When I was a little girl, my world was filled with magic, as is the world of most children. The border between imagination and reality was just a convention. In my mind, imagination and reality were ONE. Characters from stories were as real as my kindergarten friends, the sun shining every single morning and the moon caressing my pillow at night were reasons for joy and wonder. I was happy and free, I believed in miracles, I believed that life was sprinkled with fairy-dust and that anything, truly anything was possible.

Then something happened. I grew up.

It all started, or at least that's how I remember it, on a day which started off as any other - magical, and ended up as the first "real" day of my life. It was the day my father, in a context I can't now remember, told me, out of the blue, or so I thought, that Santa Claus didn't exist. I was very sad that day. Suddenly I couldn't see the dust of fairies around me anymore. I was about six and I felt really old and this feeling of being much older than my biological age stayed with me for the following 23 years.

Then more and more "reality checks" came my way. I started school, I took my first step into adolescence, had my fist heartbreak, lost my first friend. I grew up. Mature, responsible, driven. I redefined "happiness" and put it in the same check-box as "success". If I were successful, then I would be happy. And I was. Successful that is. Happiness is another story.

I now believe that somehow, in secret, I was hoping that once I would fulfil all the expectations my family, my friends, my employers and society itself seemed to have of me, then I would be able to feel the magic again. In my heart that sense of magic and happiness were never really separated. That's why, regardless of how joyful I felt at any given moment in time, I seldom felt I was truly happy, and even when I was it only lasted a short while. Something was always missing. The "grown-up happiness" never really equalled the "childhood happiness" I had known.

In my quest for "grown-up happiness" and my desperation to find that perfect "formula" that would ensure my peace of mind and joy of heart I made many mistakes and wrong choices. I loved too much or loved too little, I pursued the wrong goals, I stepped on the the corporate treadmill, then off it, I built a business and sold it because my heart was not into it, I built a house, then gave it up, stepped on and off the corporate treadmill once more and built a second business that I could truly believe in. I also learnt many valuable lessons, among which is that the most powerful lies we can ever tell are not the lies we tell others, but the lies we tell ourselves, because those ones we truly believe.

On this journey filled with ups and downs and useless searches I discovered my true calling and turned it into a profession. Still I wasn't happy because I was still looking for the answers outside. I did this until came the day when I could no longer run away from myself. I turned around and looked myself in the eyes and in the soul and asked: Who ARE you? 

It took me two years to come up with a credible answer to this question. Two years of personal transformation. Two years in which I heard, more than once, "You have changed" uttered by important people in my life in a voice filled with disappointment. At the end of these two years I am a different person. Different from the one I was 2, 5, 10, 22 years ago. And the same I was 23 years ago, right before that fatidical moment when I found out that Santa Claus didn't exist in the grown up world.

I now believe in Santa once again. With the eyes of an adult and the heart of a child. I have found my magic and the world is filled with fairy dust once more. I am not naive. I haven't lost contact with the real world. I have just reunited with my inner child. I choose to live my life free of conventions, I refuse to think of "work" as a "serious" thing, I follow my passion, I go to business meetings wearing blue jeans, I believe all people are fundamentally good, I am a corporate trainer during the week and a dream teacher during weekends and I love both just the same.

I trust that I can be happy anywhere, even in the Amazonian Jungle, and I am no longer afraid to make decisions that would change my life. I choose to love with all my heart and I am no longer afraid that I might suffer. I laugh out loud, stay calm in traffic even when I'm late, smile at the policeman who stops me for speeding and find time to see my friends even when I'm "busy". Actually I no longer believe I am ever too "busy" to do the things I love.

I no longer feel guilty for giving myself some idle time and no longer associate "success" with "happiness". Now I just associate "happiness" with being true to myself every single moment of my life. Life is no longer a chore. Life is a holiday. And that's not because too many external circumstances have changed. That is because the way I see my life has changed.

So when people tell me I have changed, I feel happy and grateful. Indeed I have changed back into who I used to be before I changed into someone I was not. And there is nothing more I could wish for all of you reading my articles.

May you get your magic back and may you be who you truly are, even when who you are is not who those around you pressure you to be. They too are just people who perhaps have, at one point, lost their own magic. And, when life seems hard, remember there will always be people who love you precisely for your magic and would never ever dream of changing you into someone you are not. Those are the people you should seek and want to be around.

And, once you find your magic, may you hear as many "You Have Changed" as you need to convince you that, indeed, you have changed back into who you were meant to be in the first place!