The journey behind the map

 

On May 18, 2018, my life changed completely. I suffered a severe stroke that nearly took my life. Because of the severity of the injury, the doctors gave my family a very difficult prognosis. They believed I would never walk, speak, or eat by mouth again.

But against all odds, I began to recover. Every day since then has been part of an intense journey of rehabilitation, filled with therapies, perseverance, and small victories.

In those first months, one truth became impossible to ignore: love changes everything when facing adversity.

I was surrounded by extraordinary expressions of love and support from my family, friends, doctors, therapists, and countless people along the way. My mother stayed beside me throughout each day, while my wife, only two months pregnant when the stroke happened, worked during the day and spent every night with me throughout the 35 days I remained in the intensive care unit.

Over the first year of my rehabilitation, gratitude became one of the strongest emotions in my life. I often wondered how I could ever give back all the love I had received, especially from my wife, who worked through pregnancy and motherhood while continuing to care for me every day.

Although my circumstances were incredibly difficult, my determination and optimism seemed stronger than the adversity itself. My therapists encouraged me to share my story, believing it could inspire others. But I wanted to understand something first.

Why was I able to remain so hopeful?

As I searched for a way to transform my experience into something that could genuinely help others, I looked back on my recovery and made an unexpected discovery: without realizing it, I had developed my own emotional regulation method.

Whenever I experienced a painful emotion, I first tried to understand where it came from. Then I asked myself a simple question:

What would I rather feel instead?

By deliberately shifting my perspective, little by little fear gave way to hope, frustration to determination, and discouragement to motivation.

Only later did I realize that this process followed the same logic as navigating a subway system.

First, you identify where you are.
Then, you decide where you want to go.
Finally, you follow the route that takes you there.

The only difference was that my journey wasn’t through a city. It was through my own emotional landscape.

That same year, I made a promise to myself: if I ever managed to work again, I would dedicate my work as a designer to creating products that carried positive messages and offered emotional support to others.

Exactly one year after the stroke, I woke up with the idea for Kosmic Design, a way to fulfill that promise.

Three months later, as my rehabilitation gradually gave me a few free afternoons each week, I began working on the Good Vibes Map. Drawing on my background in graphic and information design, I transformed my emotional regulation method into a visual language that anyone could intuitively understand.

Working an average of twelve hours a week between therapies, it took seven months to complete the printed version of the map.

As people discovered the Good Vibes Map, many asked how they could apply its method in their own lives. I realized that guiding people through the map one station at a time would make the method far more intuitive and accessible than the printed poster alone. That inspired the creation of the online experience, where each station invites deeper reflection and every journey guides you toward a more positive emotional state.

Today, the printed poster and the online experience complement one another. One reveals the entire landscape of positive emotions at a glance. The other helps you navigate it, one reflection at a time.

Even as I continue an intensive routine of therapies and learn to live with the lasting effects of my stroke, I dedicate my work to expanding the reach and impact of the Good Vibes Map, hoping it can offer others what it once offered me: clarity during uncertainty, hope during adversity, and the reminder that there is always another path forward.

The Good Vibes Map wasn’t born from theory. It was born from the search for a better way to face life’s hardest moments, and from the hope that this journey might help others navigate theirs.

May the Good Vibes be with you.

Rodrigo Maroja