a gentle Paris vlog, plus words and thoughts on the challenges of this year
NOV 26, 2025
A slow, tender glimpse into a couple of my weeks in Paris…
Come with me to a meeting in the centre of the city, witness an unexpected rainbow, and join me for a handful of honest chats about life lately. I share my approach to wrinkle prevention and my boundaries around phone use, why I started my business in the first place, and how it’s evolving in ways I never expected. I also discuss what it’s really like navigating female friendships as an introverted adult.
I also open up about the season I’m in: intentionally reshaping my social circle, letting certain relationships go, and sitting in that in-between space where things haven’t yet fallen into place. It can feel lonely and disorienting… but also deeply beautiful, empowering, and necessary. This is the heart of taking responsibility for our lives… the exact work I teach inside CLEAR.
If you’re in a similar chapter, or simply curious about the behind-the-scenes of my days, I hope this vlog feels grounding, comforting, and human.
Hey love,
I will share more soon as I continue to emerge from the shell of this year.
For those of you, who are also starting to dust off the ashes and rise from them… this is the literal tail end of it, an extremely difficult 2025.
I am so confident in our collective grace, changeability, softness and flexible resilience. We have passed through so much. The gift lives in the pain.
Here is to our rising. To a new season of life ahead.
A few notes:
PRACTICAL DREAMER has been unexpectedly popular and almost sold out, with one spot left. Let me know if you want it by replying to this email.
a small correction, a little favor, some life updates, and win a 90-min session with me valued at $250
OCT 03, 2025
Hi love,
First, a correction. In my last letter, I invited you to TheArt of Noticing and told you it begins in November. That was wrong. It begins in October. OCTOBER. In two-and-a-half weeks from now.
For reasons that are unclear to me but consistent, apparently, since they’ve plagued me my entire adult life, I cannot seem to keep October and November straight. They’re distinct but too similar, and my brain collapses them into one long stretch of autumn/fall, indistinguishable but lovely. Every year, I make this mistake.
Second: I need your help. I want to shape what comes next with you in mind, not in the way marketers mean when they say “know your audience,” but in the way I mean when I say I want this work to matter. So I made this survey. If you complete it, you’ll be entered to win one of three 90-minute 1:1 sessions with me (worth $250 each).
There is a tiny, little catch: to enter, you also share my Substack or Instagram with five friends. Then, in the form, tell me their first names and what you said to them about my work. I know it’s a bit extra, but I want to see how this community spreads: through whispers, trust, the intimacy of one person telling another, not ads or algorithms.
The competition closes on Sunday, October 19th, and I’ll draw and email the winners the next day. If you don’t want to enter the competition but just want to give me feedback, you can skip the part where you share my work and just leave me your thoughts instead. Your voice and thoughts are valuable to me. Thank you.
Third: we’re in the middle of the 8-part her way club “how to change your life” series. (Thank you so much for all the incredible email responses I get from you on this! It’s deeply meaningful to learn how this series is resonating.) And yes, I keep interrupting it. I tell myself I shouldn’t, that people like consistency, but the truth is: I have too many things moving at the same time that I want to share with you. I would rather risk over-communicating and leaving enough space between each note to you than leave something unsaid that might be useful to you or follow some arbitrary rule.
This year has been like a holy fire. Things I thought were permanent: systems, identities, relationships, ambitions, have collapsed into ash. And while it was frightening, it was also clarifying. What survived is what matters.
None of this was on my 2025 mood board. The mood board had other plans: more travel, maybe a new home, some whimsical goals that looked like self-portraits painted in soft light. Instead, what I got was a lesson in self-worth, in boundaries, in recognising where I’ve been overspending: emotionally, energetically, physically.
So here’s what’s changed in ways that impact you:
I’ve put a paywall on all of my memoir-style writing. Because writing at that level of exposure costs me something real. Metabolising in public requires energy, courage, and recovery time. It feels important to honour that.
What I keep free is the writing that’s more directly of service, the kind that teaches or inspires, and points you back to my work itself. It felt like an important recalibration: a quiet reclaiming of value.
I used to think I had to build an empire.
But conventional business empires are expensive, time-consuming and frankly, exhausting. The truth is, I’m tired. Not of my work itself. I love what I create. I love the people I serve. I’m tired of the way I’ve been made to believe I have to show up to be successful.
All I want is a simple, profitable business with minimal expenses, helping people and doing what I love.
There are times when my business doesn’t run perfectly, but I find that even on the challenging days, I am grateful. Because I am still waking up without an alarm, writing in my bed, working from a cafe, and able to fit my work around my life instead of the other way around. And that is such a gift.
I quit coffee again because of this, and turned to black tea instead
People like to tell you that a successful business is fully automated, and certainly, some automation helps, but I’ve found this works too:
Wake up Write Create and publish one piece of content Go for a walk Lunch See clients Workout Dinner + friends Sleep
It’s not glamorous, but it’s beautiful, it’s effective, and it’s enough. And my body and internal system and nervous system and heart thrive in this way.
As long as I can:
make money helping others be creative in the ways that pour out of me have minimal overheads and expenses set aside a good percentage for savings invest in experiences that I value have space and time to contemplate daily live in a beautiful environment with sun and water
I am a content, calm and fulfilled woman.
Success to me is:
consistent income living within my means low overheads and expenses financial and time freedom saving money for the future spending time with people I love doing things that I love daily nature, sunshine and movement a beautiful home and external environments work that supports me and my lifestyle helping people through my creativity a mutable, fluid daily schedule
Every Monday, I have a little dreaming and planning day. Corporate types call it a ‘CEO Day’, but for me, it’s a check-in date with myself:
I look into how I am feeling (what do I want and need) I check my accounts, income and expenses I make sure I put money in my savings I dream into what I want to create more of I lean away from what I want less of I organise my week ahead
I do this every week, no matter what. I know that whatever I pour my love and attention into is what will grow. I choose to be intentional with that. This is how I nurture my relationship with my resources.
I don’t have all the answers. But I do have a framework I’ve been returning to as I rebuild my life right now. It’s become my quiet compass in this transition. Thank you for being with me during this transformative time in my life.
I hope something wonderful happens for you this weekend.
Vienda Maria 