The Waking Youth Project

What began as a timid audio podcast in 2020, during my studies, has been slowly yet surely evolving into a living art project—one that weaves together deep listening, storytelling, creative writing, personal growth, and societal-healing.

At the heart of Waking Youth lies a simple, enduring question: What does it mean—for you and for me, for the young, the grown, and the elders alike—to live into a wiser maturity?

I often sense that we, as a modern civilization, are in a stage of development akin to adolescence. We compete where we could collaborate, destroy where we might heal, and fight where we could love. How might we then keep growing, not up, but inward and towards the realization of our more conscious, kind, loving potential?

In practice, Waking Youth takes many forms:

🎧 Podcast interviews with human beings I consider wise—individuals who expand the horizon of who we might become. Among them are regenerative farmer Fausto Araújo; former Israeli soldier turned hempcrete entrepreneur Elad Kaspin; brilliant artist Hannah Close; and transpersonal psychologist Jorge Ferrer, who reimagines love through his concept, and now mine too, of novogamy.

🧘🏽‍♀️ Weekly Integral Yoga sessions, online and in person, in Alentejo, Portugal.

✍️ Written pieces on themes that tug at my curiosity, stuff that intrigues me and feel collectively relevant: radical honesty, callings & vocations, and even the forgotten value of idiots in keeping our society sane.

👩‍💻​ Online events & offerings, such as book clubs around timeless works like Rainer Maria Rilke’s Letters to a Young Poet, and soon, I hope, workshops and liminal courses that nurture both mind and spirit.

👥 Gatherings in the flesh like the ‘Let Your Life Speak’ retreat, where we draw on the power of community to unearth the wisdom stored in our bodies.

If the words above speak to you, I invite you to subscribe the Waking Youth newsletter below where I’ll keep you updated about our latest explorations and creations.

I don’t like to commit to a particular frequency of publication, as the work we do here moves less by the logic of the capitalist marketplace, and more by the rhythm of our creative souls.

Welcome to what I hope might become for you a home,
Carlota

What People Are Saying

"Carlota is a brilliant writer and podcast host. It's been a pleasure reading and listening to her work. Through both mediums, her healthy curiosity guides wise and meaningful questions, and sparks necessary conversations.”

Contribute

Everything you’ll find at Waking Youth is a labour of love. I dedicate many—some would say too many—hours to this calling of mine, and I do so because I love it, because it makes me feel alive, because I couldn’t not do it.

Most of what you read and listen here is offered for free. If this project resonates with you, the simplest way to support it is by sharing it with those you sense might love it too.

From time to time, we also host paid courses, workshops, and retreats, which help sustain the work and allow me to dedicate more of my energy to it.

And if you wish to go a step further, you can support Waking Youth, or me, directly through a paid subscription or a one-time donation here — a gesture that massively helps this project continue to grow and flourish.

Team

Everything you read, listen to, and attend through Waking Youth is co-created by me, Carlota Guedes, with the support and inspiration of many others.

In a time when personal branding so often commodifies our sense of self and individualism dilutes our communal identities, however, I don’t like to see this project as mine. Everything you encounter here born from countless interactions, conversations, and experiences with people walking paths both similar and wildly different from my own.

Waking Youth is, at its heart, a collective project: between me, you, us, and the mystery of life.

The music you hear in the podcast is composed by Carlos Sierra, the sound magician who has greatly elevated this project’s quality through both his music and attentive editing of our interviews.

As for events, gatherings, book clubs, and retreats, I’ve had the joy of collaborating with many wonderful and wise beings like writers