about clovers, consciousness, and coming home to yourself
The first time I searched for clovers, I was lying in the garden of my grandparents’ home, cheek pressed to the grass. I must’ve been three or four. My mother, crouched beside me, coaxed me to listen. “You can hear it grow,” she said. She weaved her hand through a patch taller than the rest, her voice low and conspiratorial. “We’re looking for a four-leaf clover,” she told me. “One in every ten thousand is lucky.”
I was spellbound. Even at that age, I think I knew somewhere inside my tiny chest that this was what I’d always be doing. Looking for signs of the mystical, the invisible, the more-than-meets-the-eye hidden in plain sight.
Years pass. Another country. Another version of me.
It’s 4 a.m. in Bristol, and something wakes me. A vibration. Somewhere in the distance, a sound system is thrumming through the earth like a call. I dress quickly, wrap an oversized scarf around my shoulders, fill a water bottle, and step out into the still-blue dark.
The streets are half-asleep, but I’m pulled forward. Down narrow lanes. Through a tunnel tagged with messages like prayers. I follow the sound, lose it briefly to the growl of a generator, then find it again. Cresting a hill, I arrive to see a hundred people scattered across a grassy knoll. A makeshift DJ booth. Giant speakers booming techno into the sky.
Someone walks up to me immediately, parched. He gestures toward my bottle. “Of course,” I say, handing it over. When he finishes drinking, he presses a little white pill into my palm. A thank you.
I take it without thinking, settle down into the grass beside someone I half-know. My fingers begin to idly stroke the blades. And then, suddenly, I see one. A clover. Four leaves. Then another. Then another. Seven in total, all nestled in a single patch beneath me like a private miracle.
I fold six of them into my notebook and give one to my neighbour, giddy. I’m high. The music is inside me. The sun is coming up and everything feels full, like the veil between the seen and unseen has grown thin. My heart is pounding with joy.
Reality, I’ve learned, is never neutral. It bends through the lens of the mind that’s perceiving it. What you see, what I see, it’s never the same thing. We’re all wandering around inside our own maps, shaped by family, culture, memory. When we insist that ours is the only truth, we miss each other entirely.
Fast forward again. Tuscany, Italy. A villa hidden among olive trees. I’m here with a lover, invited to help with the harvest. For days, we rake olives from branches and into nets, the work sweet and repetitive, the kind that exhausts the body just enough to quiet the mind.
On the fifth morning, I froth milk over the stove and carry two coffees outside. The children from the house circle around me, their chatter light and skittish as birds. One of them, a two-year-old girl, calls me “Honey.” She can’t pronounce Vienda.
I feel the now-familiar pull. My eyes land on a darker patch of grass. I set the coffee down and kneel.
“What are you doing, Honey?” she asks.
“I’m looking for a four-leaf clover,” I reply.
And there it is. Right in front of me. Then another. The adults gasp. I hand both to my lover. He presses them into the back of his journal like evidence.
There’s magic everywhere if you know how to see. But so many of us have forgotten. We’ve been taught to expect danger, to defer to logic, to stay in line. We’ve been told that surrender is foolish, softness is weakness, and intuition is unreliable. And so, we trade our knowing for safety. Our voice for approval. Our inner wisdom for the illusion of control.
But eventually, the body remembers what the mind has tried to override.
Just days ago, here in New York, the city was swelling with that first hot breath of spring. We had plans to board a ferry across the Hudson but missed it. The next wouldn’t arrive for hours. So we walked back towards home.
We’d both been cooped up working, he on a book that’ll be published later this year, me on a course called The Way She Knows, which had just opened for earlybird enrolments. We need sunlight. Air. Movement.
As we meander along the river, I stop. “Wait,” I said, “I want to check something.”
I crouch beside a small patch of green growing along the sidewalk. Something had tugged at me, quiet but insistent. I peer closer and blink. The biggest four-leaf clover I’ve ever seen. Massive. Radiant. Impossible. I show him.
“What the heck!” he says. “It’s like you knew it was there.”
I smile, gleeful and press it gently between two bills in my wallet. Because of course it was there. Of course I knew.
There comes a point in every woman’s life when she realises:
It’s not the world holding her back. Not the people around her, or the circumstances, or the past. It’s the quiet, looping stories she inherited. The beliefs. The patterns. The protections.
I know this terrain intimately.
For years, I lived split in two, pulled between what I felt and what I’d been taught to believe.
Until I couldn’t anymore.
Reclaiming myself wasn’t a single moment. It was a thousand tiny ones. Clearing those internal blocks, not just intellectually, but somatically, emotionally, spiritually, changed everything. It gave me back my voice. My clarity. My intuition. My joy.
about NYC being a place of contrast requiring inner stability, and the quiet strength of being well-resourced
When I stepped out of JFK airport and followed the signs to the subway, I braced myself. New York is known for its edge, its abrasion. I am soft. I tend and protect that softness like a flame cupped in two hands. I wasn’t sure how it would survive here.
I tapped my phone at the turnstile and joined a tall young man in the elevator. He wore headphones and held himself like someone accustomed to noise. Still, I turned to him, map pulled up on my phone, unsure where to go. He removed one earbud, glanced at the screen, and said in the gentlest voice, “You can’t get the F from here, but if you take the K, you can transfer in three stops.”
I blinked. He had such a kind presence. His softness mirrored mine. Maybe there’s space for gentleness here, after all.
I followed his directions toward the Lower East Side. A few minutes into the ride, the unmistakable smell of urine filled the carriage. A man down the carriage—middle-aged, Chinese descent—had wet himself and begun swearing loudly. Slurring. Angry. A different kind of edge.
This city, I’m learning, holds everything. Softness and despair. Precision and chaos. A young man with headphones offering quiet directions. An older man unravelling in public. Here, opposites coexist, unapologetically. New York is a city of contrasts, and that is, perhaps, its defining trait.
The days have spilled into one another like rainwater pooling in uneven stone. Time behaves differently here. Moments stretch. Then vanish. Weeks slip past before I can grab hold. What I’m learning is this: I cannot tether myself to the outside world. It’s too volatile. Too fast. Too much.
Instead, I tether myself inward. I return to a still point inside me — a quiet place I cultivate through ritual and self-devotion. I nurture it like a small garden: feeding it with breath, rest, laughter, water, movement, music. A daily act of remembrance. Of protection. Of belonging to myself.
Sometimes, it’s as simple as walking to Whole Foods alone, sending a few voice notes to the women who hold me in their hearts. That ten-minute walk fulfils two needs: solitude and connection. It’s imperfect. But it’s enough.
Work is another tether. Returning to it each day — whether I want to or not — grounds me. I write. I build. I teach. I remember who I am. Even when the city pulls me in every direction.
Last night, friends made homemade pizza and poured glasses of white wine. We ate slowly, talked about art, about cities we’ve loved. And then, walking home, we passed a man with his trousers around his knees, bare bottom exposed, head buried in a trash bin. Of course. That’s New York, too.
Right now, I’m writing this during a live co-writing session for The Art of Noticing. Eight of us are here, silent on Zoom, warm orchestral music in the background. Earlier, we spoke about a line from one of my recent essays about being a well-resourced woman. We explored how writing can teach without instructing. That sometimes, the lesson is simply in the living.
In Her Way Club, this here community I lead, that’s what I teach: how to listen inward. How to find your way—not the right way, not the perfect way, but yourway. In writing. In loving. In parenting. In creating. In becoming.
And to find your way, you must first be resourced. You need space. You need softness. You need access to yourself.
Being resourced is a privilege, yes. But it’s also a practice. A skill we build and rebuild. I see it as the art of tending to our inner ecosystem. Of becoming our own safe haven.
It means expanding your capacity to meet life without collapsing. Learning to sit with discomfort. Making choices from groundedness, not panic. It doesn’t mean you never need others. It means you’re not uprooted every time the wind blows.
How do you become that person?
You start small:
You build a daily rhythm that supports your nervous system.
You learn to breathe when you want to scream.
You create a home that feels like a hug.
You save a little money, even when it’s hard.
You learn to cook a meal you love.
You reach out and you know how to be alone.
You keep learning. Keep listening.
This is what I’ve brought with me to New York. Not just clothes and books and dreams, but tools. Practices. A soft heart and a solid core.
The task is simple and deceptively difficult: What did you do yesterday?
We have always been curious about the lives of others.
Long before television and tabloids, we craned our necks at windows, imagined stories behind closed doors. That impulse to know, to glimpse, to understand is ancient. We are, all of us, secret witnesses, seeking reflection, seeking difference, seeking the tender knowledge that we are not alone.
“Ah,” we think, “so this is how another human moves through the day. How strange. How ordinary. How marvellous.”
Most of us, if asked, would call our days unremarkable. We would point to the routines, the errands, the silences, and shrug. But presence alters the lens. What once seemed plain is suddenly flooded with texture:
The amber glow of morning through the blinds. The brief pleasure of a spoon against the roof of the mouth. The idle reaching for a book, for a thought, for another hand.
A life, it turns out, is made not of milestones, but of minutiae.
It was this quiet revelation that shaped this week’s assignment in The Art of Noticing, the six-week writing club I am leading. The prompt is borrowed, with gratitude, from Aisling Marron of Notes From New York, who herself was inspired by a podcast of the same name.
The task is simple and deceptively difficult: What did you do yesterday?
No digressions. No rewinding or fast-forwarding. Only the bare, shining truth of a single day, as it unfolded.
Here is mine:
7:00am My boyfriend’s alarm goes off, the buzz slicing through the heavy fog of my sleep. I roll onto my side, eyes gritty, my head thick and stuffed with cotton wool. Regret clings to me immediately. Regret for the ambitious plans I agreed to, for not protecting the softness of this morning. But I am an adult and adults honour their commitments, so I climb down the ladder from our loft bed, bare feet pressing onto the cool wooden floor. I pull my aligners from my mouth, soak them in their cleaning agent, put the kettle on, and drop an ‘immune support’ Yogi tea bag into favourite mug. I find my tiny jar of Egyptian Magic and bring it and the tea to the sofa. My face aches, pulsing with the imprint of too-little sleep and the too-salty dinner from the night before. I settle into the cushions and begin to massage my lymph nodes slowly — chest, neck, jawline, cheeks, scalp — coaxing the fluid back into its pathways, feeling the swelling subside little by little. These small, tender rituals make me grateful for everything I’ve learned about how to tend to myself.
7:30am My boyfriend finds me curled up on the sofa, kisses me. “How did you sleep?” he asks, and I reply “Fine”. I stretch my arms overhead and yawn, “The problem with making plans ahead of time is you never know how you’re going to feel when they arrive.” I splash warm water on my face, wipe off the leftover balm with a soft cloth, and brush my teeth, waking myself up bit by bit. He laughs and mixes creatine into two glasses of water — one for each of us. We sit shoulder-to-shoulder as I quickly scroll through my social apps, answering urgent messages and uploading the next The Art of Noticing lesson for my writing club. “Let’s go for coffee!” he suggests, and I peel myself away to dig through drawers in our little walk-in wardrobe, finding black leggings, a soft, sky-blue yoga tank, and my favourite Free People fleece that still smells of Portugal.
8:15am As we descend the narrow staircase of our building, he tells me in hushed tones about how he heard someone fiddling with our lock in the night. A chill prickles up my spine; New York feels wild and unpredictable. We agree to tell the landlord, unsure how concerned we ought to be. Our favourite coffee shop is tucked just under our building, but he’s craving a vegan croissant, so we detour to Essex Market, the morning still crisp and pale. When we arrive, the market is shuttered, the gates still pulled down. Even New York, it seems, has its limits. By the time we return, the coffee shop has filled with people; there’s a queue spooled inside. We squeeze in, order two coffees and a few treats: a tahini cookie and oat cappuccino for him, a flat white and buttery croissant for me. I’m still hollow from yesterday’s hunger and bite into the pastry peeking out of the paper bag before the coffees arrive.
9:00am I log onto Zoom for a meeting with an alumna from The Mentor Training. As we speak, my sluggish mind lifts into a higher orbit, buoyed by the energy of possibility. I remember — oh yes — I have built things, beautiful things. I have made worlds out of ideas. It’s so easy for me to forget, to always chase the next horizon without pausing to admire the view. Having it mirrored back to me reignites a quiet fire inside.
9:45am We end the call with a plan and a few fresh objectives, and I scramble around our tiny LES apartment gathering keys and my phone, throwing back a glass of water before running to yoga class. I arrive breathless but just in time. The teacher welcomes me warmly: she’s tall, with a fluid grace, long stretchy limbs, and a soft accent that feels instantly soothing. She gestures for me to grab two blocks and a strap, and I find a space right at the front. A man plops down beside me at the last moment. Round-bellied, bald, but adorned in a pink ballerina-style outfit, bright red lipstick and nails to match. I smile to myself: we’re all girls here today.
10:00am We begin on our backs, breath deepening, bodies sinking into the earth. The teacher’s style is light and casual, her voice weaving through the room like a ribbon. As we move into slow sun salutations, I feel the two decades of practice unfurling in my muscles, a familiar dance. Movement practices like yoga are an anchor for me, a home I can return to no matter how much the outer world shape-shifts. By the end of class, every inch of me feels stretched and rinsed clean. I thank the teacher quietly, wipe my mat with a lemon-scented towelette, and slide my Birkenstocks back on, feeling the earth a little closer beneath my feet.
11:30am A 10-minute voice note from my bestie is waiting, so I pop my headphones in as I wander home, the city buzzing around me. I duck into a small beauty boutique and marvel at the rows of glass bottles and creams before finding my beloved Italian leave-in conditioner. $42, I am willing to invest in. As I browse, I send her a stream-of-consciousness voice reply, not to inform but to process; our sacred girlfriend ritual. It’s therapy in miniature, given and received without expectation.
11:45am By the time I get home, I’m ravenous. I find my boyfriend deep in work at the tiny kitchen table and ask if he wants to share a picnic. He nods silently as I pull guacamole, purple corn chips, and baby carrots from the fridge. I slice tofu, arrange everything on a big plate, and pour coconut water into tall glasses. We carry it all to the coffee table and sit cross-legged, eating with our fingers and laughing about nothing in particular. I love how easy nourishment can be when it’s shared.
12:30pm The shower is in the kitchen, a relic from the building’s pre-plumbing past. The hot water washes the morning away: tea-tree scented soap, a razor across my legs, a shampoo bar in my hair and afterwards my new leave-in conditioner combed through and coconut oil slathered on my skin with slow devotion. Fridays are for beauty, for romance, for the small Venusian acts of pleasure. I leave my hair to air dry, slip into shorts and a loose lounge top, and tidy the apartment, vacuum humming underfoot. I can’t sit down to work until my space feels clean and peaceful.
1:00pm I curl into child’s pose on the sofa to write emails, tucked into myself. Eventually, my legs go numb, and I unfold with a sigh. I tick through admin tasks for The Mentor Training, refilling my water glass now and then. Around 3pm, I hand my boyfriend a glass too, scolding him lightly for not drinking enough. We giggle about something small and silly, and suddenly, at the same time, blurt out, “I love you.” He pulls me onto his lap, wrapping his arms around me tightly. “I love this,” he says, forehead against mine. “Working quietly together. Laughing. It’s precious.” I press my palm to his heart, and we both turn to admire the little pot of spring flowers blooming vibrantly in the window, as if blessing the day.
4:40pm He has plans to meet a friend at 5:00pm, and I decide to tag along, craving fresh air more than another minute of screen time. I waste most of my twenty-minute warning scrolling, then throw on a dress and sneakers, and wipe a lip tint on, and we’re out the door. We meet his friend at Essex Market and order drinks — matcha latte for me, iced decaf for them — and wander through the golden slant of late afternoon. I find myself distracted by the light bouncing off the buildings, the life vibrating in the streets. We wander through hidden galleries, a park filled with wildly competitive ping pong matches, and a tiny poodle who decides to befriend me. On a tucked-away corner, I discover Casetta, the sweetest wine bar, and instantly decide we must return for date night.
Casetta
6:00pm We stop at a market to pick up a baguette, some hummus, pico de gallo, and tiny, perfect avocados. Bread in NYC is standard stale (why?) but we take our bounty home for a second, casual picnic at the coffee table, layering pesto and arugula and salt on thick slices. We eat quickly, laughing and stealing bites from each other’s plates, knowing we have to leave soon for our night at the Whitney.
7:50pm The Whitney is alive, packed with people, more than we expected. It’s a little overwhelming trying to see the art through the thick crowd. Still, some moments shine. I overhear a girl say to her boyfriend, “You have marathons, I have stairs,” as we climb to the rooftop, and I laugh in solidarity. And at the top the whole city stretched out in luminous twilight. He pulls me close, kisses me with a rare, wild tenderness, and I feel something invisible and important shift between us.
8:45pm We meander back downtown through SoHo and into LES, the streets thick with nightlife now, music spilling out of bars and windows flung open. New York shape-shifts after dark, but I don’t feel the pull to join it. I feel full already — full of the day, of the hours stacked like soft, golden bricks inside me.
9:30pm We tumble onto the sofa and watch the latest episode of Severance, my body warm and heavy with tiredness. Afterwards, I move through my nighttime rituals: wash my face, brush my teeth, click my aligners back in. We climb the ladder into our loft bed. He wraps himself around me protectively, and I sink into his warmth, into the safety of our tiny kingdom, asleep almost before my head touches the pillow.
Was it a good day? (They always ask that on the pod.)
Yes — it was an excellent day. A day stitched with small joys: pastries and coffee, sunshine on skin, a body stretched long and sweet in yoga, easy laughter shared across a tiny kitchen table, a museum kissed by sunset, the heavy, sore satisfaction of a life well-lived inside an ordinary Friday.
news from inside our tiny Lower East Side apartment
cherry blossoms on the corner of our street
Cherry blossoms fall like confetti from the sky.
Sometimes they get swept up into tiny tornadoes that I sidestep as I pass by. They are lifted a few meters high and then released for a second time. It is spring in the city. I feel tender and sensitive as I am stepping into my own era of blossoming.
A big, yellow full moon hung low over JFK airport on my late-night arrival.
I used to search for omens, signs, premonitions of a positive future. This would have been one had I wanted it to be. But a few years ago, something shifted, an experience that stripped away this need for external validation. I’ve found deeper security in embracing the “isness” of the world instead. I no longer require confirmation that everything will work out. I have receipts that prove it always does.
My period collided with my arrival and the first taste of jet lag since I left Mexico 5 years ago, an aching heart, and more social engagements than someone who has slept less than 5 hours a night in weeks should ever take on. I questioned every decision I had ever made and tearfully picked fights with my boyfriend for fun for the emotional release..
Slowly, I am awakening to my new reality.
Water that leaves my hair feeling like silk. Apartments that embrace me with perpetual warmth. Living in the UK and Portugal gifted me a distaste for that bone-cold damp that penetrates and lingers within you through most seasons of the year.
Everything lies within walking distance if you don’t mind traversing 20 kilometres daily. Coffee costs $5, plus tip. Groceries cost less than in Europe, but dining out demands more. People radiate generosity, kindness, and genuine desire for your success. For example…
Doing business in the UK:
Who are you? Who do you know? Why are you bothering us? Give us 3 months to make a decision.
Doing business in the US:
Great to meet you! We’d love to hear your ideas. When can you come in and present? We love it – let’s get this deal done.
This world is novel and yet familiar at the same time.
tiny details from our LES apartment
For now, I have little to say.
I am wide open to every experience — noticing, absorbing, learning, transforming — with little to give back. So instead, I’d like to ask for something from you:
𓇼 I have slowly, gently, and with an entirely new approach, returned to Instagram after a melancholic hiatus. If you inhabit this space, I’d love to continue our connection there @herwayclub. And if generosity moves you and you know people who once followed me, perhaps share this new beginning with your friends.
𓇼 I yearn to meet as many of you as possible. If you’re based in or near NYC and willing to venture into town, please reach out. If you know anyone here who might enjoy connecting, introduce us: studio@viendamaria.com. And if you’d grace a small gathering (free and spirited) that I arrange in the coming weeks, let me know now.
𓇼 I’ve mentioned recently that I’m speaking at The Rewilding Retreat this year. My video workshop explores ‘Choice Architecture and Invisible Currents.’ What you’ll discover through my session:
Exactly why you keep scrolling instead of working out, or why takeout calls despite your full refrigerator. No more mystery, only clarity.
How to identify the hidden traps in your physical spaces, digital landscape, and social circles quietly hijacking your choices. Once revealed, they cannot be unseen.
Simple yet powerful adjustments to your everyday environments that transform good choices from exhausting to effortless. Your future self will overflow with gratitude.
The specific environmental triggers keeping you locked in familiar patterns, and how to elegantly rewire them for lasting change.
How to transition from passive participant in environments designed by others to conscious creator of spaces and routines that naturally draw you toward your deepest aspirations.
This complimentary 8-day event begins with a live Opening Ceremony on April 28th, delivering transformational workshops directly to your inbox.
That’s all from me for now. My gratitude for you runs deeper than words. Thank you for being here with me as cherry blossoms fall and new beginnings unfold.
and let myself be seen. As a woman in the world who is a creator/writer/founder etc…
Miss Jemima Kirk with the core wisdom
To answer the title, how I did it is:
I decentralised myself. I realised it’s not about me. It’s about every woman’s experience, waiting to be seen, heard, and shared…
But let’s begin with today.
At this very moment, I’m writing to roughly 10,000 eyeballs, the kind, curious readers who’ve joined me on this email list. On an average day, about half of you open these letters and video stories.
In the 12 years I’ve been writing publicly, I’ve been met with so much kindness. One of my dearest friends is Japanese. Our friendship has lasted nearly two decades. She sent me a voice note this morning: “I’m so glad you write your stories and share them. You remind us about the sparkly parts of life. It’s a scary world out there. And you make it better.” She makes my world better too.
There have been a few sharp replies over the years, comments that sting or arrive laced with judgment. I chalk them up to this simple truth: how someone responds to me tells me more about them than it does about me. This wisdom holds in every area of life. People are projecting what’s happening inside them, and remembering this makes compassion easier. Boundaries too.
That’s the thing about putting yourself out there. You become a mirror. You invite people to see themselves in what you’ve shared. So it’s vital, imperative even, that you learn not to take it personally.
Right now I’m sitting in Lisbon Airport’s Terminal 2, at the only café with tables and chairs. A group of French businessmen are packed in beside me, their conversation staccatoing into my ears as I finish this. A flight to Paris is next to board.
I started this piece over a week ago, knowing it would be the last chance to invite you to join me in the club.
That’s often how my writing begins.
I have an idea. I pick it up and write it down. Often I pop things in Notes 📝 because the thing will land just as I’m heading out the door. Or in the shower. Or on a walk.
Sometimes I’ll start a new page in Pages or Substack, type a few lines, give it a title I’ll recognise later, then leave it alone. I let the idea breathe. Sometimes I return to it. Sometimes I start again. I let things percolate until they’re ready. And when they are, the words come quickly.
My boyfriend often says it looks like I can just sit down and write something fresh in an hour or two. And yes, sometimes I can. But what it looks like is rarely what it is. I spend all day every day, noticing. And that noticing forms thoughts, translated into words, becomes written.
Most of my writing has been quietly forming in some hidden partition of my mind for days, weeks, even years. It’s been composting. Gathering weight. Waiting for the moment it wants to emerge.
I remember a night, many years ago now, sitting cross-legged on the floor of my living room at 2 AM. Around me were teetering stacks of notebooks, filled with observations, essay fragments, and moments I’d never shared. Pages and pages that had never made it past my own eyes.
I was always the friend who urged others to write publicly, to submit to journals, to start a blog, to hit post on Instagram. “Your voice matters,” I’d tell them. I meant it every time. Meanwhile, I kept my own work in the shadows.
Every time my finger hovered over the “publish” button, a surge of anxiety would rise up. Who do I think I am? What if I reveal too much? What if it’s not good enough? What if it’s too much?
And so, again and again, I saved instead of sending.
I kept my words locked away in journals. Safe from judgment, yes. But also safe from connection.
This quiet resistance followed me for years.
What changed?
One day I stopped making it about me.
I realised I wasn’t writing for self-expression alone. I was writing to remind, to reflect, to connect. I was writing because somewhere, some woman, exhausted or elated or cracked open by life, might see herself in what I shared.
The words weren’t mine to keep. They never were.
And so I started thinking of my writing as a garden. Not a blog. Not a platform. A garden.
A living archive of stories, insights, and scraps of beauty that others might stumble across when they need them most. Something worth wandering through. Something that grows.
It helped to think of the silent readers, the ones who never hit reply or leave a comment, but who return again and again. I write for them too. You never know whose day or life your words are shifting, even if you never hear about it.
If you’re building a body of work, this also matters.
Anyone considering working with you or publishing you will need to read your writing multiple times before they know if your voice is a fit. If your writing lives out in the open, they can find it. Trust it. Choose it. But if you only publish once every few moons, what are they choosing from?
Your writing is not self-promotion.
It is an offering. A window. A breadcrumb trail back to some deeper part of the human experience, for others and for yourself.
Everything you’ve learned about shaping a sentence, translating emotion, and distilling clarity from the chaos of daily life is not meant to be hoarded. It’s meant to be shared.
This matters more than ever.
In a world increasingly flooded with synthetic, AI-generated words, human language crafted with care and shaped by hand becomes sacred again. This is the new counterculture, intimate, real, nuanced expression. Writing that makes someone feel less alone. Writing that notices. That names.
So if you’ve been waiting to share something, a piece, a post, a half-formed thought in your Notes app, consider this your gentle nudge.
~ Write for the version of you who once needed the words you now carry.
~ Write for the person out there who’s waiting to feel understood.
~ Write even if it’s quiet. Especially then.
~ Your writing might be exactly the permission someone else needs.
Your voice is not the point, but it is the portal.
How do you pack your entire life into a carry-on suitcase and a personal item? With chaos, creativity, and a lot of rolled-up clothes. In this video, I take you behind the scenes of my last-minute, slightly frantic, and surprisingly successful attempt to pack for a transatlantic move—with two bags and zero chill. You’ll see my strategy (loosely defined), my favourite travel bags, packing hacks (hello, socks in shoes), and some honest real-time stress.
Plus: a peek at The Art of Noticing writing club and why it’s the perfect companion for any life transition.
It’s my final week in Portugal, and I’m taking you along for the ride—foggy-headed colds, emotional reflections, sunny beach breaks, and bittersweet goodbyes. From filming a workshop and navigating mental health wobbles to processing anxiety, getting a haircut, and soaking in some much-needed sunshine, it’s a week of tenderness, transition, and tuning into what my body and heart need. Plus: mermaid hair, vintage clothes, and a reminder that movement really is medicine. 💛
From day one, we’re handed a script filled with “shoulds” and “supposed to.” It tells us that fitting in and following the rules will lead to happiness. But instead, we end up feeling disconnected and numb and asking, “Whose life am I really living?”
My friend Jenner felt exactly the same way. She did everything she thought she was supposed to — went to college, landed a dream job, fell in love — yet she felt more lost and disconnected than ever before.
So, she tore up the old script and started her journey to rediscover herself.
That’s exactly why Jenner created The Wild Ones® ReWilding Virtual Retreat.It’s all about going beyond society’s little boxes and rediscovering your natural, authentic self.
This isn’t just another online event. This is a RECLAMATION.
No wonder over 32,000 people have joined this event in the past, and now ReWilding returns for its 6th year, better than ever. I’m thrilled to be part of this experience, offering my own workshop on Choice Architecture and Invisible Currents.
Our environment creates invisible currents that guide our decisions without conscious awareness. Join me in mapping the hidden choice architectures in your life — from physical spaces to digital environments to social circles — and identify how these structures might be invisibly directing your life trajectories. Then, let’s deliberately redesign them, together.
During the 8 transformative days of this FREE online event, you’ll experience:
Daily transmissions from over 30 hand-selected visionaries and healers (including me :) who will guide you back to your innate wisdom
Deep somatic practices to release years of conditioning stored in your body
Powerful energy activations that reconnect you to your authentic power
A global community of heart-centered rebels, walking this path alongside you
“This retreat was a game-changer for me! I went in feeling lost and came out with a renewed sense of purpose and clarity.” — Emily
The entire 8-day journey is completely FREE and designed to fit into your real, full life. No overwhelm, just deep resonance that changes everything.
This is a story about my cat who is the love of my life and if it’s not your thing I suggest not reading it but it’s the only way I can process my broken heart right now.
MAR 28, 2025
I wake at half past six in the morning with tears. I try to brush them away but they quell under my closed eyelids and start to wet my face. I get up and go to the bathroom to dry them and blow my nose. Not right now, I think to myself and get back into bed, chest rampant with grief.
Half an hour later the alarm goes off and my boyfriend stirs. He’s leaving for New York this morning. I curl up into his arm and we cuddle in silence for a while exchanging few words. I can tell he is distracted with his day ahead. I don’t mind.
I have my own inner world to tend to.
He gets up, dresses and places the final things into his already-packed bags. We embrace and kiss a few more times, and I ask him to keep me updated on his journey. “I’ll get everything ready for you for when you come”, he smiles tenderly. “Ok,” I reply, “I’ll bring all the fun”. We kiss one last time, and he walks out the door.
Finally, alone. I can grieve.
I can’t believe I let go of my baby!!! I sob out loud to myself. The waterfall of sadness that has been pressing against the edges of my body begins to pour out. I had cried, but in more restrained ways, up until now.
My baby, I keep saying between waves of tears. I’ve lost my baby. I start to clean the house. A well-meaning friend sends a photo from when he really was a baby, and it sets me off again.
I take the rug off the floor, put it in the washing machine and cry. It’s full of cat hairs. I wipe the surfaces, move the furniture around, and vacuum the remnants of cat litter sprinkled on the floor and cry. I strip the linen from the bed, mop the floors and cry.
I clean to move the emotions through my body. I clean to change the energy of my space after a week filled with big feelings. I clean for self-care to help stage my own letting go process. I clean, and I cry big, loud, ugly, sobbing tears.
We met almost exactly 6 years ago in Mexico.
There was a construction site where a big resort was being built between the old town and the jungle where I lived on the Pacific Coast. Walking home one day I heard high-pitched cries coming from inside the site which was taped off. The tape read ZONA DE PELIGRO. Danger Zone. The tiny squeals continued so I ducked under the tape and followed them. Between tools and sheet metal behind concrete bags, there was a tiny paw poking out.
“Hello, little baby”, I said softly as I crept closer and squatted down to see a tiny cat, ginger and white, with a bloodied nose and an injured front leg. I couldn’t leave him there like that, so I wrapped him in my sarong and placed him inside my basket, holding it closed to prevent his escape.
At home, I let him out where he carefully inspected the perimeter. A habit he kept every time we arrived somewhere new. I called a friend of mine who knew a vet. While I waited on the sofa, this tiny furry being jumped up and curled up into my arms. I’d never had a pet before, and I wasn’t planning on having one. I was too nomadic. It didn’t make sense.
The vet came almost immediately with cat supplies and food, and every day after, for seven days. Repairing his sprained leg and giving him protein shots and antibiotics to help him mend. I planned to let this little creature heal and then find a home for him. I named him Danger Zone for fun in the meantime in ode for where he had been found.
That first night, I put him to bed on the sofa, kissed him good night, went to my bedroom and closed the door. Moments later, I heard his tiny baby cries and paws pawing at the door. I laughed and let him in, surprised. Do cats normally want company this much? I thought to myself. We both settled into bed, me on my back, him wrapped around one of my legs and fell asleep.
Weeks passed, and then months.
I haphazardly looked for a home for him but in a country filled with stray cats, no one was particularly interested. Also, I was falling in love.
He had this endearing need, always wanting to be close, our bodies always touching. His presence was a gentle balm, softening a part of my heart that had calcified after my last breakup. His love was unfiltered and unconditional.
Separation triggered anxiety in him, his cries echoing up the street as soon as I turned the corner. I reshaped my life around him, trading some personal freedom for care, time together, and presence. My maternal instincts, once dormant, found new expression through him, one of nurturing and connection. Men I dated bristled at my devotion, struggling to compete with a bond they could neither understand nor replicate, a connection that prioritised his needs over theirs.
A year later, I knew it was time to leave Mexico.
I had career ambitions and dreams that couldn’t be met in the humid jungles I resided in. And I had him. Danger Zone Honey Bear. More Honey than Danger.
For a while, I toyed with finding him a home. Again. One day, on the phone with a friend who had noticed that I had become sullen and sad in our calls, he pointed out that I was likely depressed because I was thinking about separating from my cat. He was right, though I did not want to admit it.
Defying all logic, a decision born of pure emotion; impractical, perhaps even selfish, I decided to take him with me. I don’t regret that decision, even for a minute. I don’t think I would have survived what happened in the past five years without him.
We moved to Brighton in the UK for eighteen months and then to Mallorca, Spain, for another eighteen months, and then back to the UK for another eighteen months, where we toured the country for a while before settling in a cute little village in the forest. He loves being outdoors and having space to roam, so when the opportunity came to live in a cabin surrounded by nature, I jumped at it to give him a home that made him happy.
But I was not fulfilled.
There was so much more life I wanted to live and experiences I wanted to have, and being tied to a home for a cat made those things impossible. Though I tried. There is something in my makeup where my external environment and my internal journey are inexplicably intertwined. They always have been.
Different places activate different parts of my being, and I cannot access them without this key. I read so many articles on people judging this way of being as if I am seeking happiness in someplace new. But I am under no such illusion. I know that ‘better’ and ‘happier’ don’t exist out there.
That’s not what this is about. It’s that the essence of my soul is made up of everything on this earth, and to access those parts, I need to collect them in all the different places.
And so I tried to do it with him. Because I wanted to. Because however hard it was it was worth doing together. I put him through so much. Including a terrifying two weeks on a sailboat in an attempt to get to the other side of the world, together.
Because every time he is in my arms, he’s good. I’m good. Everything is good. Nothing else matters. Together, we were always fine. We have a secret language, this invisible thread that connects just the two of us.
In our six years together, he was my greatest teacher.
He taught me how to be present no matter what else was happening in and around us. He helped me heal my inner child by teaching me that his needs — for routine, for comfort, for affection, for attention, for safety and for stability — were also myneeds. He taught me boundaries by modelling a no-f~*ks-given attitude towards what he likes and doesn’t. He helped me heal my unhealthy patterns in romantic relationships by being so securely attached and available for love that anything less was no longer accepted.
When we ended up in Portugal, I was content for life to show me the next steps, as I always do. And it did. I met a man, fell in love and chose to build a life with him. Paid subscribers know the intimate details of this story so I won’t go into it here. Danger and I sublet a friend’s apartment, he grew fat because he had no outdoor space to run around in, and we were happy together.
When my boyfriend invited me to join him in New York I had to make a decision. In February, when I decided that, yes, I would go, I revisited something I had thought about before but wiped from my mind.
I went to work to find him a foster family. I posted on local community groups and asked friends to post on theirs, and a few weeks later, I met a lovely Mexican woman who was enamoured with taking him in as he, too, is Mexican. We met, and he met her and hated every minute because, of course, it was a strange new person in a strange new environment, but nonetheless ideal. She agreed to take him. Happy and relieved, I booked my flight.
Two weeks later, late at night, she sent me a text. She had gotten cold feet and wanted me to find him another home. My heart sank. I understood. Accepting an animal into your life is a big responsibility. I appreciate not taking it lightly. But it meant that I had less time to find something suitable.
I tried all the same methods, reached out to every friend I could think of, and asked everyone I knew locally for help, but no solution materialised. Stressed by both the decision and the process, I started looking up local organisations that could house him and found an animal protection agency in Lisbon with a promising reputation.
We email back and forth, have a phone call, and they offer to take him and find him a home and agree that I would bring him the day before my flight. A few hours later, an email landed in my inbox that said that if I wanted their help, I had to bring him the next day. Something about having space now and not later. When I read those words, I fell apart. It was too fast and too soon. I want as much time with him as possible. But I also need their help.
My boyfriend offers to go with me several times, gently reminding me that I don’t have to do this alone. I love him for wanting to be there for me, but this thing, I have to do alone. This is between Danger and me.
That afternoon I pack up his toys, put his favourite food in a plastic container and cuddled with him as much as I could. That night I hold him in my arms and try to imprint every detail about him into my memory.
His soft, silken hair. The way he places his paws on my hands. The way he sneaks up and puts his face on my face. The way he closes his eyes with pleasure every time I kiss him. He soft mews when he wants something. The quiet purrs when he’s nestled into my body. Every sweet gesture breaks me and makes me grateful for the time we have had together.
The next morning I get up, call an Uber, kiss and hug him one last time and silently put him in his carrier. I can’t speak. I cry the 45-minute drive to the agency. Once there, they get me to fill out some forms, pay for his medical requirements, and take him away. The process is sharp and painful. I hear him cry in alarm in the back somewhere, and my heart shatters. Empty and distraught, I walk out on shaky legs, sit on a concrete block and weep deeply. A woman comes down from a nearby building and touches my shoulder to comfort me. I am beside myself with grief and unable to remain composed. I call an Uber and cry the 45-minute drive home.
It’s been three days. Waves of grief bring me to my knees. I wonder if I made the right decision. I feel so much shame and doubt. But mostly shame.
It’s the little things that destroy me now.
The little flutter of excitement to see him that I get in my heart when I’m heading home. The little cat hairs he has left as souvenirs on every item of clothing. The little pitter-patter of his paws that followed me from room to room. The way I leave the bathroom door open a little because he always demands to come in. Sitting down anytime, anywhere, and immediately becoming his human cushion. Getting into bed and waiting for him to jump right in after me. But now he doesn’t.
Noticing is my favourite art form. It’s how I find beauty in the ordinary, meaning in the messiness, poetry in the in-between moments.
Writing has always been my way of capturing it all… of making sense of the world, of holding onto the fleeting magic that might otherwise slip away.
Starting on Sunday, April the 13th with the Full Moon 🌝 I am leading a 6-week writing club as an invitation into that practice. EB prices end on Sunday.
The morning sun is drawing lines across the wooden floor and the cheap white Ikea rug. From the bedroom, I can hear my boyfriend’s soft snores. Further down the hall, the washing machine is whirring with his dirty clothes.
I snuck out of bed an hour ago. Love is to let him sleep in peace when I am restless and full of words that want to pour out of fingertips. Love is to want his clean clothes to be hung out to dry while the sun is still out after weeks of deluge.
When I got up I pulled on my £4 vintage Pink Floyd sweater that layed crumpled on the floor and picked up my laptop to hug to my lap while I lay on the sofa and write.
Now that I am here the many things I had wanted to put down evade me asking to be rearranged in my mind, to find a storyline, a thread to hold them together.
Two weeks ago we were in London. The day we arrived it was sunnier and warmer than in Portugal where we had come from, and we walked from London Bridge to Colombia Road Flower Market. A favourite ritul of mine, to meet one of my best friends and drink coffee and eat crossaints and hear the flower sellers shout their prices.
Twenty years earlier when I lived in Hackney I’d go every weekend. Back then the streets were shabbier, speciality coffee shops did not yet exist, and you could buy bouquets of flowers at ‘two for a fiver’. (Imagine that in an East London cockney accent.)
We were in London to renew my passport due to an inexplicable bureaucratic quirk: the Austrian embassy in London would accept the very paperwork that the Passport Office in Austria had rejected when I’d flown there weeks earlier.
I often joke that I thrive at the fringes of existence, belonging nowhere in particular, my official residence a mystery even to myself. An inconvenience only once every 10 years: when I need to get my passport renewed.
When I think about it London is the closest thing I have to a home. It’s the place I have resided in most often in my adult life. It’s the only country where the passport control officer says “welcome home” when I pass through. It melts my heart a little.
On our last morning we ate cinnamon buns in Sloane Square cutting through the pillowy sweetness with sips of bitter coffee. Standing in a slice of sun pouring between buildings we watched the corporate working world rustle and bustle their ways into their offices.
When I stand and observe mass humanity as I did that morning, I’m struck by the humbling realisation that each hurried figure represents an entire universe of hopes and struggles.
Strangers — clutching coffee cups, checking watches, muttering into phones — all orchestrating their complicated lives with the same earnestness I bring to mine. At the core of each life, beneath the professional veneers and morning routines, pulses the same fundamental need for connection and meaning.
Love, in its countless expressions, remains the gravitational center around which we orbit. This truth makes the artificial structures we’ve built — the endless pursuit of productivity, status, and material gain — seem profoundly misaligned with what actually sustains us.
The day after we returned, my friend Hannah arrived like a gift.
After weeks of relentless rain drumming against windows and seeping into spirits, the clouds parted. For two precious days, we traced paths along the wild, rugged coastline that embraces the little village I’ve called home since autumn.
The sea air carried the scent of salt and possibility as we navigated rocky outcroppings and windswept bluffs, our conversations flowing as naturally as the waves below.
This landscape, in its raw, untamed ways, has become my sanctuary. Despite an unexpectedly brutal winter — longer, wetter, and colder than I had prepared for — I’ve made it my ritual to seek out nature’s company whenever possible, finding in its rhythms a counterbalance to life’s uncertainties and a reminder of what endures.
Today, I have three weeks left here.
The past two days we, and two friends, helped my boyfriend dismantle the home he has inhabited for four years. Box by box. Bag by bag. We hauled his life down flights of stairs. Until nothing remained. On Friday, he leaves with just a 40-litre backpack. Nothing else.
His devotion to non-attachment is both inspiring and daunting. I’ve promised to follow with carry-on luggage, but I can’t match his minimalism. Some outfits and useful treasures must join me in my journey.
I’ll document this bittersweet sorting soon.
My deepest heartache is leaving my cat behind. I scroll through our six years together and grief floods my body. There’s wisdom in the saying “your new life will cost you your old one,” but knowing this truth doesn’t soften its sharp edges.
I had found what seemed a perfect family for him, but their recent hesitation has sent me into a desperate search for someone who will cherish him with the same devotion I’ve offered. He has been the steady heartbeat at the centre of my existence; love incarnate in fur and purrs. This is the most painful sacrifice I’ve made in years.
But there is a new life waiting for me out there. I expect the energy of New York to lift me up and reinspire parts of me that have gone to sleep. I anticipate the world showing me what is possible for me in a way that I had not known.
And with all of this I have had to shed various versions and identities of myself that I had created. Many of them more self-protection than authentic. I am learning to let go of them to be replaced by something new, alive, real, responsive.
A huge piece of my growth recently has been learning to observe, not absorb.
I’ve promised myself I am finally going to start writing a book. Starting on the flight to New York.
Cringe! I hate even writing that.
My biggest fear is that I’ll start and never finish. Or that I’ll say I am going to write a book and not do it. But I promised myself I would and I try to always keep my promises to myself.
I’ll write for an hour each day—morning or night. Whatever emerges. These words, unlike my private journal entries, are meant for strangers’ eyes. Same practice, new purpose.
Then I thought: What if we wrote together?
A group of writers: would-be/could-be/want-to-be established, aspiring, curious writers and we all wrote together.
Every day. For 6 weeks.
Not necessarily an hour. Maybe 10 minutes for you. A sentence. A page. A journal entry. A poem. Whatever meets you at your edge.
I’ll help you find your achievable aim.
Science says 21 days forms a habit. We’ll do twice that. Together.
so, let me invite you to: the art of noticing ~ a 6-week writing club 📝
There are creaks coming from the bedroom. My boyfriend must be waking up now. The morning sun has shifted, no longer drawing lines but flooding the room with golden light. The words I’ve poured onto this page can go and live their own lives out in the world now.
Observations are made in the living, not the writing.
I close my laptop and set it aside. The washing machine has gone quiet; I’ll hang his clothes in the sun. In a moment, he’ll emerge from the bedroom, hair tousled with sleep, and we’ll begin our final Sunday ritual in this place that has been, however briefly, our home.
The thread I was searching for earlier reveals itself. Love is the storyline that holds everything together.
London, nostalgia, and the deep life shifts I didn’t see coming
Just back from London, I reflect on the trip—soaking in my love for the city, visiting museums, reconnecting with friends, and taking care of some life admin. I also share personal thoughts on transitions, endings, and the cycles of life, along with the challenges of navigating change. A timely reminder that contraction always precedes expansion—just like an inhale before an exhale. 🌿✨
a note 📝 on why trying to do life alone is not a vibe, and how the right people make everything easier, better, and way less confusing
The first marker of growth is realising that your parents are not all-knowing guides but imperfect humans navigating their own paths.
The second is recognising that while life may have handed you challenges, your power lies in how you choose to play the hand. Whether you stay stuck in your stories or rise to meet your own becoming.
The third is understanding the art of connection. How presence, warmth, and authenticity shape the way the world responds to you, weaving influence and possibility into every interaction, every moment, every version of yourself that you step into next.
This morning, I woke up feeling like a half-formed thing. My bones, my skin, my memories had melted overnight into something unrecognisable. My heart, my lungs, my thoughts, all swimming in some liminal space between what was and what is becoming.
I wanted to do everything at once. Crawl out of my skin, burrow deep inside myself, grasp at the illusion of normalcy. That fleeting sense of steadiness that comes and goes like sunlight through moving clouds.
But that’s not the life I chose.
I throw myself headfirst into new things. Willing myself into expansion, into shedding, into becoming, and then — wide-eyed, bewildered — curse myself for it.
This is what it means to be alive.
A continuous rhythm of unravelling and reassembling, of losing myself and finding my way back home.
Human transformation is peculiar in that way. We appear mostly unchanged on the outside while, internally, our very foundation liquefies and reforms, shifting us into something both familiar and unrecognisably new. Some metamorphoses take years. Others happen in a single breath. We are forever mid-wifeing ourselves through cycles of undoing and recreating.
And yet, we don’t do it alone. Evolution, growth, becoming: the process demands others. Those who have walked the path before us, showing us what’s possible.
People who, by simply existing, illuminate the shape of our own becoming. They are proof that what we long for isn’t just a dream. It’s a direction. A gravitational pull toward who we are meant to be.
There was a time when I felt so disillusioned by who the world was telling me to be. And then, a woman entered my life. She embodied a grace, clarity, a way of moving through the world that felt like poetry in motion. She didn’t hand me a map. She didn’t give me step-by-step instructions. She simply lived in a way that whispered to something deep inside me: “This is possible for you, too.”
I learned to echo her grace in my way.
We are not islands, shifting and reshaping in solitude. We are ecosystems, intertwined with those who expand us, who stretch our perception of what’s possible. The ones who have already created, built, or become something that stirs something deep within us.
A silent recognition. A quiet knowing: this is meant for you, too.
Expanders are not accidental.
We are drawn to them because they reflect what already lives within us, waiting to be awakened. They show our subconscious that the path we crave isn’t just a fantasy—it’s real, and it’s attainable. Their existence cracks open the walls of our own limitations, permitting us to step forward, to believe, to act.
A few years ago I met a woman who made big decisions without over-explaining or second-guessing. She laughed easily, moved boldly, and showed me — without ever meaning to — that I didn’t need to agonise over every choice or justify my desires. By being in her orbit, something in me softened.
I started letting things be easier. I started trusting myself more.
Who we surround ourselves with matters.
Our communities shape our possibilities. The people in our orbit either reinforce old versions of us or pull us toward expansion. Without realising it, we are always absorbing, mirroring, and becoming.
So this morning, as I sat with the discomfort of my own evolution, I asked myself:
Who is showing me the way? Who expands my world? And am I allowing myself to follow the pull?
It is impossible to avoid the challenges, aches and pains that come with life.
True community emerges when we surround ourselves with those who understand that meaningful relationships are born out of action.
Love is a verb.
We need to be the people willing to witness vulnerability without flinching.
Our emotional lives mirror the natural world’s cycles: darkness and light eternally embracing one another. Each experience of sorrow carries within it the seed of joy; each moment of connection bears the imprint of our separateness. When we touch one state deeply, we become intimate with its opposite.
This is authentic connection embodied.
Recognising that friendship and community require us to honour the completeness of human experience, to practice presence in both suffering and celebration and to build relationships that nurture our collective well-being.
This is where expanders come in.
An expander is someone who has created or achieved something in their life that we desire to also have or create. This concept is based on simple neuroscience and the creation of mirror neurons.
It’s not that expanders are perfect beings who have mastered life. They are everyday people, like you and me, who have flourished in certain areas, and because of this, they can expand us on our own journeys.
One of my closest friends is a woman nearly a decade younger than me. Her emotional maturity and dedication to skillfulness in relationships astound me. I watch the way she approaches difficult conversations — not with avoidance or defensiveness — but with curiosity and care.
Being in her presence taught me to be a better friend, lover and human.
Every single one of us inhabits the full spectrum of humanness. Those very aspects of these people that are bringing you so much inspiration are actually a reflection of aspects of you that have gotten lost due to societal, media, parental, or peer programming.1
The beauty of expansion is that it doesn’t require perfection. Only possibility. We expand one another simply by existing in our truth.
To provide access to the expanders and community that will walk alongside you as you navigate the transitions and transformations of your own becoming. Because you are not meant to do it alone.
ALIGNED is more than a course. It is an incubator for expansion, for transformation, for meeting the people who will hold you in both strength and tenderness as you step into the version of yourself you know you are meant to be.
Enrolment closes in 5 days. Learn more here: ALIGNED
Client Receipts
real stories, real impact 💫
“I’ve been following you, Vienda, for years on Instagram long before Plannher, and will join whatever community you create because I know it will be fostered in an energy of growth, acceptance, and soul.”
“I loved having someone in my court, to have someone waiting for me and knowing that would be a resource, a thing that wasn’t mine to solve, but someone I could collaborate with on solving or discovering things. That was a really lovely feeling.”
“Having a group of people to get to know helped me feel like there was a community of like-minded people and feel supported even if we had different areas working through and on.”
“I love the way you always include accountability partners and listening partners into your courses. I have always found it so valuable. I also do feel you attract interesting and powerful people to your courses that have so much value and I’ve stayed in touch with people in the past afterwards and supported each other’s businesses/visions which have been really special.”
If you are curious about finding your own expanders, choose something in your life that you would like to make real and then ask yourself these questions:
Who do I know that I feel drawn to almost instantly?
When I look at this person, what do I find appealing about them?
What is this person’s vibe that draws me to them? Is it something about their personality? Their career? Their spiritual approach or practices? The vacations they go on? Their relationship? The way they talk or how they dress?
What characteristics about this person resonate with me/remind me of myself?
What is their life story: are there any overlaps or similarities with my story?
How can I learn from this person? Do they have a book, podcast, or course? Can I spend time with them? Can I reach out and learn more about how they got to where they are?
Can this person help me become super clear on my desired manifestation? Do I realise details about their life that I would really like for my own?
It’s been five months of life in Portugal, and I still can’t believe it.
In this video, I reflect on the journey so far—returning from Salzburg, settling into Ericeira, and embracing the ever-unfolding adventure of change. People often ask me how I navigate transitions so smoothly, how I move through big life shifts with what seems like ease and grace. The truth? It’s not effortless—it’s a skill I’ve cultivated over years of deep inner work, trust, and surrender. Join me as I share my thoughts on resilience, adaptation, and finding beauty in the unknown.
If you’re in a season of transition, I hope this video reminds you that change can be met with openness, softness, and strength.
To get these videos directly in your inbox when they come out make sure you sign up to HER WAY CLUB: https://vienda.substack.com
One of my favourite things to think, write and talk about is the intersection between life design and creating intentional freedom, in a soft, intuitive and feminine way.
who am I when I am not running toward something new?
For the next ten days, I am inviting you into a conversation about transformation—the kind that is deep, sustainable, and truly liberating. I’ll be sharing insights, stories, and practices from ALIGNED, my 6-week programdesigned to help you take intentional action in your life and business. This program is the culmination of years of personal exploration and guiding others through the delicate process of inner shifts that lead to tangible change.
This work is profoundly important to me because I have lived and breathed it for years, testing its principles in my own life and witnessing its impact on the lives of those I’ve worked with. And nothing speaks to its power more than the experiences of past participants:
“One key takeaway from this course was identifying my limiting belief: ‘I have to do it like everyone else.’ Realizing this and choosing a different story feels incredibly freeing.”
“Having a group of people to get to know helped me feel like there was a community of like-minded individuals, offering support even as we worked on different areas of our lives.”
“I love the way you always include accountability and listening partners in your courses. It creates such valuable connections, and I’ve stayed in touch with past participants, supporting each other’s businesses and visions in truly special ways.”
“I took your course on money, and my entire life shifted within 2-3 months—that was crazy! I had been aware of my fears and beliefs for years but never found a way to let them go until I took your course. I am still mind-blown.”
So much of what holds us back is invisible to us.
Our minds become intricate labyrinths of inherited narratives, subconscious fears, and well-worn patterns that shape our choices, often without our awareness.
This is why today, I want to talk to you about how to actually change your life — starting with the very thing that keeps you stuck: limiting beliefs.
It’s been five months since I moved to this little surf town on the Atlantic coast of Portugal. Five months of waking to the sound of waves rolling against the cliffs, of salt-drenched air that clings to my hair and skin, of slow mornings wrapped in mist and coffee and the promise of something unknown.
And yet, despite all this beauty — this wild, unpredictable, heart-expanding beauty — there have been moments when I have felt utterly, inexplicably stuck. As if something inside me was pressing against an invisible ceiling, a quiet resistance lurking beneath the surface.
It never fails to astonish me how I carry every part of myself wherever I go — every fear, every belief, every invisible boundary I have ever built.
In the past five months, I’ve found myself face to face with an unfamiliar stillness, a startling absence of the urge to chase something new. It lingers like a question I can’t quite answer, so foreign that I wonder if I’ve misplaced my ambition entirely.
I used to think that growth meant running toward something new — more freedom, more success, more peace.
But I’ve learned that the most important work isn’t in the external shifts, but in the quiet, often uncomfortable act of meeting yourself where you are and asking:
What is actually keeping me here?
I recently ran a free challenge to help you find clarity in your life — over 100 people joined (you can, too) — and the most common struggle you shared was this:
How do I uncover my limiting beliefs when I can’t even see them?
That’s the thing about the patterns that hold us back—they exist in the shadows, shaping our choices without us even realising it. It’s an inside job, and our limitations are often our biggest blind spots.
That’s exactly why I created Aligned —a deeply supportive, transformative space designed to help you move through those hidden limitations in a way that feels pragmatic, expansive, and fun. Because real change doesn’t have to be heavy—it can be meaningful, energizing, and deeply freeing.
Doors close in 10 days, and there are only 12 spots available per group.
the simple process I use for shifting limiting beliefs
1. identify my current challenge
The first clue that I am operating from a limiting belief is the sensation of being stuck. That heavy, unmoving energy that tells you something isn’t working but doesn’t quite reveal why.
For me, in those first few months in Ericeira, I felt a deep-seated fear that no matter how much I expanded, I would always find myself circling back to the same struggles—uncertainty about what I was supposed to be doing, my business growth, and the question of whether I was truly doing enough.
It was familiar, frustrating, and maddeningly persistent.
I had to sit with it. To acknowledge it and feel it.
TIP 1: Instead of trying to bulldoze through it, pause. What’s the exact problem? Name it. Be as precise as possible. The more clarity you bring, the more power you have over it.
2. taking ownership without shame
What I discovered was that, after years and years of living the life I had dreamed of, my dreams had run dry.
I was out of alignment with who I am, and what I wanted because I didn’t believe I was worthy of having big dreams anymore. I discovered that I am someone with enormous desires. Desires that I had squashed.
Career-wise, I blamed the algorithm (it’s changed so much!), the economy (people are spending less!).
But the truth? None of that was the real reason I felt stuck.
The real reason was that I was clinging to old stories about my worth and ability, stories that whispered: You have to work harder to deserve more. You have to struggle for this to count.
Taking ownership didn’t mean blaming myself. It meant acknowledging that if I was the one unconsciously building these walls, I was also the one who could tear them down.
TIP 2: Here’s where it gets tender: can you take full responsibility for your current reality—without shame, without self-punishment? Can you look at the patterns that have led you here with compassion, rather than criticism?
3. seeing the invitation for growth
I know — even though, like all of us, I often need to be reminded — that my biggest frustrations are signposts pointing me toward the exact lesson I need. The solution is always to lean in and ask: What is this here to show me?
The moment I did, things shifted. I saw how my limiting beliefs weren’t just abstract ideas—they were running the show. Success requires struggle. Ease is irresponsible. If you slow down, you’ll fall behind. And I realised: these weren’t truths.
They were choices.
TIP 3: The blindspots are the areas in life we are not in alignment with because we have limiting beliefs around them. Your mind is powerful. It will always find evidence for what you believe. The good news? You get to decide what to believe next.
4. embrace the ripple effect
I am going through growing pangs. This is an opportunity to build something even stronger. It’s a painful shift, but these moments create space for new approaches that end up being more aligned.
I am valuing myself and my work in ways that I should have a long time ago, but did not, because I did not believe I was enough. This shows me that my external reality was only ever reflecting what I believed to be true about myself.
TIP 4: When you start dismantling the old stories, your life shifts in ways you can’t yet see. The work you put in today—challenging your beliefs, choosing different thoughts, moving from a place of trust instead of fear—will show up in unexpected ways. New opportunities. Conversations that change everything. A lightness you can’t explain.
This morning I woke up, warm after many cold nights, my hair stuck to my face.
It’s one of those mornings where everything feels a little lopsided.
My soy milk has curdled so I can’t make myself a matcha and have to settle for a herbal tea. My dentist appointment is cancelled because the dentist is ill. I am relieved because I don’t feel like walking the 20 minutes in the torrential downpour anyway. I journal.
Your life is always responding to you. And if you want something different, you don’t have to work harder, force it, or prove yourself. You just have to start believing a new story — and living from it as if it were already true.
I am learning, awkwardly, how to embody the new version of myself that I am becoming. Anticipation builds alongside the next steps life is revealing to me.
TIP 5: What makes this process so transformative is that it moves us from feeling powerless to feeling deeply, profoundly capable. When you stop trying to change everything outside of you and instead start working on what’s within, everything shifts.
If you’re considering joining me for either ALIGNED OFFER (business-focused) or ALIGNED ACTION (life-focused), now is the time. Doors close in 10 days, and there are only 12 spots available per group.
It’s 7.34, and the sun is just starting to peek over the hill covered in tall buildings that shadow the village in the mornings. I am cross-legged on my sofa, wrapped in a blanket grateful for the ache in my chest that arrives whenever I sit, fingers softly poised above keys, ready to pour all of myself into the words on a page. I can hear the waves crashing onto the shore 300 metres from my balcony and the washing machine slopping wet dirty clothes around inside itself.
What I did plan on is to feel alive.
To me, Ericeira smells like sea salt and algae. It smells like fishing lines and burnt coffee. Most days the humidity is around 90%. It feels like walking through a neverending water wall. Mostly infiltrated by people not from here this winter the streets have been silent. The locals shuffle through their days in their unhurried solitude. The cold, humid ache that goes deep into my bones is interspersed by warm sunny hours in the middle of the day.
Here, my everyday life is quiet.
When I arrived I had followed something in my body that told me ‘not here’. A subtle disquiet that had been with me. Because place matters. But I had decided to stop planning and start living without knowing how this story ends.
It brought me here.
For so much of my life, I thought that to live a meaningful life I needed to choose my steps carefully. That it would all unravel and fall apart if I wasn’t meticulous in my decision-making and planning. It’s me and the world. I am alone. I don’t have a family to fall back on. There is always some risk involved when I do anything new and I am acutely conscious of the fact that I lack a cushion to rely on if things go wrong. Which they do.
Frustrated with living in fear I cultivated a new approach.
What I discovered was that there is a state of alignment you can reach in which magical things will start happening for you. I often call it kismet but really, it’s being in a relationship with the dynamic aliveness of life. Once I figured out how it worked I was able to relax and now have a lot of fun inviting that kind of serendipity into my decision-making processes and day-to-day life.
I have very literally been in the business of living in alignment for years and I still need reminders that the way I move through life is enough.
It’s no surprise. The rampant roar of the outside world is strong. It overpowers the subtle nudges and the cultivation of inner stillness necessary to enter into alignment. Despite years of evidence that living in alignment works I still have times of doubt and uncertainty. I have had to learn how to stay centred and not let that derail me.
I have to be resolute in my devotion to alignment.
I’m teaching exactly how I do this — both in my life; and in my business — across 6 weeks starting on Monday, March 10 2025. There are only 12 spaces in each cohort. Join me for ALIGNED, here.
I could never have planned the life that was waiting for me.
I left England last year because it dimmed my light. I was becoming someone I didn’t recognise. I had outgrown my environment and had become complacent and indolent in every area of my life. I was out of alignment. This misalignment isn’t just uncomfortable – it’s costly. It drained me of my energy, dampened my creativity, and held me back from the life I was meant to live.
But I know I always have a choice.
So I left and it took me on a misadventure through the Mediterranean Sea where I was redirected to a village by the Atlantic Ocean where I fell in love and am now moving to New York. I could never have planned any of this. But life, in its mystery and intelligence, did. All I had to do was let go of trying to control the uncontrollable and get into alignment instead.
Choosing change is hard. Choosing a new story without knowing how it ends is even harder. But when you choose alignment, life moves you to where you are meant to be with so much grace and ease, that the obstacles on the way no longer matter.
They don’t go away. But they become insignificant in comparison to the bigger vision. The project of living your most alive, vibrant, dynamic and meaningful life.
ALIGNED is not just one program — it’s two distinct pathways, running simultaneously, designed to support you based on where you are right now.
ALIGNED ACTION is for you if you are ready to transform your personal life — activating changes in relationships, career, purpose, and finances with trust and confidence.
ALIGNED OFFER is for you if you are ready to build or grow an online business — creating offers that sell with ease, alignment, and momentum.
Both programs follow the same structure but focus on different areas of life. You’ll be part of a powerful container with daily insights, live workshops, and a supportive community—all guiding you toward aligned, inspired action.
What I do know is that as long as I remain aligned, life happens for me. Things that I can never imagine or plan or prepare for. Things I hope and dream for but only reach when I move into alignment and let go.
As these winter days and nights come to an end and spring starts to make itself known in the slightly longer and warmer days I relish the tiny moments.
Some afternoons I see the locals leaning out of their windows watching the world pass by and if we have crossed each other often enough we smile and nod. Bright purple and yellow wildflowers are beginning to cover the cliff edges facing the restless Atlantic Ocean reminding me of the dynamic nature of life. The damp air as I walk home in the evening carrying dates from the organic market and I look up and see the stars. A luxury that is here and won’t be when I leave.
Vienda Maria 