Virtue

On this July fourth, I leave you with some words from Ryan Holiday:

“It’s July 4th, 1776. The Founding Fathers are about to make a very loud statement about freedom and independence.

They will, over the next several bloody and bleak years, give nearly everything in order to will it-and a new nation-into existence.

But just as much as they were making a statement for freedom, the founders were staking their lives on the idea of virtue.

Classical virtue. That is: Courage.

Discipline. Justice. Wisdom.

The Founders were steeped in the ideas of the ancients. […]

The American experiment-based as it was on individual liberty-was built on the necessity of virtue and honor. A people freed from the tyranny of government, they understood, still needed to be checked by their own morality, philosophy, and religion.

‘Avarice, ambition, revenge…’ John Adams said, ‘would break the strongest cords of our Constitution as a whale goes through a net.’

Many years later, another American president, Dwight Eisenhower, would express it perfectly when he said that freedom was better defined as the ‘opportunity for self-discipline.’

All of which is to say that the Founders were delegating a whole hell of a lot of responsibility to the people when they freed us from the yoke of the king.

They were giving us a gift, sure, but also an immense obligation-to be good citizens, good people, good leaders of ourselves and stewards of our collective resources.

This responsibility falls on each of us today, no matter where we live or what form of government we’re under. What’s legal, what’s allowed, what everyone else is doing, what we can get away with? None of this matters.

What matters is what we should do, what virtue demands of each of us, what matters is, as Marcus Aurelius said, “good character and works for the common good.”

Today, while you’re grilling out and celebrating the holiday with friends and family, take a moment to reflect on this tension between freedom and virtue.

What does it mean to approach your life with the courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom that guided the Founding Fathers? In what ways have we as a nation perhaps fallen short of the responsibilities that come with freedom?

Let today be more than a celebration-let today be a recommitment to the virtues that make freedom possible. A recommitment to truth, to self-mastery, to taking responsibility, to work. The work of choosing virtue when it would be easier not to, of living up to the responsibilities.”

Happy fourth! 🇺🇸 Stay virtuous. Stay free.

The Good, Too

By: Gabriela Yareliz

I was reflecting the other day— sometimes we look at the past or “trauma”, and we think about everything it left us without. Everything we didn’t have or receive. Whatever we lost.

But what if we looked at everything we have and are and were grateful for what we went through. What if that makes us who we are in all the good ways and not just the bad.

Maybe the lack of nurture made us nurturing. Maybe the lack of stability made us resilient. Maybe the person who left made us make sure we were the one who stayed. Maybe the drug abuse made us the sober one. Maybe the silence made us speak. Maybe the lies made us love truth.

What if our resourcefulness, our strength, our kindness, our resilience— it all stems from the cracks we had no say in?

The Feminine Wiring

Image by Ralph Lauren

By: Gabriela Yareliz

I am on a train that says “No Service.” So far, it’s in service. Shannon Ford was on the TSC Podcast talking about pregnancy, recently. It was an awesome podcast. Lauryn Bosstick, the host, was also pregnant in these past few months; they talked about stuff I haven’t heard about. My favorite type of conversation. Candace Owens is getting ready for the launch of her new book Make Him a Sandwich. She is posting throwbacks to many of her conversations and debates around feminism and anti-feminism.

This is a topic I have evolved on a lot. Growing up, I was somewhere in between acting-like-a-man-is-exhausting and knowing there were no dependable male figures around me that offered me safety, stability or nurture and the idea that women needed to maximize opportunities and women are called to motherhood plus. Motherhood plus to me is a purpose and career in addition to motherhood. It’s what I saw growing up with my own mother, and I saw it save us as a family. I still believe pieces of this. I do believe women can contribute to the world beyond raising children— after all, not all women can or choose to raise a family. That said, I judge women less harshly for choosing motherhood only. I recognize I was very harsh on this choice in the past.

There were/are grains of truth in this as before I always held this choice up to harsh outcomes like what if the husband dies/is disabled/leaves— then what? I find that, oftentimes, in so many aspects we see life through the lens of our trauma.

While I still hope to be like a Joanna Gaines, Lauryn Bosstick, Lilly Ghalichi (motherhood plus)— now, I see a homemaker, and I smile and simply think, Good for her. I like to think that this is healing. It’s living outside of hurt and survival.

When the Florida Panthers won the Stanley Cup this year (you know I will find any excuse to bring this up—), when I saw all of the families, wives and young children come down to the ice, it was beautiful. Truly beautiful. I was reminded that a woman in her feminine, thriving in her family is one of the most beautiful things in the world. Building something with another and resting in safety looks good on us women. I wish it for all of us.

While I thank God for my ability to open my own bank account and own/hold property, I hate that periods have been sold to us as a “problem to manage,” fertility an unimportant death sentence, and liberation shown as everything that destroys our most beautiful state.

Every angle of this stripping has been steeped in fear mongering, and at times, circumstances that materialize our deepest fears. This is real.

As I get older, I can spot it more easily now— the woman operating out of her fears. Sometimes, it’s a woman in her masculine. Other times, it’s a woman who is too dependent. I think it’s easy for me to spot because I have been there. After courses, coachings and therapy, it became clear to me so much of my life was lived from a masculine state. It’s a double edged sword. In many ways, it saved me from a lot of dumb situations and true losers. But listen, it takes a while to shake it off once you reach shore in your little storm worn boat.

While before I was so focused on preparing for every contingency and every wrong, I am now looking at the women in their feminine and thinking— that’s the goal. It is what we are wired for. What is different now is that I see that way of being as accessible, and more than that, desirable.

The Overwhelming Theme

“The overwhelming theme in the Old Testament is not that God is a god of wrath, but that God is a god of love, and that we keep making horrible choices.

I think sometimes we think that love is the equivalent of acceptance of action.

God always loves us without condition.

He does not accept all of our choices and actions.” Erwin McManus

The Machine

“We don’t know how close we are to feeling good.” Dr. Hyman

This was me today at the doctor (image via Princess Bride Wiki).

By: Gabriela Yareliz

Have you ever worked so much you started to feel numb? This is a familiar place for me. Familiar but unpleasant. Work sometimes feels like The Machine from The Princess Bride. (I was in The Machine today. More on that later).

I have done certain things to reduce this default mode. Some of those things, you may ask? My coach was often an encourager of these. Feeding myself (seems basic, but I have been masochistic); Journaling a brain dump to just clear the nonsense; exercise where there is no podcast or music playing (just feeling the ground beneath and hearing my breath); writing (hi!); taking a walk (with no goal or agenda); cleaning (it’s relaxing for me— I don’t know what kind of syndrome this is); watching something funny (I must laugh out loud— it changes something in me); massage— this is my heaven, even when it’s painful— and when you hold as much tension in your body as I do, it’s always painful; lymphatic drainage (loving my little sculptor with some oil— might try a new system. Dry brushing always makes me feel weirdly electric); sleep (sleep is often the cure to much).

None of this is groundbreaking. It’s the small shifts.

Today, I was going to the chiropractor, and I was listening to Dr. Mark Hyman, and he said the quote above that resonated so much with me. It’s never huge stuff. It’s the small stuff that starts to make the difference. It makes us feel better, human, healing, alive.

I am sharing this with you in case there is an aspect where you don’t feel 100%. Sometimes, in our exhaustion of feeling like crap, we give into despair. Make a small shift. Dr. Hyman was talking about a book he wrote a while back that is a short ten day detox. People who did it saw dramatically reduced symptoms. Some felt like a different person by the end of it. Autoimmune conditions went into remission. It was only ten days. The gold is in the details. Sometimes, it’s not what you take away, but what you add.

I walked across Manhattan (in weirdly post-heat-wave chilly weather) to get to the doctor’s office. My doctor was very concerned with my locked back (hello stress). He literally rubbed an essential oils stick over my mid- and lower back and strapped me into a stretcher machine that resembles The Machine that sucks your life out of you in The Princess Bride. (Ironically, I was strapped in because work is the actual Machine). My head was literally strapped in.

Me, strapped in (image via Princess Bride Wiki).
My doctor checking in on me (image via Princess Bride Wiki).

After hearing a full report on the HBO Tina Turner documentary from my doctor, I walked like a zombie to reception to schedule my next appointment.

“What day?” the receptionist asked me. We had bonded in the morning where we both had to fight together to try and unlock the gate to the office. There we were, two petite women pushing against the jammed gate while rich unemployed people walking their dogs glanced at us with interest. It was resolved when she called the doctor who was already inside and told him to come up and “unjam the damn gate.”

I gave the receptionist my preferred date, but she proceeded to tell me, “Not that day. He is planning a family emergency, and it will end up canceled.” I squinted with confusion, and we proceeded to land a date where neither of us had an emergency planned.

I took a long walk to Canal Street listening to some fabulous podcasts I’ll link below, in case you are interested.

I went to my favorite massage lady (Jenny) to see if she could unbuckle my back. Jenny is a real one. I am half convinced she is a sorcerer because she can read my mind and pain points. The woman is magical. ✨

I walked in, and she had seen me not long ago. My back has been insane lately. She picked out an icy balm and had me lie down on a table, and I kid you not, she walked on my back. I was a toothpaste (the minty oils and balm) scented corpse most of the day. Jenny made my back mobile again (I can breathe). I wandered home with a phone at 4%. If you know me, you know I never let my phone go below like 60% on a good day. Weirdly, despite the fact that it was nearly dead most of the day, it was the most light and unbothered I felt.

Maybe it was the tingly mint thing on my back, the cooler weather (it’s literally cold now. We cannot win), the magical people who helped me today or the good conversations I was listening to. I don’t know. Maybe it was a combination of all of them and my morning routine. But among the small things, there was a major shift. (And this was despite major train delays and having to take four trains home instead of two).

Today, I invite you into the small things. Commit to something small, and it could shift everything. I clearly have a lot to work on, but it’s in progress.

I will drop the best podcasts of this week below, in case you want to listen to some good stuff over the weekend.

Deep breaths!

First, the conversation with Dr. Hyman that I loved:

This one made me smile:

This one on the mind and societal delusion was excellent:

This one for those who want a good and lasting relationship! SO GOOD!

The last one on my TSC Podcast kick was Suebelle— all about Palm Beach and being fabulous.

Happy weekend!