I keep on preaching about this but still forget every now and then; it’s so important to follow your gut feeling! Even in the smallest things sometimes, if I should turn left or right, go to this event even though it’s too late, ask for more than one could imagine being possible, say nothing at all or walk away and never look back.

The life I’ve chosen is one of adventure, or adventure chooses me. Sometimes I don’t know which one. But I’ve heard it more than once; “life with you is an adventure”. It’s more like the habit of opening yourself up for whatever might become a once in a lifetime story. This way I’ve traveled to over 40 countries, hitchhiked most of them probably, graduated from law school in a foreign language, found the most amazing friends, got to work full time in music and live a life full of music.

But talking about the gut feeling;

it’s my protection and my guiding light

It’s really interesting how in hitchhiking, or in general, whenever something bad happened to someone, they instinctively felt something was off. But they did it anyway. I’ve done that mistake too, quite recently where I ended up in a weird dystopian telenovela.

But then when one does act on gut feeling, a whole beautiful set of synchronicities is launched, until you stop following it.

Here’s a recent example; while swimming at a public pool I got into a conversation with a woman who said Björk will have a DJ Set for the solar eclipse in Iceland next week. Then later while I was walking around Reykjavik I stopped in front of a record store / bar with a live DJ.

“Nah, let’s not.” Maybe I got suddenly too shy to enter a bar by myself and kept walking in the rain.

Later that night the same woman wrote me that she had met Björk in that exact record store.

It’s easy to say; follow your gut, but it’s sometimes really hard to hear it in all of the noise of this world and even harder to act on it, when you suddenly or repeatedly get hit by self doubt.

Maybe I would have met one of my musical heroes last night. Maybe I would have gone inside to only do a u-turn. Maybe I would have thought I’m too cool for all of that because celebrities are human beings and should be treated as such and not some mystical creatures high up on a pedestal and definitely not like zoo animals.

Maybe one day I’ll get to tell it to her personally that I really love her music. Tell her that when I was in my lowest time of my life I would cuddle up in a blanket in my hidden place, crochet a tea cozy from pure white wool that I had recycled from a sweater I’d knitted that never really fit me while listening to her album Vespertine on repeat. I remember telling about this to a friend back then to which she said; that’s such a nordic thing to do.

It’s become a habit of mine to go to the stage after a concert or on social media to say personally “Thank you for the music!” Then that in return leads to other stories, friendships and relationships, maybe also a result of the gut feeling.

Right now my gut feeling is… telling me to stop for a moment to be grateful <3

I believe that’s also a way to get rooted to be able to listen and act on that feeling the next time it appears.

Life is sometimes a very mysterious thing

Earlier today I posted some pictures on instagram together with these thoughts on gratitude;

I often fail to see how rich I am, blessed with nature, rain and shine, friends and family, arts in form of melodies and stories.

Every time I walk up the stairs I express my gratitude for having two legs to walk,

two hands to play guitar

and all the liberty to express myself in song, laughter and tears

and that I have two eyes to see all the small things to guide the lens of my camera and show you in case you forgot, like I sometime do too;

How wonderful life really is