the beginning of my journey into the world of short stories.

Doubtless today, I can assure you, that reading short stories is, indeed, one of the greatest ways to delv...

Everyone has a view at what happiness is. Some, manage to find happiness in mundane things, like taking a stroll outside in the morning, others search happiness beyond things that can be touched, dedicating their daily activities to spiritual practices and self-education.

But what about ultimate happiness – the state of mind that is peaceful and content?

In this easy conversation, I want to share 10 reasons that might be the cause of your yet not found happiness.

Reason #1 Internal Conflict

‘The scariest monsters are those who lurk within our souls.’ by Edgar Alan Poe

I’ve never met a person who did not have some internal conflicts to de...

There is only one way to turn one book into many, and it is to TRANSLATE.

Yet, the amount of books that never get a chance to be translated is enormous. It is even more so in the world of Indie Authors and their baby books. If you want to taste how truly dramatic this is, imagine ocean of books, drifting away from the starving hearts of its potential readers.

Imagine Shakespeare, drowned in among those drifting away waters of words.

Imagine Kafka, never crossing the border of Germany.

As a Russian/English speaking person, I’ve read dozens and dozens of books, some of them written by my favorite American/British Indie Authors, that will more likely never ...

I remember good days like a vague outline of the bridge which I enter on the days, dark like night sky.

It affects my writing. It affects me. It affects people, I care about. And even though there is no way to dispel clouds from life once and for all, there is still a way to help yourself stay on both feet in the storm of dark days.

Journaling yourself out of anything!

I was 10 years old when I first met people involved in business, self-development, mental/physical health and all of them in one voice were telling about the power of journaling. I was so wired up with their energy and even though I was just a ten years old girl and hardly could tell if I needed to journal myself out of anything (I was writing in my diary sometimes, but most of the ...

As I stepped in this multifaceted world of translation, the only question that kept me awake at night was ‘If my translation is CORRECT?’ Fidgeting over every word, scanning it scrupulously, checking all the possible resources, and comparing my translation to countless examples of others was my main routine. As exhausting and at times tiring as it was I enjoyed each time when I saw the product of my ‘labor’ and was enormously proud of myself when I noticed some kind of progress in the way I was doing my job.

But as more time passed, my insatiable craving to be CORRECT turned into a hump on my path of professional growth.

Naturally, I started discovering more and more odd details, mysterious I would say, in uncountable wa...

To make a written text shine you need to trust it to the hands of a knowing polisher

—Editor.

Exquisitely written books not just tell you a story, they speak it to you as if this very story is the echo of your own life. Exquisitely written books have logical flow and don’t tolerate meaningless words on their golden pages. Just like in the creation of life, in exquisitely written books all elements are important for healthy functioning of the whole organism (whether it is life or a story).

But what has it to do with book translation, you may ask?! And the answer to this questions is rather simple.

Everything.

Unlike technical, commercial, scientific, etc., translations, literat...

Writers write, right?!

But what about other things, we, writers, have to deal with daily. Starting with a very primitive task as to find in the load of these mundane responsibilities time to actually sit and spend an hour in a blissful solitude, writing. What about brainstorming, plotting, figuring out ways through dead corners of story? What about sculpting characters from inside and outside, getting the right faces that will come alive on the pages later? What about getting acquainted with them? I can keep on and on for ages, talking about all the tiny details that come along with this pretty simple word as writing. And no one even considers writing, besides the ones who at least once tried to write, as something serious.

Every time I say that I am a writer, w...

Have you ever met a small person? I’m not talking about size, even though for some size is what really matters. I’m talking about emotional aspect of human presence that makes some of us look like a tiny dot lost in never ending space of any room we walk in. Whereas others, once inside of that same room, would make us feel they are the only ones in it.

So, what was wrong with the Bird that looked like a Fly? One thing obviously – it’s was not a Fly. It was a BIRD! So, why it looked like a fly to everyone else?

For me, as I’m sure for most of you, this matter is personal. We all do this, whether we realize it or not. We make ourselves, in most cases unintentionally, look like mere flies, when in fact, we are gorgeous, cheery birds.

Who would think that staying at home can be so challenging and tough?! I’m sure, most of us dreamed of a week or better a month off work. But now when we have it, it doesn't feel as satisfying as we imagined it would.

But, don’t panic. Pandemic can keep us in lockdown for weeks or even months, but it can't imprison our spirit and it, for sure, can't stop us from growing personally and professionally.

Tough times are not to break us but to give new opportunities for a change.

It's time to reset our mindset and just to take a moment to look around at things that in the chaos of daily responsibilities we had no time to even notice.

For some, it may be just the right tim...

How low is your bathtub?

People come into our lives with different attitudes, different world views, different goals. As a person who is ‘lucky’ to be born with overly friendly nature, I know how painful it can be to let a wrong person inside. How at times unbearable is to see someone you considered your friend and your ally turning out to be nothing more but a toxic root that all this time was poisoning your life.

I’m sure you’ve met people who, whether intentionally or not, make you feel low. They drain you, discourage you, set you into a mindset that makes the world around you look as hopeless as never before. Slowly your life turns as cold as at the bottom of a bathtub. But the worst, you never know why.

As social creatures, even...

Have you ever seen a leafless tree in the middle of Spring? What would you think if you saw one?

Poor tree, it’s probably dying – this is what I would definitely find among a flush of different thoughts in my head at the sight of this picture. I would feel sad seeing it bare and weak standing among the countless green ones around it. I would think, it was unfair.

Here’s what happened to me a few years ago. I moved from a noisy city to a small town framed at both sides by vast fields and woods. Place that I personally believe to be wildlife heaven. It’s the place where a plain crown looks like a fashion model and hedgehogs are enjoying their bust lives on your backyard.

It was Spring and everything around stood in magnif...

Living a life in isolation does not make you a better Artist!

The power of creative minds is the force that makes the Earth rotate, the Sun rise and the life on our planet evolve. But there are four basic conditions for prosperity of a creative mind that at times may seem reachable only in isolation.

World is a noisy torture.

Most of artists I know admit, that’s how they feel. And so, they search for quiet by isolating themselves from all the things that happen and happen and happen in the outside world. This need for silence at times becomes the only thing that matters and many artists feel this undeniable urge to get away (preferably on the Moon).

Time speeds and life goes into nowhere.

Like water, time tends to sli...

This post is my attempt at journaling online. And it feels different.

Nevertheless, I am willing to try and since I have some things to say, I sincerely hope that this post will be something interesting to read.

Let me begin with quarantine and how this global COVID-19 pandemic affected me. To my own surprise and utter bewilderment, it is not all bad. Scary? Yes! But not bad at all.

Maybe it has something to do with my book that I started writing in the end of September, 2019, which touches on terrifying aspects of immortality and connected to countless outbursts of pandemics throughout the entire history of mankind, but I feel the current situation is no...

It’s been almost five years since I first discovered freelance as a way of living for myself.

For a long time, I kept definition of freelance and business separate in my mind. When I started out as a newbie in the field of, as I used to define it, independent work from home I had no idea what a complex, demanding, and at times competitive venture it really was. And since usually the word business made me think about a tie and a black leather case, for a long time I was refusing to admit that freelance was also a very special kind of business.

Now, all those years later, freelance and business are some kind of synonyms for me. Because making a living as a freelancer means to be a good tête-à-tête businessman (woman).

Why you? T...

This brilliant with its simplicity question stands in the base of the professional journey called freelance. But how many of freelancers can actually answer to this question?

For a long time, I was following this false belief that the answer to this question was something only high-level professional freelancers could know. I thought of it as one thinks about math; that only talented wits can get it. But in the cloud of this mindset, I forgot about one absolutely important thing: freelance is all about experience and every experience is different.

So the answer to this question is not one for everyone but rather it’s a mechanism that sets the tone to the future personal progress in freelance.

Over the years, I learnt a few ways that helped me...

Please, don’t get me wrong: this is not a note to add to the established image of a writer. This is a short blog post written by a writer without spectacles.

Spectacles and hat – the main attributes for the sacred ritual of writing through writer’s block (for those who believe such thing exists), and I am sure it does especially in the first years of writing. In some way, I can assure I saw it like one sees a shadow on the dimly lit street in midnight on Halloween. Could be just a vision and yet, what if it was real?!

Another combo to add to the attributes is a cup of steaming drink and a cheap tobacco cigar. Maybe a typewriter.

Well, from all the possible attributes I have only fake pair of spectacles, hat, and a cup of steaming coffee at...

2020 started as a swift spin down. Many plans and goals, hopes and visions were forced to be put on hold. Time slipped through our fingers with the speed of waterfall and I know, many of us feel like there is no hope for this year anymore.

Many of us feel like there is nothing we can do about this year; nothing but wait till it ends.

But what about everyday counts and time irretrievability? After all, no one is responsible for your life but you.

Naturally, this challenging time made all of us, people, to, whether intentionally or not, split into two groups: one that adopts to the new time and the other that lets the worst side of the new world order to consume and break them. And though, now, when I am actually thinking about it, it somehow seems too radica...

Unimaginable amount of possibilities and opportunities that exist in the world can easily cloud our minds, weaken us, and strip off our inborn greatness. And clarity is the only way to avoid it.

I know from personal experience how hard it can be to plan out even just a week ahead, gather the data and set everything the best way possible, so all the goals could have been achieved and all the projects successfully executed. It’s a complicated process that most of people struggle to perform. And this is perhaps one of the superpowers highly successful people have mastered.

It’s especially important if you, just like me, have a trouble to direct the focus of your mind to one direction, constantly finding yourself veering off and paying attention to things tha...

It took me a while to reflect on this idea – you can be anyone and do anything you want, but for some reasons you keep replacing doors with walls and then cry ‘how unfair life is.’

It may look like the whole world is against you but what is really happening is that you keep limiting yourself, creating new and new barriers on your way to a happy living.

Subconscious has unimaginable power over your life; all the things it believes in sooner or later becomes your only reality. If you believe that you have no time or capability to work towards your dream, then you lost without even starting.

3 Bullheads of How You Limit Yourself

You predict without actual trying

Think how many times you came to a conclusion based merel...

It is not a secret—life can be overwhelming, hard, and challenging. Each of us has their own share of bitter and sour, and ironically, this is probably one of the most normal things about life.

We all have good days and bad days but what about weeks or even months of downfalls and other life trails? How do we keep going when we think we can’t do anymore?

I was sixteen when I started thinking about being a writer with all seriousness and determination. A girl that knew only few words in English dreamed to be an English-speaking writer; they told me, why would not you try to write in your native language first, but it is not we who choose the dream, it’s the dream that chooses us. I learnt it the hard way.

I have been always persistent ...

First, I learnt to read and then I started learning to live, or something like that. But really, what can be more beneficial for your life than a good, wisdom-ish friend in the pocket of your jeans or bag? Especially, for an introvert-minded person.

Books are the best teachers, who would argue with that. But there are books that not only teach you something but shift you from the very inside giving new perspectives on the stagnant layers of reality.

In my notebook, where I keep all the notes on the books I have ever read in my life, I found a pool of nostalgic thoughts about the time when I only started showing interest in books other than fiction, and 5 great titles that prompted me at once to start writing this post.

These are the books that changed my li...

I’ll tell you a story: once, there was a girl that believed she could do anything. But things she did at the end of the day were not the right things and so, her greatness started slowly dissipating. Is not it what magic in reverse looks like?

As a human, you have the privilege to be anyone and to do anything you can only imagine. But in the world, where everything fights for your attention, where colours and smells are there to entice you to want what you don’t even need, where fashionable pictures of super stars look down at you daily affecting your idea of the beautiful, and where information does not go through filters of valid or reasonable, this privilege plays a bad joke on you.

It messes up with your head; if you can be anyone why cannot you be ev...

And I think about it all the time, are not you?

Really, what word out of millions existing would be good enough to describe what happiness is? Hard to say, is not it? At the same time, the answer seems really close to being easy, trivial even, right on the plate in front of your nose. Then why it is still so hard to answer.

I believe that only those who are deeply unhappy can really tell what happiness is about. This paradoxical twist between two seemingly opposing sides of neutral condition such as living, and I do think that living in its stripped form is a quite neutral thing, is both enticing and scaring. It draws in the part of you that is inclined to wonder and scares the hell out of the part that solely clings to reason.

But is it really th...

Mad world—what are you doing to the creative minds that are your only salvation?

What, not dramatic enough?

I think this conversation is not going to be easy for both of us but we have to talk about it anyway.

No matter how passionate or confident you are about your dream, there come the times when things just don’t work out the way you expected. Those times leave you vulnerable and unprotected in front of the hungry, never satisfied cockroaches sneaking here and there.

They are the kind of people who do not tolerate big dreamers. They are the kind of people, mom taught you to avoid.

But when you are emotionally unprotected, you cannot escape them.

When you are emotionally unprotected, they will find you even on the...

We are not Hansel, nor are we Gretel but so often our lives remind the German folklore tale by the Brothers Grimm.

Left with a fake promise, we wonder through the wild of the forest called life, searching for our way back home.

But sometimes we lose the sight of the right path and stumble upon the home of a witch, completely unprepared for the danger waiting for us there.

And so we think, we are lost but are we?

When you feel lost

I have always been fond of fairy tales but only when I became older did I realize their true value.

Is not it ironic?

And the story about Hansel and Gretel feels to me as a great analogy to what we are going to talk about today.

Do you remember when on the way into the forest, Ha...

Science has always been my favorite kind of voice.

I love the way it talks about the brain, its plasticity, its limitations and other aspects of its functioning.

We all have it and we all use it, so we just have to know more about it.

But I am not a scientist.

I am a writer!

So, I am going to talk about it as a writer of my kind would.

Lift your hand up to your face and put your palm on your forehead.

This is where the story of today’s conversation begins.

This is where your prefrontal cortex is.

What is prefrontal cortex

Prefrontal cortex is a very important part of your brain that sits right under the skull of your forehead and is responsible for your conscious interactions with...

I am a mentally strong person with a bunch of sensitive spots in my mind as well as in my heart.

And quite often (almost every day), I get into a condition when my inner peace and balance are somewhat off.

To help me to get my mind back in the right watercourse and put my heart on the channel of contentment and calmness, I created my new evening ‘me-time’ routine.

Connection to…

When I was 14, everything was so different in my eyes.

The colors of nature were brighter and it was easier to get lost in the world of imagination where everything, somehow made perfect sense.

I built forests and I saved princesses.

I even gifted horses with the strength of gods.

I did not define myself as being...

Decisions!

Those are the movers to the best part of living which is action.

Standard formula of making a decision is quite simple: it relies on such mental processes as reason, biases, memories, and emotions.

Your past experience, psychological boundaries, insecurities, and intentions are the gears with which you weight the benefits and costs of this or that decision but those are also the extra weight that can derail you from making a truly right decision for yourself.

Becuse what will others think?

If people could use the mythical ability of ostriches bury their heads in the sand each time they are scared or threatened by what others will think of them, half of the world would get stuck underground.

It always starts as joke till someone’s feelings get hurt.

I know, humor is much needed and highly appreciated thing in our society. But the problem with it is that so many people use it as a weapon of verbal attacks against other people.

To me, it looks like stabbing someone in the back and then trying to convince the court that it was just a joke.

Someone died?

Well, it is not my problem that that someone does not have a sense of humor.

There are countless reasons as to why it happens. One of them is unwillingness to take responsibility for actions and words since there is no law regulating humor in our society.

It is too complicated and let’s be honest, so many people just do not care.

But it does not m...

If there was a conversation before the life on earth was created, I would imagine it be like that.

Nothing is perfect.

Fortunately!

Beauty has become a target for wars of objective opinions.

The lenses through which we look at the world got blurry by marketing tricks, fashion trends and other social media propaganda.

Yet, more and more people learn to see uniqueness within imperfections and though slowly we seem to be opening our hearts to the different beauty of appearances, there are other aspects of life that seem to get all the extra weight from that.

When the path of self-fulfillment gets slippery

What is life for if not for the fulfilment of one’s hopes and ambitions.

I love the world; this new world where my voice is promised to be heard and where my heart does not have to go through the tunnels of deceiving in order to survive the censured reality of outside world.

I can finally breathe and speak my mind.

I can navigate my life the way I want and enjoy the fruits of the choices that were purely made by me.

I can be honest and I can be fearless.

No more silent compassion anymore!

No more lies.

Now, in this new world, I have the rights to express my opinion and pursue my visions.

As long as my freedom does not take away the freedom of others, I am free.

Or so I thought.

Living in a box with a beautiful view of a promise

T...

Language is more than just a way of communication.

It is a form of identity. It is a wire that shapes your thoughts and helps you to express yourself to the world.

Language is a DNA print that gives you all the historical power and weakness of its formation.

It is the past of your generation as much as of its future.

I was born in Russia and Russian language has formed my personality way more than I give it the credit to.

It made me the way I am with all the challenging things in the pocket.

But learning a second language was a life changer for me.

Why I started learning English language?

It has been 10 years now—a whole life I must say.

Back then I did not understand the sudden need (almos...

My entire life is a product of rejection.

Hmm…

Would it be too much to say that my spin of rejections began at early age and had been dragging my subconscious through all these years with a pompous disdain?

Possibly yes!

Fortunately, I survived, became stronger and created this tiny nook of mine to rant all about my experience and share a survival guide I have developed for all these years that helps me keep going through the spin of rejections unharmed.

Well, almost unharmed.

I mean, not that I am an expert on it but I have developed a quite working scheme that helps me to come back from the burning aches of rejections in a matter of few hours.

Fine, sometimes it takes longer than that but listen, I know some ...

Fear—it has been so hard to keep its teeth in the muzzle lately and I am not talking about fear of spiders, this kind of fear is a beast completely different in its nature.

It is a fear of making a mistake that exists on the deepest level of your subconscious and makes you literally break anything you touch.

Vicious circle.

You are afraid that if you make a mistake the sky will collapse and at the same time no matter how hard you try to avoid making a mistake, things you touch break down and explode in your face.

But is not it well-known that making mistakes is how we learn and grow?

Then what is the problem?

Past week of my life was like running from a hellhound. I had no idea what was going on and yet I could not get ...

Burnout is real!

I know it after years of fighting and refusing to believe in its existence.

I was a solder in the army of my creative bits that drove a stake of pain through my middle each time I was thrown under a wagon of stress. I called it a creative predicament. I thought I had to wait till it goes away and then keep fighting, pushing, and literally making myself to move forward.

It did not work.

It was not effective either, but I am not someone who gives up easily. My forehead is much stronger than it looks. I can drill a hole with it through a thick pack of ice if I need to, this is how strong it is.

But burnout is real and its power is feeding on disbelief and denial. As long as you think it is nothing but a myth, it grows like ...

Everyone has their talents and gifts. No one is born without it.

However, looking back I remember a few people that I believed to be the most talented and gifted people I had ever met. They created without meaning to. They talked to the world and other people around them with easiness. Their words were like feathers peacefully swinging in the air.

And I remember myself feeling like the least talented person in the world.

Nothing came easily to me and even a single conversation could leave me deeply confused and sometimes even hurt.

It was not because I compared myself to those I believed to be the most talented ones.

No.

But in the room, when everyone started to shine and glow demonstrating their talents, I would be like a blac...

Last year, in September, I started one of the most important journeys of my life – this blog.

Honestly, it reminded me a trip through a gigantic field covered from sky to ground with smoky white fog. I had no idea where I was heading but I knew that I had to keep going. That was pretty much all I knew back then.

Today, I can hardly believe it has been a year, A WHOLE YEAR, since I did my first publication on this website. It still feels like it was just yesterday, you know.

But looking back, I can see how impactful and life-changing this year of blogging was for me.

How it all started?

As all the best things in my life, it all started with an idea. Well, a thought actually.

Why do not I start a blog? – I...

I have already mentioned these two books on my Instagram but I thought it would be great to dedicate my attention to them one more time here.

Why?

Because these two books have changed and are still changing the way I build my freelance career. And since online business has become one of the most popular forms of business these days, the books I am going to share with you today will help you to get a grasp on the main ideas of online business and freelance.

These books will help you to find the answers to such questions as ‘How to find clients and connect to people in your field?’ ‘How to negotiate to win a contract?’ and ‘How to build a powerful network to help you grow your online business?’

I cannot emphasize ...

The benefits of physical activity are now well-known all over the world. Even a child knows that working out is an important part of healthy body and mind but did you know that a simple 20-40 minutes of everyday running can actually help you to become a life winner.

How?

Here is my very much proven theory

Honestly, for a long time I had rather dubious feelings about running every day. Just like you, I was skeptical if it was safe for my joints and back. The countless amount of articles telling that running is not as healthy as we think and describing health risks of everyday running only added more smoke to the fire.

And so, after five months of everyday running, I gave up.

If they said it was not safe or healthy for me then ...

You and I – we both have our ‘why,’ our reason why we started this or that path in our life. But the longer we are on the path, the harder it gets to remember the reason that brought us here.

It is in human nature to achieve something only to discount it and start wanting another achievement. And even the most passionate of us sooner or later get sucked into the whirlpool of this reality.

It is sad, but it is true.

And my story is not different. For quite some time, I kept a blind eye to what was really happening.

Of course, I knew that being a writer meant more than just a random, temporary hobby to me.

I knew it was one of the most important parts of my life. And I knew that I loved doing it.

Writing ha...

In Daoism, life is presented as a road which we have to follow. Sounds reasonable and kind of easy, does not it? But the older I get, the less visible this road of life appears to me.

It has been a week since I wrote anything here, and that week was spent in a figurative bush of wondering, what the hell I’m doing here? How did I get here? And the most important, how do I get back on that road and keep going?

Answering those questions turned out both easy and hard. At one hand, I knew the answers but on the other I knew them only in theory which was not very helpful at all.

So, I threw a lazy party and spent three days straight in my bed watching The Chronicles of Narnia, Harry Potter, The Hobbit, and silent movies with Charlie Chaplin. I als...