Hello friends,

August rushed off. What does this mean? The month was a bit of a blur. It was filled with busy stuff at work, back-to-school, smoothies, sweaty walks around Central Park where I was offered a carriage ride almost every day, a tow truck ride with a really nice guy who can back up that tow truck like it’s nobody’s business and funerals.

It’s just about that time where I start itching for autumn. I am done with the sweating and summer clothes. Tired of the AC dry eyes (but thank God for the AC). It’s just time. I will admit I didn’t spend as much time on a project I am working on as I should have, but I still made some headway. Did some pilates challenges. I look the same.

Entered my essential oils era, and felt like a little witch or scientist pouring and combining them into a glass bottle through a funnel. I read a lot on the train. Tried at least three new recipes, but cooked very little. I am very into the marinara sauce a local Italian place makes, but they had none on Friday.

It’s that time of the year where I just want to wear leopard print and cozy sweaters (this is a mood I enter into, even though I own very little leopard print). Here we are, wishing away summer.

I sort of wished we had gone to a county fair this summer, but it feels odd to go to a fair when there is a lot of grief and other stuff going on. Just not right. The timing was just off. Maybe next year. I went to a Kohls (after years of not going) and got the cutest purse.

It was a stressful month. You know those types of months– the ones that get you dizzy and almost give you a panic attack-type month. But we made it through. We always do. Learned a lot about “resetting” oneself.

I don’t know why, but a story that came back to me this month was an experience I had in law school– bear with me.

I was a nervous one toward the end of law school. I was hustling like you wouldn’t believe. I needed to make sure I had a job lined up before graduation. I needed to have a way to pay bills and live, you know. There was only Plan A. Your girl was going hard. I was applying to like 15 jobs a day.

I had done a lot of immigration clinical work, and there was this very sophisticated woman who had a nonprofit down south. At that point, I wanted to come back home, so I applied, and she invited me to have a coffee with her. I don’t remember how I was connected with this woman, but I do remember one of the girls in my employment law class was engaged to her son. They were a well-to-do family, and I had heard rumors of how hard she was working to be accepted by this family and her future mother-in-law.

I remember we met in a small cafe close to Columbia on the Upper West Side. She walked in perfumed. Heels on. Scarf around her neck and her blonde hair flowing. There are people you just see the money on them. She was glistening.

I will never forget that conversation. It was sort of like an interview. I sat there nervously in my black blazer, which had been my mom’s, drinking my tea. She talked about the job. It was working with migrant farmworkers. I needed to have a car, and be out there 24/7. There was danger of being covered in chemicals. There was monitoring of corporate entities that sold from these farms. You were on-call basically 24/7. I nodded along as she listed many job duties. The salary had not been listed in the job description. When it came time to talk about compensation, (I was in suspense), I was shocked when she dropped the salary. It was like $27,000 a year; for me, she said, she would bump it to $32,000, as if she was doing me this incredible favor. It was like selling your soul for nothing. How did this woman expect me to pay for housing, the car she said I was required to have, insurance, my student loan, all of it. I think what stung the most was knowing how wealthy this family was and that they were very involved in this. This job that required so much was something they weren’t willing to compensate for. I almost fell out of my chair.

I remember walking out that day in disbelief, feeling I had wasted my time and had not been valued. I remember hearing more horror stories about this family throughout my last semester, and staring into the back of my classmate’s head (the one that was going to marry into this family), thinking, That poor girl. She is going to be in for it. It was almost like I was trying to tell her through telepathy. Part of me felt like she knew.

Maybe, it’s the fact that I am nearing my decade out of law school, or the fact that I find myself in the Upper West Side a lot, but that story came back to me this month, and I was grateful. Grateful for all that has been and all that never was.

There is an intimacy that comes in being valued and being understood. I have been doing a lot of coaching around that. A lot of intimacy with oneself, too. There have been many instances in life where I felt I had to explain so much or bend myself to be understood. This was not one of them. I simply said ‘no’ and walked away. I’ve had many instances in life where I didn’t and tried harder.

I once listened to someone else get coached, and the coach said, “Okay, so this person is committed to devaluing you and misunderstanding you. They don’t know who you are. Do you? Do you know what you are worth?” There was a long silence. That stayed with me.

In my head, I went into full Charlotte York mode:

Autumn is a season where a lot goes to die. We have autumns in life, too. But remember, it is just a season. I hope that this upcoming month, you say “no” to what deserves a “no”. To any offer or idea that is insulting. I hope you say “yes” to valuing yourself as you should. Remember that autumn teaches us to slow down and rest; you trust in what is to come. Winter then comes, and then, spring. If you are going through grief and difficulty, while some things remain, this is a season of many. It may be a life-altering one, but summer is coming once again. No two summers are the same, but they are summers. We just have to get through the deaths and re-births that get us there.

Be grateful for what has been and for all that will never be.

Remember, you are worth a million.

The post of the month was ironically the July 2024 Favorites. I read some good books, among them was Women Who Work by Ivanka Trump. The book is like a collection of Stephen Covey quotes, and yes, down below are some of my favorites. I also couldn’t help myself.

Quotes

“Learning is a gift, even when pain is your teacher!” Michael Jordan

“Life is higher education, and we never stop learning from the courses we take without ever having signed up to take them.” Tyler Knott Gregson

“To experience time travel, read. To achieve immortality, write.” James Clear

“Without courage, wisdom bears no fruit.” Baltasar Gracián

“Progress is being aware when there is a storm happening inside of you and remaining calm as it passes by.” Yung Pueblo

“You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. It was Dostoevsky and Dickens who taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who ever had been alive. Only if we face these open wounds in ourselves can we understand them in other people. An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. His role is to make you realize the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are.” James Baldwin

“Things turn out best for the people who make the best of the way things turn out.”
John Wooden.

“There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, air-less—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.” C.S. Lewis

“People are watching. You are either leading people to be better or you are leading people to be worse. Even if you are someone who is struggling in life, there are still people in your life that look up to you for leadership. Fight. Push through. Show them the way. Be the example you wish you had. Be the leader you wish you had. Be the teacher you wish you had. Be the parent you wish you had. Be the friend you wish you had. This is what changes the world.” Andy Frisella

“The moment was all; the moment was enough.” Virginia Woolf

“Life’s under no obligation to give us what we expect.” Margaret Mitchell

“That’s one of the reasons my boobs are so big: it’s just all heart pushin’ out of my chest.” Dolly Parton

“When I choose to see the good side of things, I’m not being naive. It is strategic and necessary. It’s how I’ve learned to survive through everything.” Everything Everywhere All at Once (2022)

“I’ve experienced His presence in the deepest darkest hell that men can create. I have tested the promises of the Bible, and believe me, you can count on them.” Corrie Ten Boom

“If family comes first, work does not come second. Life comes together.” Anne-Marie Slaughter

“Mentally strong people don’t do nice things for people who don’t treat them with respect.” Dr. Amen

“Being calm about everything allows your mind to find solutions. Calmness is also a state of trust. Instead of overthinking and overreacting, you just surrender for that moment and allow yourself to receive guidance for what doesn’t make sense.” Unknown

“Someone who had a childhood of chronic chaos may not even know they are traumatized because it wasn’t one major event, it was their every day, just because something is common doesn’t make it normal.” Dr. Will Cole

“Your life doesn’t just ‘happen’. Whether you know it or not, it is carefully designed by you. The choices after all, are yours. You choose happiness. You choose sadness. You choose decisiveness. You choose ambivalence. You choose success. You choose failure. You choose courage. You choose fear. Just remember that every moment, every situation, provides a new choice.” Stephen Covey

“It’s way easier to be negative, sarcastic, and cynical. It’s much harder to be hopeful, positive, and proactive.” Rainn Wilson

“Too many lives are wasted living in fear of what these insignificant people might have to say about you when you stumble.” Andy Frisella

“The proper way to fix the world isn’t to fix the world. There’s no reason to assume that you’re even up to such a task. But you can fix yourself. You’ll do no harm by doing so, and in that manner at least, you will make the world a better place.” Dr. Jordan B. Peterson

“No friend ever served me, and no enemy ever wronged me whom I have not repaid in full.” Lucius Cornelius Sulla

“The most courageous act is still to think for yourself, aloud.” Coco Chanel

“The key is not to prioritize what’s on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities.” Stephen Covey

“It’s important to be willing to make mistakes. The worst thing that can happen is you become memorable.” Sara Blakely

“Wherever there is animal worship, there is human sacrifice.” G.K. Chesterton

“Mental toughness is knowing life isn’t fair and still playing to win.” Marcus Aurelius

“No one is coming to save you. You are the adult. I’m so sorry.” Dr. Jose Pharena

“Nobody is gonna hit you as hard as life, but it ain’t how hard you can hit. It’s how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. It’s how much you can take, and keep moving forward. That’s how winning is done.” Rocky Balboa

“Healing isn’t about fixing what’s broken– it’s about nourishing what’s been neglected.” Aviva Romm

“Trauma says, ‘I have to over-explain myself to be understood and accepted.’ Healing says, ‘I am learning to trust my own voice and be comfortable with being misunderstood. My value is not determined by other’s perception of me.'” Intelligent Change

“Live by three simple rules: Love needs action; trust needs proof; sorry needs change.” Naina Sanghvi

“Modern man is in a terrible predicament. He is helplessly enamored with the beauty of what the old world built, yet despises the beliefs that inspired them to build it.” Jeremy Tate

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