Expect miracles.
“And you do have more agency than you think. You can try anything, make your own rules, make unconventional decisions that might initially only make sense to you. If you’ve never learned to really listen to yourself and figure out what it is you actually want out of life, you can start now.” Erifili Gounari
What do you want out of life today?
So true. With the mass layoffs this week and last— AI is top of mind. How will the world keep changing? On a day like today where I am dragging myself after hopping onto like 17 trains to get home, can AI clean the bathroom and do laundry?
Ugh. It won’t.
By: Gabriela Yareliz
I saw the most precious duo on the train (I know— that is a rare statement). Usually, the trains feel like they emerge from hell (D train, I am looking at you)— but here we are. A different morning. Maybe, I was looking for something different, and that helped me find it. The mornings where I am able to start with Pilates are usually magical.
There was a Hispanic father in a button down rust colored thermal and his tiny daughter, in a pink coat with her blonde curly hair poking out of her pink beanie and her tiny pink glasses framing her tiny face.
She was the most energetic in our train car, sitting backwards, facing the subway windows. He whipped out some chapstick and told her that her lips were red. She resisted, but then, grabbed the chapstick and put it on. She wanted to do it. They both made popping sounds, each spreading the chapstick on their own lips. He showed her how, and she dutifully imitated, popping her little lips and smooshing them together. She concluded with a smile.
She asked if they would have spaghetti or pasta, and when he told her spaghetti is pasta, she laughed as if it was the funniest thing she had ever heard.
She then did something that warmed my heart. She leaned in and started buttoning the top button on her dad’s thermal shirt. She wanted him to be warm.
It was time for me to switch trains. I told him that his daughter was the cutest and crossed the platform. I am convinced I witnessed one of the greatest love stories I have come across.
Every gesture toward his daughter was one of protection and care. Down to the chapstick. He was so attentive and down to giggle with her about meatballs and pasta. He was an example; nothing about him was performative. And that little girl radiated a golden energy like her blonde ringlets.
People, including children, radiate the energy that reflects their character. With discernment, you see a lot of a child’s character even while very young— and this little one was pure joy and goodness.
These moments and interactions that seem ordinary— the affection we show our children, spouses and family— it all sends a message to the outside world.
Deep love whispers, “Look, look at the beauty of being loved. Share this love, too.”
By: Gabriela Yareliz
At first, I had prepared this as a piece to a post I was going to have go live earlier, but this merits its own post and many more.
We encourage all who read to join the global body of Christ in prayer for Kevin Rideout, U.S. missionary abducted last week in Niger. We also join the church in prayer for all Christians around the world who are facing persecution, martyrdom and hardship.
We often highlight these circumstances in isolation, but this is an ongoing global crisis. Together, we pray.
May God’s hand move mightily on their behalf, and no matter what they face, may they feel God’s deep love and presence in the darkness. May the love and light they represent echo and shine throughout the globe, piercing all darkness, silence and hopelessness. May their faith be unforgettable and stay with those who do evil against them.
And the rest of us, who read and write from comfort— may we also pray for discernment and strength of faith to meet our coming moment with resilience and unwavering resolve.
Whether we are walking through a Manhattan subway station or through a jungle on the other side of the world— the Holy Spirit within us is the same. May we ask for a double measure of Him in us.
May this be an everyday prayer, in the same way we pray for our families. May we never forget all the ties that bind.
1 Blest be the tie that binds
our hearts in Christian love;
the fellowship of kindred minds
is like to that above.
2 Before our Father’s throne
we pour our ardent prayers;
our fears, our hopes, our aims are one,
our comforts and our cares.
3 We share our mutual woes,
our mutual burdens bear,
and often for each other flows
the sympathizing tear.
4 When we are called to part,
it gives us inward pain;
but we shall still be joined in heart,
and hope to meet again.
5 This glorious hope revives
our courage by the way;
while each in expectation lives
and waits to see the day.
6 From sorrow, toil, and pain,
and sin, we shall be free;
and perfect love and friendship reign
through all eternity.
(John Fawcett 1782)
“Our biggest commitments, the things we are most dedicated to, rarely pay us back in equal measure.
That might be the point.”
Seth Godin
By: Gabriela Yareliz
Before I was obsessed with Gwyneth Paltrow, and before I found the article on Goop that changed my life— there was my mom, my original health influencer.
In every house we had, my mom created a garden (not just flowers but food). She has always been a nature person. I think she did her best in the 90s trying to decipher what had vitamin C and nutrients (though the 90s were a low point, nutritionally, for all of us in the U.S.).
As I got older, we all collectively learned more. By the time I was in my teens, we were mindful of sugar intake, she would order homemade bread from a lady at our church who made it from scratch, and we would make lunch sandwiches with it. We leaned into home remedies and activated charcoal. We became plant-based, which removed a lot of hormone-injected meat from my diet (which I know helped my own condition). I would do exercise DVDs with her, and follow her example. That’s the stuff that stays with you. (Denise Austin is a QUEEN).
She found us a functional doctor who had worked for the military, and always tried to give us the best. As I reflect back on this, I am so grateful I had a mom who led the way with wellness in a time when we were all trying to figure out what was what. When I made changes and protocols to heal my own hormones, I never felt skepticism or gaslit by her, but on the other hand, I felt encouraged. I found support in my mom that I didn’t even find from doctors who were fine to let me know what was wrong with me but offered no solutions. To this day, my mom and I talk about health and the little experiments we try on ourselves. (To fast or not to fast). I am grateful to have someone to talk to about wellness. It occupies so much of my brain space.
My mom is a very strong woman. If at any point I took charge of my own health and found my pockets of healing and process, that strength to research, try and advocate for myself came from her because she gave me the permission to be unconventional early on. She was unconventional early on.
The other day, I heard Tracy Anderson say that those who find her method and do it are those who don’t try to find the easy way out. They take the harder road for lasting results and longevity. When she said this, it reminded me of my mom. She doesn’t take shortcuts. My original wellness influencer— whether I realized it at the time or not.
She had us eating homemade bread. I mean, what a gift.
Forever grateful for my mother.
“She likes to read, she reads all the time, and she prefers to be reading several things at once, she says it gives endless perspective and dimension.” Ali Smith, Autumn
“But maybe magic isn’t just for kids. Maybe it’s for anyone brave enough to still believe in things they can’t quite explain.” Sadie from The Slow Living Lane
“To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition.” Dr. Samuel Johnson (1709-1784)
By: Gabriela Yareliz
This Dr. Johnson was way ahead of his time. This week has felt so weird. Started with food poisoning, a truck soaked me on my way to work— you could have wrung my pants and all that dirty puddle water would have filled a bucket. The city is such a mess; I have had to hop over at least four homeless people to get to where I need to go and a giant dead rat in the middle of the Times Square station. I have felt stressed. Who hasn’t? Some days and weeks you regret leaving your bed. You just want to sleep and stay in the safe cocoon of four blankets.
In addition to reaching for gratitude and intense journaling where I lay out all my puddle-soaked laundry, I have been thinking a lot about Dr. Johnson’s quote. What does it mean to treat a happy home as the best ambition? How does that shape how we react to the absurdities and tragedies of the day?
What we measure as success can be so hollow. Success is only found in the happiness we find at home. Even then, I know some people are in spaces they can’t control or don’t feel safe in (mainly children and adolescents; adults have choices), but there is still another definition of home— the home within yourself. The inner fortress you can retreat to. The place where you make your own safety, and where it pays to make your own joy.
What would change for us if we valued a happy home as the “ultimate result” of all our striving?
GABRIELA YARELIZ 