An idea that keeps returning. A curiosity you cannot quite explain. A part of yourself you would like to hear again.
Here, we make room to notice. Through stories, we pause, reconnect with what matters, and explore what might become possible.
01 / POSSIBILITY STORIES
The moments before the ending was known
There was a moment before.
01 / A CHANGE OF DIRECTION · VERA WANG
From our Vera Wang carousel
What if you’re becoming someone you don’t yet know how to name?
Earlier chapters can leave us with more than we realise. A reflection on changing direction, and what we carry into a beginning.
Read the reflection
There can be a strange quiet after a dream changes. The work, the attention, the years of trying: where do they go now?
A detail from our Vera Wang reel
Vera Wang’s path through skating, fashion and bridal design gives us a way to sit with that question. One chapter does not have to explain the next for something valuable to travel between them.
A sense of line. An eye for movement. The patience to practise. Sometimes we discover what an earlier experience gave us only when we begin using it differently.
Perhaps a new direction begins with noticing what is still alive in us.
What from an earlier chapter might still be useful to you?
02 / MAKING ROOM
From our Murakami carousel
Haruki Murakami
A small beginning at a kitchen table. Making room for an idea while everyday life continues.
Read the reflection
In the story we explored, Murakami began writing around the life he already had, late at night after running his jazz club. The beginning had no grand room of its own.
There is something tender about that: an ordinary table, a little time, and an idea receiving attention before anyone knows what it will become.
Where could a returning idea have a little room in your day?
03 / ANOTHER WAY FORWARD
From our Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce reel
Shelly-Ann Fraser-Pryce
When the approach has to change, what matters can still remain.
Read the reflection
Our story followed a difficult period of injury and rehabilitation before the 2016 Olympics. Familiar ways of training had to give way to another approach.
Sometimes the next step is less dramatic than we hoped: working within today’s limits, returning to what is possible, letting help become part of the process.
What matters enough to you to try a different approach?
Reflections from the Wake Up & Live story series. These are independently created editorial pieces.
02 / THE SPACE BETWEEN
Between what was and what comes next.
There are moments when something is changing, but you cannot yet name what is taking its place.
Between an ending and a beginning. Between a returning idea and the first small step. Between who you have been and who you are becoming.
The Space Between makes room for these moments: uncertainty, rediscovery, and the possibilities we begin exploring before we know where they will lead.
Explore the idea
You might be returning to something you once loved, questioning a familiar direction, or beginning to notice a possibility that has not yet become a plan.
You do not have to hurry to give it a name. A conversation, a page, a little curiosity: these can be beginnings too.
This idea runs through our real-life stories, original fiction and reflective work. There is room for it to keep growing.
03 / AN ORIGINAL STORY
Gem and the Shining Guide.
The city is loud. The sea is full of secrets.
School has been difficult for Gem. Then a surprising visitor leaps from the sea and asks to sit beside him. As they talk, Gem shares the thing that brings him a little excitement: the piano.
A children’s story about friendship, connectedness and finding your spark. For quiet listeners—and the grown-ups beside them.
A little more about Gem
Gem’s difficulties do not disappear when he finds the piano. Music gives him something he wants to keep exploring, and a friendship gives him room to be heard.
Read together. Leave space for questions. Notice the little things that bring a child joy.
Wake Up & Live began with an idea that kept returning. It continues through stories, curiosity and the work of giving those ideas a form.
Created by Rodah Mariah, an African-Australian creator based in Sydney, an MBA graduate with a background in mass communication and research interests in communication and the arts. Her work grows from a passion for storytelling, human connection and expanding what feels possible.
To help people remember who they are, reconnect with what matters, and courageously expand into the life they’re capable of creating.
