Africa Changed My Definition of Freedom
I stopped fighting myself.
I looked around.
I was healthy. Alive. Floating in the Atlantic Ocean. Doing something I absolutely loved.
The current hadn’t changed. My exhausted body hadn’t changed. The ocean hadn’t changed.
But my experience of that moment had.
And when another wave came, I caught it.
That experience became the inspiration for my new film about self-doubt, negative thinking, and the stories we mistake for reality.
🎥 Watch my film: What Happens When You Stop Believing the Voice in Your Head
Surfing taught me something that applies far beyond the ocean:
Where you look is where you go.
Look down, and you fall.
Look where you want to go, and your body begins to follow.
Maybe life isn’t so different.
We don’t always see what’s there.
We see what we expect to see.
And just a few days later, during our journey through West Africa, life gave me two very different examples of this.
One Night in Liberia: When Fear Shapes Our Reality
We were driving from Liberia toward Côte d’Ivoire in our overland vehicle, Moglia.
After leaving the busy capital of Monrovia, we wanted to find somewhere quiet to spend our last night in Liberia.
We were running out of daylight when we finally found a small clearing beside the road.
Mohamed looked around and said:
“Soon the village chief will come. He’ll call the police, and we’ll end up spending the night at the police station.”
I had to laugh.
Nothing like that had ever happened to us before.
Why would it happen now?
But a little later, the village chief appeared.
He couldn’t understand why we had parked a few meters away from the main road instead of directly beside it.
From his perspective, something didn’t make sense.
Maybe we were hiding something.
Maybe we were planning something bad.
At least, that seemed to be his concern.
After a friendly conversation, he left.
And shortly afterward, two police officers arrived.
They were actually incredibly kind. We had already met them earlier at a road checkpoint.
They insisted we follow them to the police station, where they believed we would be safer.
Mohamed asked whether they could wait until he had driven Moglia off the grass, but they insisted on coming along.
So there I was, lying upstairs in our vehicle, being thrown from side to side as Mohamed drove us toward the police station with two additional passengers.
I couldn’t stop smiling.
Mohamed had imagined this exact scenario before it happened.
The village chief had looked at our unusual parking spot through his own concerns.
And those concerns had influenced what happened next.
His fear had become part of our reality.
Of course, this doesn’t prove that Mohamed’s thoughts magically caused the police to arrive.
But it made me think about how quickly our expectations, assumptions, and fears can shape the way we respond to each other.
And sometimes, those responses change what happens next.
100 Kilometers Later: A Completely Different Experience in Côte d’Ivoire
Just one night later, around 100 kilometers farther along our journey, we found ourselves in a surprisingly similar situation.
Except this time, we were in the bush of Côte d’Ivoire.
And Moglia’s brakes had stopped working properly.
Not ideal when you’re traveling on rough roads full of hills and potholes.
Mohamed was trying to fix the problem while I took Djib for a walk to look for somewhere we could spend the night.
People had seen us walking along the road. We certainly weren’t going unnoticed.
But I wasn’t worried about finding somewhere to stay.
I simply trusted that we would find a place.
And we did.
We managed to get Moglia another 500 meters down the road to a small clearing.
We had barely parked when a man approached us.
His name was Yepleu Parfait.
Yes, really.
Parfait means perfect in French.
And somehow, his name couldn’t have suited him better.
He greeted us and asked whether we needed help.
When he learned about our brake problems, he immediately offered to find a mechanic.
Then he told us he was a farmer and wanted to bring us some bananas.
It was already getting dark, but he insisted on going home to collect them.
And he returned with the most delicious bananas from his farm.
He promised to come back the following morning after charging his phone so he could give us the contact details of a mechanic in the nearest larger town.
And he kept his promise.
The Unexpected Kindness of Yepleu Parfait
The next morning, after we’d enjoyed his bananas for breakfast, Yepleu appeared again.
This time, he brought another gift.
A huge bag containing three enormous fruits.
He had also taken the morning off work so he could personally accompany us to the mechanic.
While Mohamed and Yepleu stood outside in the rain working on Moglia’s brakes, I sat inside with my laptop.
Over the course of the morning, we became friends.
Yepleu told us about his life, his wife Irmgard, and their four children.
He showed us pictures of his family.
He explained how they grow rice, fruit, cassava, and oil palms on their farm, doing the work themselves.
We talked about our different ways of living.
About traveling.
About family.
About the things that make us happy.
After the mechanic had finished, we invited him to lunch.
And then he told us something I will never forget.
He said that one of his dreams had always been to spend an entire day with white travelers like us.
And now it had happened.
I found that incredibly touching.
Not because there was anything special about us being white travelers.
But because something that had been meaningful to him had become a real human connection.
There is a small sticker inside Moglia that we see every single day.
It says:
BE KIND.
I explained to Yepleu why we keep it there.
It’s our daily reminder of how we want to move through the world.
He smiled and said:
“That fits. You really are kind.”
I think that was one of the most beautiful compliments of our entire journey.
Two Nights, Two Stories, One Powerful Mindset Shift
Two nights.
Two places.
Two situations in which we were looking for somewhere to sleep beside a road.
In Liberia, the village chief approached our presence with suspicion and concern.
In Côte d’Ivoire, Yepleu approached us with curiosity, generosity, and an open heart.
Both were responding to what they believed about the situation.
And their responses influenced our experience.
This is what fascinates me about the relationship between our thoughts and our reality.
Our thoughts don’t control everything that happens to us. But they influence what we notice, how we interpret situations, and what we do next.
And those choices can change our lives.
How to Change Your Mindset Without Forcing Positive Thinking
When people talk about manifestation, positive thinking, or changing their mindset, it can sometimes sound as though we’re supposed to pretend that everything is wonderful.
But that’s not what I mean.
Life can be difficult.
Things go wrong.
People disappoint us.
Cars break down.
We miss waves.
And sometimes we have every reason to feel afraid.
Changing your mindset doesn’t mean denying any of that.
For me, it begins with becoming aware of the voice inside my head.
The one that tells me:
I’m not good enough.
Something bad is going to happen.
People can’t be trusted.
I’ll never succeed.
Instead of automatically believing these thoughts, I can stop for a moment.
Press pause.
And ask myself three questions:
- Who’s speaking? Is this truly what I believe, or am I carrying someone else’s fears and expectations?
- Is this thought holding me back or opening new possibilities?
- What if I believed the opposite?
Not because the opposite must be true.
But because it might reveal possibilities I couldn’t see before.
Some of the stories we believe about ourselves were never really ours to begin with.
They came from our parents’ fears, our teachers’ limitations, society’s expectations, or something someone said to us years ago.
And eventually, we stopped questioning them.
We simply called them me.
Fear Is Loud. Trust Is Quiet.
One of the biggest lessons I’m learning through traveling, surfing, and meeting people across West Africa is that fear tends to demand our attention.
It tells us to expect the worst.
To protect ourselves.
To stay where things feel familiar.
Trust doesn’t usually make that much noise.
Sometimes, we have to become quiet enough to notice it.
And that doesn’t mean being careless or ignoring real danger.
It means not allowing fear to write every story before life has even had a chance to unfold.
Because what if the world has more to offer than the things we’re afraid of?
What if we approached the next unfamiliar situation with curiosity instead of immediately expecting trouble?
What if we allowed ourselves to be surprised?
Yepleu reminded me of something I never want to forget.
An open heart leaves room for possibilities we couldn’t have planned.
Your Thoughts Shape Your Reality — But They Don’t Have to Define You
I don’t believe we can manifest absolutely everything.
But I do believe our thoughts have an enormous influence on how we experience life.
They shape our attention.
Our expectations.
Our decisions.
And sometimes even the way other people respond to us.
So perhaps the most powerful mindset shift isn’t about becoming a completely different person.
Perhaps it begins when we realize that we don’t have to believe everything our minds tell us.
The next time the voice inside your head starts telling you that you’re not enough, that something will go wrong, or that the world is against you…
Press pause.
Ask yourself:
Who’s speaking?
Is this thought holding me back or opening new possibilities?
And what would become possible if I believed the opposite?
Maybe your life doesn’t need to change as much as you think.
Maybe it’s time to question the story you’ve been telling yourself about it.
Experience West Africa Beyond the Screen
Traveling through West Africa has given me some of the most meaningful experiences of my life.
Not because every day is easy.
But because being somewhere unfamiliar constantly invites me to question what I think I know.
About the world.
About other people.
And about myself.
👉 Discover the Free Your Soul Retreats: www.lena-wendt.com
If you’d like to experience this kind of connection, discovery, and personal growth in person, I’d love to welcome you to one of my upcoming retreats.
You can also watch the full surfing film that inspired this article:
🎥 [Watch the Film on YouTube]
And I’d genuinely love to hear from you:
Have you ever experienced a moment when changing the way you looked at a situation changed everything?
With love from West Africa,
Lena ❤️
