WAKE UP & LIVE
A tall mature woman dancing barefoot in a sunlit rehearsal studio, seen from behind

A LITTLE ROOM FOR POSSIBILITY

Pause.
Reconnect.
Expand.

Expand what feels possible.

Enter the stories
WAKE UP & LIVESTORIES · WONDER · BECOMING

A NOTE BEFORE WE BEGIN

Some things begin
as a quiet feeling.

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.

A CHANGE OF DIRECTION

Vera
Wang.

01

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?

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

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

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.

Gem and the Shining Guide illustrated book cover: a boy and a magical sea visitor beneath the stars

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.

One note can lead to another.

Written by Rodah Mariah · Published by Wake Up & Live
AI-assisted illustrations, art-directed for the edition.

A CONVERSATION OF YOUR OWN

The Space Between

A 5-Day Conversation with Yourself

A little time to remember, reconnect and give what matters your attention.

01 Remember02 Reconnect03 Show up04 Let it grow05 Keep showing up

THE HUMAN THREAD

A voice.
A world in the making.

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. A voice, not a face. A growing body of work, with room for what comes next.

To help people remember who they are, reconnect with what matters, and courageously expand into the life they’re capable of creating.