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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.
He is not here anymore.
Close friends check in on me throughout the day. Each kindness triggers a new set of tears. Today, I have two weeks left here.
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.
Join me for The Art of Noticing HERE.
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.
Come write with me, every day, for 6 weeks:
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. 🌿✨
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.
This is why I created ALIGNED.
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
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:
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.
Let’s dive in.
Links to articles on topics I mentioned:
— my Instagram account has been hacked, disabled and is being held hostage for ransom: https://viendamaria.com/2025/02/06/my…
— redirection (aka: goodbye Instagram): https://viendamaria.com/2025/02/11/re…
— ALIGNED: https://viendamaria.com/aligned/
Don’t forget to subscribe here: / @viendamaria
Join over 100 peeps for the Free 6 Day CLARITY Challenge on my website: https://viendamaria.com/from-stuck-to…
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.
Read my writing here: https://vienda.substack.com
Lots of love, Vienda x
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.
Hit reply if you’re on the fence, or sign up here.
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.
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!).
And then! My 12k Instagram account was hacked and then stolen from me. A decade of work, gone overnight!
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?
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.
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.
If you’re unsure, email me — I’m happy to help you decide.
I never planned to be here.
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 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.
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.
I don’t know exactly what is next.
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.
I can’t wait to see how this story continues.
I felt alienated by my own country, where went to get my passport renewed as I had been instructed by the embassy in Portugal but was refused due to the complicated nature of where I live and belong.
FEB 18, 2025
I’m sitting on the Ikea sofa in his living room, laptop balanced on my knees, pretending to work. Through the open door to his office down the hallway, I can hear his voice, steady and methodical, as he speaks with the electricity company to cancel his contract. Each call makes his impending departure feel more real.
The day we met he told me he was moving to New York in the new year. At the time it meant nothing. I was talking to a stranger on the wooden bench outside a cafe window.
But as coffee meetings evolved into sunset walks through cobblestone streets, as dinner dates transformed into intimate evenings on his sofa, as casual conversation turned into “Will you be my girlfriend?” – that once-insignificant sentence took on a weight I hadn’t anticipated.
He’s preparing to leave the country at the end of March. I’m not built for long-distance relationships – I’m either fully present or completely absent. So I am joining him a few weeks later.
One day, a few months after meeting, he was excitedly speaking about New York as we wove our way through the alleys to our favourite Saturday breakfast spot for coffee and cinnamon rolls. In my luteal phase, my emotions already simmering close to the surface, when tears welled to the surface.
We had discussed it before.
He had asked me to join him with such natural ease as if it were the most obvious next step. I had always dreamed of spending three months in New York – to live there permanently? I wasn’t certain. But to discover its hidden corners and explore its endless possibilities? Absolutely.
But that morning, as my hormones conspired against me and left me feeling raw and vulnerable, all I could focus on was how this was his adventure, his dream. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I might be merely a footnote in his story. In that moment, I grieved for something I hadn’t yet lost.
I tried to compose myself in private, but the wave of emotions was too powerful to contain. Through tears, I confessed that while I was genuinely happy and excited for him, hearing him talk about New York made me feel like an afterthought. Unused to and ill-equipped for such feminine displays of emotion, he panicked, genuinely confused – because in his mind, there had never been any question. We were going to New York, together. That was the only version of the future he had envisioned.
I needed reassurance, more than I wanted to admit. I found myself losing an internal battle between soaring excitement and crushing doubts.
Now, as our departure date approaches and our relationship has deepened with time, I feel more secure in the future we’re creating together. Today, when he looked at me with bright eyes and said, “I can’t wait to see what we create together!” I felt my heart lift with joy.
Still, I oscillate between hopes and fears. Perhaps you, dear reader, if you’ve made New York your home, can offer some guidance.
If you’re reading this in Europe and have space in your heart and home for a loyal ginger cat who gives his affection selectively but completely, please reach out. He needs a peaceful environment, ideally with a garden, and he’ll reward you with unwavering devotion.
Life has a way of surprising us with unexpected turns. Moving to New York after my lease ends in April wasn’t part of my plans (though a psychic I’d quickly dismissed had predicted exactly this last August). But I love to embrace life’s kismet redirections.
I don’t live by carefully crafted plans but by my unwavering belief that “something will happen.” Something always does.
I have a passé approach to love, romance and dating.
I have never had a one-night stand. I believe intimacy, both physical and emotional, needs to be earned.
I believe in old-fashioned passion, wooing and flirtation. I believe everyone walks into your life for a reason. Even the ones that are in it only for a short season. I believe in choosing someone imperfect with your whole heart, and then choosing them again and again, even when it’s hard.
I love love and being in love and being in love and loving someone has always been enough for me. I want to fight for love. For real love. I want to fight for you and the love you wish for.
When I meet a man I like, which is very rare, I decide I like him, we hold hands, and voilà! We are boyfriend and girlfriend. So when people (you, my reader) ask me for dating advice, I don’t know what to say.
I don’t buy into the modern dating approach. But maybe that’s exactly what you need: The things dating apps won’t tell you.
“Why aren’t you on dating apps?” he asked.
“If I can’t meet someone organically, I deserve to be single!” I declared, with conviction and arrogance.
My friend Jackson, who had just spent an hour recounting his tragicomic Tinder escapades, looked like I’d slapped him.
I softened. “It’s not a judgment. I just know the kind of man I want isn’t on there. The man I want? He’s not playing this game. I want someone like me. Someone who romanticises chance encounters. I want unexpected circumstances to deliver him to me. And I want a solid answer to the ‘How did you meet?’ question. I want a love story.”
He nodded, lost in his own thoughts.
When I met my partner I had wished for love for a long time.
We met in an unassuming way. On a big wooden bench outside against a big wooden window frame at a cafe. Just metres from where he lived. I was not pretty: I had been on a long walk, wearing leggings and a t-shirt, and on a work call. I was not expecting to meet my future partner that day.
I have more than a year’s worth of scrawling in my journal begging life to bring the right man my way. And I knew it was a kismet combination of being ready and open, timing, and place. And the assumption of positive intent1.
I knew I wanted to be met by someone who wanted to go on a life journey with me. Someone who wanted to grow alongside me. Someone shared my particular flavour of life experiences, so we were not too foreign to one another. I knew that, for it to stand a chance, we had to meet by chance.
The difference between meeting someone organically vs meeting them on a dating app is it leaves you delighted by the miracle of life working in your favour.
As opposed to the gamified human connection where every match becomes an empty dopamine hit. Dating apps thrive on your loneliness. They profit from your insecurities.
I have watched brilliant, accomplished women and friends spend months cycling through superficial connections, each one at first, promising and then, ultimately hollow. The real currency in dating isn’t in accumulating matches. It’s in the courage to be seen, truly seen.
Intimacy is not just about physical closeness, it’s about feeling safe to show someone who you are2. And for many, being emotionally naked feels scarier than taking off their clothes.
Exposing our insecurities, wounds, fears, and dreams can leave us feeling deeply vulnerable and exposed. True intimacy lies in moments of shared vulnerability.
Real love isn’t built on a perfectly timed witty reply. It’s built on presence. On attunement3. On showing up, again and again, even when it’s inconvenient. But apps won’t tell you that. I bad for business.
Dating, at its core, is simple: Be curious. Be honest. Be vulnerable. Have integrity. That’s it. That’s the whole thing.
Love lives in the spaces. In the cracks between plans. In the moments we don’t see coming. Like that day at the café when I met my partner. Me in my workout clothes. Hair wild from the wind. A work call on a wooden bench. That’s when love found me.
The truth about dating is simple. No strategies. No rules. No perfect messages. Just you, present in the world. The world, present with you.
These moments matter. Not for where they lead. For what they are. Raw pieces of being human together.
The ones who draw us in aren’t perfect. They’re real. They laugh about changing clothes three times before coffee. They admit when trust comes hard after heartbreak. They say “this is who I am” and let the words stand naked.
Like people. That’s it. Just like them. People like people who like them.
Want someone to like you? Like them first. Want someone to love you? Love them first.
Dating isn’t about finding “the one.” It’s about being present in the world and actually engaging with it. It’s about making small sacrifices. You cannot complain about how no one talks to each other anymore while simultaneously refusing to look up from your phone.
Magnetism lives in complete ownership of who you are. It’s not about being perfect; it’s about being real.
The paradox of honesty is that the very things we think make us unlovable—our quirks, our fears, our weird habits—become our most attractive qualities when we own them completely.
Mature honesty requires discernment. It’s not about emotional dumping. It’s about stating your truth simply, without apology or explanation.
We’ve created a culture where strength is mistaken for invulnerability. Women are told to be independent, self-sufficient, always composed. Never let them see you need.
The magic happens when you share your truths without needing the other person to fix them. When you can say, “This is who I am” without apology, you create space for others to do the same.
Vulnerability also acts as a filter: the ones incapable of real connection will disappear. The ones who are ready will lean in.
Curiosity opens doors. Honesty builds trust. Vulnerability creates connection. But integrity? Integrity keeps it all standing.
Integrity means doing what you say you’ll do. It means being the same person in all contexts: with friends, with dates, with yourself. It’s saying no when something doesn’t align with your values, even if no one would know otherwise.
It’s rare. That’s why it’s attractive.
Integrity is the difference between being interesting and being trustworthy. Between being desired and being valued. Between drawing people in and giving them a reason to stay.
Dating isn’t broken. We are just overcomplicating it.
You just need to show up.
Curious. Honest. Vulnerable. In integrity.
That’s how you date. That’s how you find love. That’s how love finds you.
Some men are more fantasy than reality. Some arrive at the perfect moment but for the wrong reasons. Some teach you things you didn’t know you needed to learn—about yourself, about your boundaries, about the importance of foreplay.
Romance these days is strange magic. We try people on like borrowed coats, hoping they’ll stretch in the right places. Mistake lightning for sunrise. Convenience for chemistry. Bend ourselves into shapes that leave us sore.
But dating, at its best, is a mirror. It shows you what you want, what you don’t, what you’re willing to settle for and what you won’t tolerate again. It reminds you that love—real love—isn’t something you stumble into overnight. It’s something that grows, slow and steady, through care and curiosity.
And if nothing else, at least it makes for a good story.
The kind that makes you laugh years later. The kind that makes you grateful for all the wrong turns that led you right where you needed to be.
It means believing that the other person is acting with good intentions, even if their actions or words don’t land well. It’s a mindset that fosters empathy, reduces unnecessary conflict, and allows for more open, trusting interactions.
This requires what psychologists call secure attachment—the ability to maintain your identity while deeply connecting with another. Dating apps, however, cultivate the opposite: anxious attachment, where validation comes from digital affirmation rather than real-world connection.
Attunement in dating is the ability to be present with and responsive to a partner’s emotions, needs, and unspoken cues. It builds trust and connection through emotional awareness, active listening, and empathy.
I’m grieving.
It’s 2016 and we are travelling South East Asia for 6 months.We being my boyfriend and I. The one that I moved to Canada, bought a house and planned to start a family with. Only to realise that this life was not mine. The one I left 15 months later.
I could not run my business while on the road. The pace of our travels did not match my tolerance so I focused on the one thing I could: growing my Instagram following. I spent two hours every day posting the perfect photo and inspiring caption, following accounts, commenting, and responding.
That year my following grew from 2,000 to 10,000.
I’m grieving.
When we arrived in Canada on Christmas Eve 2016 I shifted my focus. From growing to nurturing my following. I concentrated on offering the things that earn me a living: online courses, cohorts and private clients.
The numbers continued to grow.
By 2019 my poetry posts received 300+ likes and shares and my Instagram account grew to 15,000.
I wanted to make a difference in the world through my words and art so badly. So much it ached. Instagram promised me virality. It promised me fame. It promised me wealth. None of those came. Not really.
It’s 2021 and everything is changing.
I’m grieving.
Instagram started to steal my voice. Slowly, quietly, it demanded I contort myself to fit its cold, calculated design. Every day, I twisted my words, my art, my very essence to please an algorithm that didn’t know me. I was no longer creating. I was performing. For an audience I couldn’t see. For a system that didn’t care.
I started to lose followers. In flocks of hundreds. I felt disheartened, became complacent, lost my message and stopped sharing in the ways I had before.
I’m grieving.
It’s 2025 and time to grow differently.
Last Tuesday someone in Turkey hacked my account and tried to sell it back to me. They changed the name and told my followers they had bought it for 10k. But continued to try to get me to pay for it.
It was too late. The account was already too compromised.
I asked everyone I knew to report the account. Please do it too, if you can:
I’m grieving.
I’m done with Instagram. It’s a major loss to me and my business. And it’s a redirection away from Meta that has been a long time coming.
After losing my Instagram, I feel raw. Exposed. Stripped of the digital skin I’d carefully crafted over years. And in this vulnerability, I see something shifting. Something real.
We’re moving away from massive, soulless platforms. Away from numbers and likes and hollow connections. Now, it’s about real people. Real communities. Small spaces where trust isn’t a metric, but a feeling. Where a single meaningful conversation matters more than a thousand empty scrolls.
The fabric of social media is changing.
I’m grieving.
Despite everything. Despite the loss. Despite the grief. I’m still here. Still creating. Still inviting you into a space of genuine connection: my FREE Clarity Challenge.
The challenge started on Monday. But shifts don’t follow a calendar. You can still join. Still show up. Still be part of something real.
Plus, it’s more than just a challenge – it’s a movement towards more meaningful connections, both online and in life.
On Tuesday night, as I made my way to bed, I popped my phone on charge in the living room and was about to turn it on aeroplane mode — my nightly ritual of digital disconnection — when I saw the message above. Confused and with my heart already starting to race, I swiped across to my Instagram icon and tapped on it, only to confirm my worst fear: my personal brand account, years of connections and content, had vanished into the digital ether. Poof! Gone faster than my New Year’s resolution to do morning meditation.
The next two hours became a blur of frantic searching and desperate attempts at recovery. Anyone who’s lost something precious knows that initial surge of panic – the racing thoughts, the moist palms, the tightness in your chest as you try everything you can think of. From clicking the ‘hacked’ option to desperately navigating Facebook business support (an experience about as helpful as asking my cat for tech advice), I followed every breadcrumb trail I could find. Each dead end felt like another door slamming shut. Instagram’s automated responses might as well have been echoes in an empty room — they offered literally zero help. By midnight, I crawled into bed with stress hormones surging through my body, my mind a carousel of worst-case scenarios.
Yet somewhere in that chaos, a tiny voice whispered: “What if this is actually a gift?” (Plot twist: sometimes the universe has a peculiar sense of humour in delivering its messages.)
The past 36 hours have been a rollercoaster of emotions that have been equal parts terrifying and oddly liberating. Like standing at the edge of a cliff — frightening, but with a breathtaking view of possibilities I hadn’t considered before. Who knew digital detox could be so… involuntary?
While juggling multiple priorities I attempted account recovery, supported my private clients and wrote the daily lessons for the free 6-day Clarity challenge that starts on Monday:
You’re invited! It’ll be fun! bring your friends! Over 60 people have already signed up!
Each day you’ll receive bite-sized audio lessons and powerful exercises designed to spark clarity and momentum straight to your phone on Telegram. 📲 There you can share your breakthroughs, connect with others, and take bold steps forward—one day at a time.
Focus: Why you feel stuck and how to shift your mindset.
Focus: Get clear on your authentic desires and values.
Focus: Address internal and external blocks stopping you from progressing.
Focus: Build motivation and discipline for aligned action.
Focus: Start taking aligned action with clarity and confidence.
Focus: Celebrate progress and build tools for future decisions.
These past 36 hours have forced me to deeply examine Instagram’s role in my life, and the revelation has been both unsettling and illuminating.
Yes, it’s been an incredible platform for building genuine connections — a digital garden party where I’ve cultivated beautiful friendships and connected with kindred spirits across the globe. Through it, I’ve shared my authentic voice, sparked hope, and offered a perspective that celebrates personal responsibility and infinite possibility.
But let’s be honest. The platform has morphed into something almost unrecognisable. It’s like that friend who suddenly got really into multi-level marketing — still lovable, but exhausting to be around.
Each scroll brings another sales pitch, another algorithm-fed distraction. The wholesome creativity and genuine connection that drew us here have been largely displaced by an endless parade of carefully curated content and targeted advertisements. At this point, my feed thinks I’m simultaneously planning a wedding, starting a kombucha business, and in desperate need of 47 different productivity apps.
And when I look at my stats, of the 12k, less than 10% of you get to see anything I share. I find myself increasingly torn between gratitude for the platform’s benefits and an almost visceral resistance to being part of this attention economy.
It’s like being at a party where everyone’s shouting, but nobody’s listening.
While I’ve always strived to maintain authenticity in this space, there’s a growing dissonance between my values and the platform’s evolution. We’re all aware of the studies showing social media’s impact on our collective mental health, our ability to focus, and our capacity for deep, meaningful in-person connections. As someone trained in psychology, I feel this weight even more heavily.
Could this forced exit be the universe’s way of nudging me toward a more aligned path? Perhaps. However, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t terrified about my business’s survival without this digital lifeline.
There’s only one way to know. This is exactly what I am doing now: seeing how you, my community, rally around me.
While losing my account has shaken my business foundations, it’s also created space for something new to emerge. Something potentially more aligned with both my values and the genuine needs of my community.
This is where you come in.
As I navigate this transition, I’m curious to hear your thoughts and feelings. How would you prefer to stay connected? What kind of support and content would truly serve you? How do you feel about Substack and YouTube? Perhaps together, we can create something even more meaningful than what we’re leaving behind.
It’s a rainy winter day here on the windswept Atlantic coast of Portugal. Winter has officially set in, and I’m already yearning for warmer days. I really do try to embrace these colder months – wrapping myself in cozy blankets, sipping steaming cups of tea – but ultimately, my soul was made to dance outdoors under that magnificent ball of fire in our sky.
Lately, I’ve been in a deep season of reflection, turning over the same question in my mind: “What life am I truly designing for myself?” To chart my path forward, I need to first understand where I’ve been.
The recent path was initiated with a leap of faith – moving from sun-soaked Mexico to the misty shores of the U.K. in early 2020 to launch my first physical product: Plannher 𓂃, a planner crafted specifically for women. Then, of course, the global panini hit (I’ve decided to rename it because if I hear “pandemic” one more time, I will actually expire).
I know this era transformed all of us in profound ways.
For me, it shattered something fundamental – this infinite trust I had carried in the world around me. Perhaps it was misguided, perhaps even privileged, but I had always held this unwavering belief that some mystical force would ensure everything worked out. That belief crumbled when I witnessed just how broken our world could be, and it hurt me deeply.
In response, I tried to make myself smaller. I convinced myself I could be content with less, shrinking to fit into what my environment seemed to expect of me. In a world I had once felt was mine to explore, I suddenly felt microscopic.
This contraction forced me to mature and face myself in ways I’d been avoiding.
Alongside my inner growth, my career accelerated at a dizzying pace – I said yes to everything, trying to keep up with a world that felt increasingly unstable.
Seeking sunshine, I relocated to Mallorca.
But something had shifted inside me. The carefree global wanderer I’d once been felt like a stranger. The magical circuit I’d existed in had shattered, taking pieces of my heart with it. I had witnessed humanity’s vulnerability, selfishness, and irresponsibility, and I couldn’t unsee it. Burned out, unsettled and unable to find my flow – which manifested in strange physical symptoms – I left Mallorca behind.
Back in the U.K., after five months of nomadic wandering, I nested in a sweet little village, in a cabin surrounded by ancient forest. But even that wasn’t enough. My soul was starving.
That’s when I had to face a powerful truth: I am someone with enormous desires.
I want it all. I want that epic, life-long love story. I want to taste every flavor this world has to offer. I want to craft a bold, meaningful, breathtakingly beautiful life. I want to be so well-resourced that I never have to compromise on experiences. I want my creative life to overflow with possibility. I want to buzz with pure, electric aliveness.
Sometimes we need others to remind us that we deserve everything we desire. My closest friends have been lighthouses in this journey. I speak to my friend Lola almost daily, and we fan the flames of each other’s dreams, encouraging one another to follow the charged desires pulling at our heartstrings. Because really – if we don’t, what’s the point of this precious life?
Through all this, I’ve realized something crucial:
To be truly free, playful, and creative, you need both financial security and the maturity to handle your resources wisely. The struggling woman archetype simply cannot exist in 2025. There’s no more room to play small.
My boyfriend and I often discuss how the real game-changing adjustments in life are actually quite boring, simple, and repetitive. You can’t hack your way to satisfaction. But you can strategically stack your habits to create better outcomes.
When I examine the areas of my life that have flourished – my career (at times), my lifestyle (I’ve already lived such a full life that fills me with pride!), my friendships (meaningful and deep), my romantic relationship (everything I dreamed of right now) – the design process has been consistent.
I followed the magnetic pull inside my body and took whatever action was required.
I showed up for my business every single day for years, long before it became financially fruitful. I made heroic efforts with my friends, driving hours just to share a coffee or offering soothing words as balm for their hearts, even when it wasn’t convenient. I said “no, thank you” to countless potential suitors and relationships, choosing solitude over settling for less than what my heart truly desired.
Eventually, piece by piece, I got what I wanted – even if it looked nothing like I’d imagined.
Because context matters. The only thing that truly matters is that it fits me like it was made for me. Because it is.
If you’re ready to redesign a specific part of your life, here’s what works:
— First, decide how you want to feel in that area of your life. Ultimately, we only want anything because we’re chasing a feeling. So get crystal clear – what feeling are you pursuing?
— Next, pay attention to what makes you feel truly alive. It doesn’t have to be directly related to what you’re redesigning. But by holding that part of your life high in your consciousness and heart, you help pull the necessary elements toward you, creating momentum.
— Create a feedback loop between your actions and the area you’re redesigning. Gradually adjust how you show up for yourself, letting the context of what you want to change inform how your life shifts.
— Finally – and this is crucial – find people who are already living the life you’re designing, in ways that you admire, and spend time with them. Nothing transforms your life faster than surrounding yourself with people who expect nothing less than spectacular for themselves.
Rinse and repeat, forever and ever, as you evolve as a human being.
The winter rains have arrived which everyone warned me about. “It pours endlessly and everything will feel damp and moist,” they told me.
I’ve been living in the tiny fishing village-turned-surf destination of Ericeira in Portugal, for three months now. The palms outside my windows are waving at me carelessly reminding me not to go outside.
It’s Monday and I woke in bed with my cat’s face so close to mine I could feel his soft breathing. He had tucked himself under the covers next to me like a doll, making me laugh.
I promised myself a slow start this morning and folded myself deeper into the lingering nighttime warmth letting my mind drift and wander without holding onto any particular thought.
Finally, the urge to relieve myself urged me out followed by padding out to the windows to confirm that it was indeed a day to stay cosy indoors.
Lighting candles and incense in the living room I moved back to the kitchen to make warm lemon water to drink always the first thing on an empty stomach followed by honey-sweetened cacao to enhance the cosy atmosphere.
The start of 2025 has felt like water slipping through cupped hands. Impossible to grasp yet vital to life itself. Like water, we try to build our worlds on what cannot be contained: love, friendship, and the gossamer threads of possibility. In my small corner of existence, as the world churns with its fires and floods, its violence and chaos, I find myself surrendering to this paradox.
A chance encounter on a cafe stoop becomes something more. A love story with a tall Italian stranger transforming from nothing into something.
This is the eternal human condition – to build our castles on shifting sands, to stake our hearts on what tomorrow might reshape entirely. How else could we live?
We pour ourselves into vessels that may crack, dream dreams that may dissolve, love people who will certainly change. And in doing so, we become more fully human, more alive to the exquisite uncertainty of it all.
I sit watching raindrops fall in gentle rhythm, as candles flicker and fade one by one. My to-do list grows longer with each passing thought – a testament to my endless optimism about what I might accomplish this week. Though I know, deep down, that time will move more slowly than my dreams, I’ve learned to forgive myself for this hopeful nature. There is something beautiful about believing in possibility, even when reality gently reminds us of its own unhurried pace.