My coach says that if we don’t learn a lesson, it repeats itself in our lives until we do.
I am not sure if I believe that. I think life just happens. I do think that we can create the same patterns and reactions if we aren’t intentional, but even when we grow and adjust our reaction, that doesn’t mean we don’t face the same circumstance again. Our lives are interwoven to feel the shockwaves of the lives around us.
So then, it brings us to the question— is a lesson a circumstance? And the second question is— does it matter? Ultimately, what makes the difference between pattern or no pattern, even in the face of the same circumstance, is our power to choose and how we deal with the cards being dealt.
I believe there are common “lessons” that present themselves to us all, and others that are more tailor-made for our own little souls and the journey we need to embark on. And then, there is life, in all of its random glory.
As we begin new chapters, it’s important to ask ourselves what patterns we keep repeating, and when we want to step off the familiar carousel of choices.
We must ask ourselves what we don’t mind repeating and what we never want to see or experience again, and commit to it.
Agency isn’t something that is given or received. We don’t have to wait for it. Agency is something we inherently have. We shouldn’t forget it. It’s necessary for a smooth ride.
“Trust me when I say that one day it’s going to hit you– that you woke up happy, that you’re smiling for no reason, that your hands aren’t shaking anymore. One day, you’re going to remember what it was like to be you a year ago, or three years ago, or even a week ago, and you’re going to be so glad that you fought. You’re going to be so glad that you kept going.”
Bianca Sparacino
It’s the season of Elf, The Holiday, Christmas with the Kranks, Four Christmases– I think it’s true that Christmas doesn’t mark the end of the season, but it marks the beginning. December 26 is the second day of Christmas, and so on. Right?
Jesus is the reason for every day.
While the festive season is still in full swing, another year comes to an end. This month, we saw Canada get an offer to be the 51st state (sassy), the NY Rangers played terribly (and continue to), we contemplated quitting our jobs to focus on Christmas (kidding), Paris and Nicole got together for their Encore of The Simple Life, half the Christmas village markets were burned down in NYC, Daniel Penny was (rightfully) found not guilty. It was an eventful month. Each week had an interesting set of headlines.
The Simple Life, for me, is so nostalgic. I wasn’t allowed to watch it, but I still tried to seek out the clips and episodes on the VH1 site. It was one of the few things that made me feel like an adolescent in a very difficult period of my life. When I watched Paris and Nicole, I felt like a normal teenage girl. Here were these two women being ridiculously carefree and hilarious. Seeing them come together again will be epic. Here is to the Y2K era. Nothing beats the pre-iPhone era.
Loves it.
This month had some lovely moments. I loved seeing Delilah at the Wollman Rink at Central Park. We ice skated after some years of not skating. NYC felt more festive than in past years. America feels like it is coming into its own again post-election. I am here for it.
The truth is, every day is a gift. Every day is a new opportunity to grow and continue to evolve. I hope your December was incredible. I am wishing you an amazing, peaceful and beautiful start to the new year.
Given that this season often focuses on growth and new goals, I have included some fun programs and resources for different types of goals and hopes.
Books of the month:
Book of 2024:
Most anticipated book of the year:
Quotes
“It is not necessary to accept the choices handed down to you by life as you know it. There is more to it than that — no one HAS to do something he doesn’t want to do for the rest of his life. But then again, if that’s what you wind up doing, by all means convince yourself that you HAD to do it. You’ll have lots of company.” Hunter S. Thompson
“In the end, only three things matter: how much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of things not meant for you.” Jack Kornfield
“A society that separates its scholars from its warriors will have its thinking done by cowards and its fighting done by fools.” Thucydides
“Life requires crazy sometimes. The greatest feats of human achievement. The best life stories in history. The greatest companies ever built. The automobile. The airplane. The light bulb. All crazy ***** who weren’t afraid to jump. Every great business, every great life, every great story, requires a little bit of “F*** it.” The greatest things in history were accomplished by crazy people.” Andy Frisella
“Hardships often prepare ordinary people for an extraordinary destiny.” C.S. Lewis
“It becomes too dangerous to be that authentic as a human being. Maybe some of it is our own predisposition to be afraid to be known. We long to be known, and we’re afraid to be known.” Erwin Raphael McManus
“In order to love yourself unconditionally, you need to be operating with integrity. A key component of integrity is taking 100 percent responsibility for any problem, activity or life event in which you are involved. Less than 100 percent responsibility means you’re operating as a victim. More than 100 percent means you’re operating as a martyr.” Gay Hendricks, Conscious Living
“Perfectionism is a twenty-ton shield that we lug around, thinking it will protect us, when in fact it’s the thing that’s really preventing us from being seen.” Brene Brown
“The degress to which a person can grow is directly proportional to the amount of truth they can accept about themselves without running away.” Leland Val Van De Wall
“Not setting boundaries is like going outside when it rains and expecting to stay dry.” Dr. Henry Cloud
“Never begin the day until it is finished on paper.” Jim Rohn
“Antifragility is beyond resilience or robustness. The resilient resists shock and stays the same; the antifragile gets better.” Dr. Nassim Taleb
“Once in our world, a stable had something in it that was bigger than our whole world.” C.S. Lewis
“I realized I can’t mope around and be discouraged and expect my life to workout the way I want. I had to get really honest with myself and change my beliefs. I had to start showing up every day because the emotions I am overcoming every moment to moment is way better than any drug or medication.” Vanessa Fitzgerald
“When life gets tough, some of us feel that we’ve lost the game and life has won. But life isn’t trying to defeat you. Life isn’t even a participant—the game is yours.” Mo Gawdat in Solve for Happy
“When you fear suffering, you’re already suffering from what you fear.” Michel de Montaigne
“We must learn to discipline our disappointment. Some people let disappointment destroy them, while others let it drive them– that’s a choice.” Tony Robbins
“We are never far from wonders.” John Green
“The pain passes but the beauty remains.” Auguste Renoir
“Our bodies are apothecaries. We convert our expectations into chemical reality.” Norman Cousins
“The Son of God became a man to enable men to become sons of God.” C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
“Solitude is the furnace of transformation.” Henri Nouwen
“It had long since come to my attention that people of accomplishment rarely sat back and let things happen to them. They went out and happened to things.” Elinor Smith
“Life won’t always be perfect, but with emotional fitness, it will always be meaningful.” Tony Robbins
“When we killed authority we also killed ideals, we also killed inspiration, and instead of adults who are gentle and kind and aspirational for children, we ended up with adults who are weak, who lack conviction, who command no respect, who can’t even praise their children for acting right because then they would have to admit to a right and wrong.” Freya India on today’s adults
“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose.” Steve Jobs
“We try to make virtues out of the faults we have no wish to correct.” Francois de La Rochefoucauld
Stuff
The Need for Adults by Freya India (“Adults were taught to weaken their convictions, soften their beliefs, that it was almost offensive to believe in anything deeply.”)
For the budding writer: Beth Kempton has a course for you.
Thank you for spending the year, month to month, with me. I’m excited for what 2025 will offer. Looking back, 2024 was an incredible year with once-in-a-lifetime highs, and grief-filled lows.
During the season, as I received Christmas cards, I got one from a friend with her beautiful new baby. This was a friend who was deemed essentially infertile. As I held the card, tears filled my eyes. This baby is a miracle. And that’s the thing about life, it’s filled with so many miracles, twists and turns along the way. And one of the few things I am sure of is that we have to stay open to feeling alive. We have to dare. We have to open up. We have to embrace each day as a gift. We have to expect the miracles.
The miracles will come. I don’t think I mentioned this on the blog this year, but my word of the 2024 year was “miracle.” I spent a whole year reading about miracles, every day. Miracles are sometimes thought of as big, shock inspiring events. The truth is– there is miracle in provision, in honesty, in connection, in the word that cuts through us, in change, in slow trickling evolution. There is miracle in the dare and in awareness. In the trying again. In the silent prayer. The miracle is always with us.
So much happened in November. I went to Pottery Barn to see their Christmas decor, and it was truly magical. I got stranded by my trains way too many times. We ate delicious treats at Salswee. One of these looked like a cloud. We met a gorgeous playful puppy at Salswee called Luca.
We voted. We elected a new president. NYC was quiet and warm that night. We had wonderful eggnog specialty drinks in the Starbucks inside of the Empire State Building, a truly iconic NYC moment.
Mosaic NYC met, which was special. Mike Tyson went back into the ring in some weird fight no one believes is real.
The holiday season started. I already ran back and forth to the post office and wrapped a bit. (And yes, I did run out of tape mid-packing– every year, guys). I am still in the process of decorating. Rudely interrupted by feeling under the weather and needing a pause.
Current mood.
This is what the season asks us to do, pause and rest. Sometimes, it has to force us. I hope you have a restful start to your December, and that your November was filled with so much gratitude.
Don’t get too caught up in the tape and paper. Just be, and hug the ones you love who are near. The temps have dropped, and December has some cozy nights in store for us.
xx
Quotes
“Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life; define yourself.” Robert Frost
“Nothing gives rest but the sincere search for truth.” Blaise Pascale
“You are the media now.” Elon Musk
“We are about to be so unburdened by what has been.” Allie Beth Stuckey
“Joy comes to us in ordinary moments.” Brené Brown
“The weaker the culture, the more leaders must rely on policies and procedures to make people behave in a certain way. What you lack in culture, you must make up for in legislation.” John Maxwell
“Gratitude is the resistance. It’s how we rebel agsint the sorrow and suffering of this world. We fight back, with gratitude. We rise up, with thanskgiving.” Debra Fileta
“No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good. Like gold or emerald or purple repeating to itself, ‘No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be emerald, my color undiminished.” Marcus Aurelius
“My exprience with the biblical texts is that they’re inexhaustible sources of wisdom. If I find something in them that is an obstacle, it’s because there’s something in me that has yet to be transformed.” Jordan B. Peterson
“If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your estimate of it. And this you have the power to revoke at any moment.” Marcus Aurelius
October started with a desperate scramble for relief for those who survived Hurricane Helene. I was gathering resources to share. MANNA Food Bank and Samaritan’s Purse were my favorite on-the-ground helpers. People in the affected regions still need our help.
We watched the Vice President debate and thought Vance was Jim Halpert-ing us.
The sink pipe busted, I read Gisele Bündchen’s cookbook and tested some recipes. I made a healthy banana bread. Public transport failed me more than once (almost every day— exhausting), at one point forcing me to take a ferry (a literal boat) to work.
Image by me!
We saw a beautiful flower display at Hudson Yards. Hurricane Milton came through. We went to a cool Goop x Cb2 event where you could make your own bouquet.
We saw the Detroit Red Wings play the NY Rangers, which was a huge bucket list item. Big thanks to my husband who got us the best seats in the house. I even met Matt Rempe. (I was wearing his shirt), and he signed the shirt on my back. Wild moments like that.
I finished a Jim Kwik course and an anti-aging biohacking course with Aggie Lal. I have been reading a pretty life-changing book by Byron Katie called Loving What Is.
We saw the Victoria’s Secret show come back. The iconic Carla Bruni walked with some angel legends. This is not a brand that thrives on relatability. It almost died that way. It finally made its way back to aspirational.
We saw a lot this month. Politics was in full swing leading up to the election, while we all waited in suspense for the possible October surprise. Not sure what the surprise was— Biden’s many gaffes, Trump working the fries at McDonalds, the fact that Puerto Rico actually has a landfill problem according to a pretty alarming report from FEMA, but no one cared to report on it (and it took a strange comedian to draw attention to it after being labeled a racist), FEMA whistleblowers coming forward given the handling of the hurricane relief in the South, the list of people involved with Sean Combs (P Diddy) coming forward to endorse Harris— I truly don’t know which was meant to surprise us more.
Election Day is almost upon us— will November hold even more surprises? I guess, we’ll see…
Quotes
“The endgame is not controlling speech. They’re already doing that. The endgame is getting us to forget we ever had anything to say.” Matt Taibbi, How to Fight Back Against the Censors
“Her heart was made of liquid sunsets.” Virginia Woolf
“Work ethic is free, so spend it.” Virgil Abloh
“You do not have feelings, you generate them.” Jim Kwik
“Heal, and the answers will come. If you want to understand why it happened, focus on healing from it first. Clarity follows healing; you won’t gain insight first and then heal-it works the other way around.” Chris D’urso
“Tolerance is the virtue of the man without convictions.” G.K. Chesterton
“When we show people what it means to change, to be noble, to be courageous, to be loving, to be caring, to be kind, to be generous … it gives them permission to do the same.” Dr. Joe Dispenza
“Growth will also feel like loss remember that.” Unknown
“We have a choice every day of our lives: Accept things as they are or take responsibility for changing them.” Cory Booker
“It is easy to find truth; it is hard to face it, and harder still to follow it.” Ven Fulton J. Sheen, From his book Go To Heaven
“She’s a genius. She knows exactly what’s going on. Nobody’s been fooling her. She’s dealt with super-traumatic situations in her life.” Dakota Fanning on Paris Hilton
“Am I doing this to avoid myself or something in my life?” Edie Wadsworth on buffering
“Much more debilitating than any business failure is living in constant fear of failure. Fear is the emotion that will stifle you or incapacitate you. Mistakes reflect action; fear stagnates. It makes the chances of success even smaller.” Tash Oakley
“Oh my goodness. I promise Jesus wasn’t talking about illegal aliens raping children in Nantucket when he referenced ‘the least of these.’” Allie Beth Stuckey on Tim Walz using the Bible to defend open borders
“You don’t hire a peacekeeper to do a thug’s job.” Theo Von on politics and the election
“If you look for truth, you may find comfort in the end; if you look for comfort you will not get either comfort or truth only soft soap and wishful thinking to begin, and in the end, despair.” CS Lewis
“Hard times create strong men, strong men create easy times, easy times create weak men, and weak men create hard times.” G. Michael Hopf
“The greatest achievements often involve remaining open to serendipity, seizing unplanned opportunities, or riding unexpected bursts of motivation,” Oliver Burkeman
“Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want.” Naval Ravikant
“New York is the meeting place of the peoples, the only city where you can hardly find a typical American.”Djuna Barnes, Ladies Almanack (1928)
“Many people seem to think it foolish, even superstitious, to believe that the world could still change for the better. And it is true that in winter it is sometimes so bitingly cold that one is tempted to say, “What do I care if there is a summer; its warmth is no help to me now. Yes, evil often seems to surpass good. But then, in spite of us, and without our permission, there comes at last an end to the bitter frosts. One morning the wind turns, and there is a thaw. And so I must still have hope.” Source: The Letters of Vincent Van Gogh
“Down South there’s three things that anyone can have: a job, a local dive, and a significant other. In New York City, being a romantic was a hopeless endeavor, and many of us had more jobs than love. Down south, the necessities of life are easy to come by.” Jaggyish (Brianna)
“Beware the stories you read or tell; subtly, at night, beneath the waters of consciousness, they are altering your world.” Ben Okri
If you have had significant trauma, guard against triggering things (like documentaries on traumatic and dark events). You should be in the process of rewiring your brain to feel safe and normalize joy and peace rather than chaos and darkness (which you are used to).
Many people go years feeling something is wrong or off, and they never ask or confront out of fear. Never be a person who is afraid to ask or discuss rational conclusions. Seeking clarity is never a bad thing.
Not every difficult conversation gets a resolution. Sometimes, they are moments of expression and clarity and building blocks for the future, if both relationally allow it.
Your sadness, moodiness, hopelessness isn’t part of your personality. It’s how you have wired your brain based on thought patterns, habit and frequency of occurrence. You can rewire your brain and personality and practice feeling a certain way until it becomes your new normal. You can change at any time.
Acknowledge hard things. It’s a fine line between minimizing something and disregarding yourself and martyrdom. Don’t be a martyr. Acknowledge what is hard.
Observe, don’t absorb.
People are responsible for themselves. You are responsible for you.
It’s officially autumn!!! (Yes, that deserves three exclamation points). Man, I love this season.
The mornings are dark and glowy. It’s raining as I type this, and I am playing an “Autumn Jazz” playlist. The diffuser is going with all the yummy oils. The only word that comes to mind is “glow.”
I am grateful my family and friends are safe after Hurricane Helene. My heart always hurts when I see places I love, rocked. (I LOVE YOU, FLORIDA). If people are made of places, as Elizabeth Brewster says, I am made of you, Florida. Praying for all affected on the East Coast. The devastation is real. Our government should be doing more in response to the loss and chaos.
I was discussing my word of the year with my mom this month– that word is “miracle.” I didn’t understand why, but it was the word that came to me. I read an entry from Marianne Williamson’s book A Year Of Miracles every morning, but aside from that, I saw no relevance– until this month. This month, I did.
I saw God intervene in an incredible way in a situation I had been praying about (and miserable in) for months. God is always right on time. I can’t go too in the weeds, but I tell you this to encourage you in case you are waiting for your own miracle. God is near.
What did I do this month? I put up a fall garland. Brought out some velvet textures in tablecloth. On 9/11, I nervously took the train and remembered this day in 2001. When I arrived to the office, I closed my office door and cried. In the evening, my husband got us tickets to see Elizabeth Strout, one of our favorite writers. She was all-together lovely. I left inspired. I want to be her friend. (In my head, we are besties). We drove through Tribeca and saw the twin tower lights.
Later in the month, I saw Erwin McManus and Aaron McManus do a live recording of the Mind Shift Podcast. (The podcast is below among the YouTube videos, if you are interested). It was a blessed evening. I got a cute Mosaic NYC hat (and it’s white. My nonpractical self came out when my husband asked me which hat I would like. He is always sweet like that).
We visited the Madewell Denim Atelier for treats. My husband got me a cloche that had caught my eye. We walked around like crazy.
We saw a Sinatra-type concert at the San Gennaro festival that filled my heart with so much joy. Music then was something else.
I finished the book The Perfect Couple (now a Netflix movie). It was the best Elin Hilderbrand book so far. A great summer read to close out the summer with 39 books read in 2024 (so far).
I started lifting more weights and modifying workouts. I wrote about it here, in the only post of the month. More to come on that journey.
It was a month of interesting news: Eating the dogs and cats, the ABC debate whistleblower, Olivia Nuzzi’s nudes and RFK “chased by porn”, they conveniently and finally decided to see Eric Adam’s corruption, Sean “Diddy” Combs is in prison, they tried to kill Trump again, Lana Del Rey married her alligator tour guide… You can’t say September was boring.
I have some serious seasonal decluttering to do.
Here we are. Autumn, we are here for you and all you might bring. (Jazz plays in the background).
Quotes
“Beware, for I am fearless, and therefore, powerful.” Mary Shelley
“Discipline is nothing but self-respect at the highest level.” Unknown
“Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God’s side, for God is always right.” Abraham Lincoln
“A leader is a dealer of hope.” Jon Gordon
“Smart people learn from everything and everyone. Average people from their experiences. Stupid people already have all the answers.” Socrates
“The truth, however, ugly in itself, is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it.” Agatha Christie
“You are worth a full night of sleep. You are worth a good walk outside. You are worth being loved and loving others. You are worth being content at work. You are worth pursuing joy. Please don’t give up on yourself. You are worth your full attention.” Dr. John Delony
“Generations are impacted when a woman lives with hope in her hands.” Kristi McLelland
“In life, you must be a warrior, and war requires realism. While others may find beauty in endless dreams, warriors find it in reality, in awareness of limits, in making the most of what they have.” Robert Greene
“There is no such thing as lying, or theft, or fraud, and so on, because everything, everything is seen and accounted for and known. Everything one does is inscribed in this record of one’s life, a record that then affects oneself, one’s conditions, the music one makes for oneself, one’s family, the world.” Naomi Wolf
“People find healing in places where they are heard, not gaslit. Seen, not ignored. Loved, not shamed. These are the deepest medicines.” Dr. Will Cole
“Somewhere in the world there is a defeat for everyone. Some are destroyed by defeat, and some made small and mean by victory. Greatness lives in one who triumphs equally over defeat and victory.” John Steinbeck
Have you ever wondered what the truth is? Have you ever wanted to go back to high school?
As we continue to educate ourselves in all things wellness, it can be frustrating. The amount of contradictory information you can find is overwhelming. I run little experiments on myself for three months at a time to see how I feel. Here is some stuff that dawned on me, recently.
I have exercised my whole life. There has never been a time where I wasn’t active. After law school, I switched over to low-impact workouts from whatever the hell I was doing before (so many things, guys). It has been good to not have so much cortisol from other types of workouts. HIIT was killing me slowly. But then enter the plain old fact that your body won’t reach a certain definition with just yoga or pilates unless you have the genetics for it. (I do not. I am petite, but strong. I am not dainty.) Doing the British girl pilates is not gonna have me looking like the girl. It’s impossible. One of my thighs is bigger than both of hers. I am Puerto Rican after all.
Pilates won’t cut it. I heard this in a podcast with Dr. Shannon Ritchy (founder of Evlo Fitness), and deep inside, I knew she was telling the truth. I have experienced it myself. My body doesn’t look the same as it used to (counting the age factor, which makes that normal). When I was listening to her, it felt like someone was saying something that has been churning in my head for about a two years.
Pilates is amazing for endurance and resistance training (and flexibility and balance), but it won’t give you the lean muscle structure that really toned women have.
When I look at the women who have the body composition and strength I would like to have, they all weightlift. (See Tulsi Gabbard). So, flashbacks to high school weightlifting class– I’m going all in.
Image via Twitter. Tulsi being a boss.
Then, there was the “war on oatmeal.” Guys, I ate oatmeal for breakfast every day for like a decade (probably longer). I love oatmeal. Then came the journals saying it causes glucose spikes and the glyphosate spraying. I started eating eggs or having smoothies. There are mornings I just intermittent fast. I have felt so disoriented around breakfast for the past four years. There are only so many eggs you can have.
On May 7, 2024, I received a newsletter from Arnold Schwarzenegger (yes, I love his newsletter), talking about oatmeal. It discussed a study that was misinterpreted and later reviewed by Dr. Idrees Mughal. Dr. Mughal concluded:
“The researchers found that switching between eggs and oatmeal didn’t change weight, body fat, cholesterol, HbA1c, or the primary markers of inflammation. In other words, eating oatmeal was just as good for your heart as eggs.“
“Most research has found that eating oats is associated with lower heart disease, lower cholesterol, lower body weight, and better overall health. In fact, one review of 21 randomized controlled trials found that oatmeal reduces inflammation, and another study found that it reduces blood sugar in type-2 diabetics.”
I was also reading in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) that many issues we women have hormonally and with menstruation are attributable to liver qi stagnation. While I don’t care about qi, I do think there is something to imbalances in the body. When I was looking at what they recommend, they recommend warm morning meals (like oatmeal and porridge) and warm drinks. No iced drinks, smoothies, etc.
So, I found some glyphosate-free oats from a source that does toxin checks, and I am going back to warm porridge mornings. I am experimenting to see how I feel. (Not gonna lie, I am a bit giddy).
It’s interesting when we have full-circle moments with more knowledge. It’s also encouraging to think that sometimes, what our body craves for us intuitively is what is actually right for us, and it’s unique to every person as an individual.
So, as the days grow darker and colder, your girl is going to be out here eating oatmeal in the mornings and lifting her weights. I think I am finally on the path that will take me to where I want to go. A path that looks a lot like my mornings in high school, ironically.
What is life, if not an endless pursuit of curiosity and trying the new and old? Feeling nostalgic…
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
RFK Jr. addressed the nation today. Media is already not reporting accurately, so please watch it for yourself here on Rumble. I watched live, and some of the headlines are laughable. Other networks literally muted him as he spoke about censorship. You can’t make this up.
It was a moving speech. An important speech. As an independent, my respect for Bobby runs deep.
Loved @rooted.wings’ posts on this and others. We share this moment in history.
While I was watching live.
I want to see Bobby’s dream come true. It’s always a good day to end corruption, propaganda, big pharmaceutical control, and to fight for our children, country, health and freedom of speech. There is no freedom in communism or socialism.
Sometimes, life takes twists and turns that bring back emotions and thoughts that used to follow us around. We are triggered (for lack of a better word). We are like, this again?
It happens. We are human. Internal safety has been a concept I have been exploring through my coaching program (God bless our partners who sit and watch us while we drudge up all the childhood stuff and go through our emotions and processing— we hold space for each other). Internal safety has been a weakness of mine. I truly believe it is a human weakness (whether you acknowledge and work on it or not). This is why we act and react the way we do. Looking back, there were moments of a lot of uncertainty where I tried to control and calculate as a coping mechanism because of how out-of-control life felt.
I avoided a specific coaching teaching video on this topic, as one stupidly does with weaknesses. I listened to it recently (I relented. Its unwatched status was haunting me as someone who must clear every notification). It was eye-opening. I wanted to share this one insight for anyone who feels like life is filled with uncertainty, at the moment, or you feel like it’s déjà vu and you find yourself in a familiar circumstance or cycle.
There are times where things will have us being back in familiar thoughts or emotions. We will feel filled with fear. But, Dr. Edie always reminds us that we are people of love, not fear.
Recently, one thing that dawned on me as I imperfectly processed familiar unpleasant emotions and thoughts was that circumstances may be familiar (welcome back), but the difference is, while the circumstances may be familiar, you aren’t the same person. You are stronger, more resilient, you have a choice, and you are safe. You are in a metamorphosis.
This is something we have to keep coming back to. I hope this helps those processing the, at times, repeat unpleasantness of life, grief or loss.
Remember that you are a person of love. Remember God is with you. Remember that when life feels like a repeating nightmare track (and it does, sometimes, for all of us), you are not the same. You have everything you need. He is faithful.
GABRIELA YARELIZ 