Here We Go
On pauses, pivots, and meaning in the mundane
Hello there.
I noticed recently that I tend to take a break from writing each year at exactly the same time and really for the same amount of time also. It’s as if my subconscious goes on a European vacation the moment it begins to feel like winter is near.
That pause usually overlaps with the community-wide New Year’s Eve celebration I’ve been part of for the past three years. I’m basically one half of the planning committee for New Year’s Eve Millbrook, which means entering the familiar tunnel of fundraising, creating programs and signage, coordinating vendors, and tending to all the details that bring this event to life. Each year, it invites hundreds of people of all ages into the charming little village I call home.
So maybe it’s less of a vacation than I’d like to think. What it really feels like is a pause in many other areas of life until the last piece of confetti is swept up and the final puppet is packed away for the night.
And somewhere in that absorbed, task-oriented stretch, my creative mind genuinely does go quiet. But it’s often in that quiet, that new parts of me begin to surface. Subtly but just enough to be noticed.
Now that I’ve returned to the page, I’m noticing a shift in how and why I write.
For awhile, my words naturally went toward depth; like revisiting the past, unpacking meaning, turning experiences inside out in hopes they might be useful. Lately, though, I feel less drawn to excavation and more interested in expansion: sharing different parts of my life, my work, and what’s unfolding now, without the pressure for everything to be instructive or profound.
I’m still making space for those deeper reflections. But of the many layers of shedding that took place last year, one that stands out: the story that to be seen as a great coach or expert in this world of inner and outer growth, I need to constantly be proving it in one way or another.
“The stronger my inner voice becomes, the less it needs to say.”
I shared a longer piece on my site about listening to the inner voice as a relationship shaped over time; how trust grows, how dialogue softens into instinct, and how self-trust isn’t something we arrive at, but something we build in motion.
If you’d like to read it in full, you can find it → here
We also recorded a podcast episode on the inner voice. And how affirming. It was a conversation where I felt deeply seated within my own inner voice throughout.
Moving forward, I want to experiment with writing and sharing from a steadier, even a little lighter place—monthly notes on what I’m up to, what I’m exploring, and what’s taking shape as it unfolds.
Because the truth is, I’ve spent a lot of time trying to make my personal reflections useful to others. And while that’s never quite reached emotional exhaustion or vulnerability hangover, it matters less to me now to explain how I’ve gotten here. What feels important is expressing more of what’s present.
You see, I tend to write (and think and speak) in pivots… circling an idea, stepping sideways to clarify, then returning to land the plane as best I can. And because many things can be true at once, those more serious deeper dives have been incredibly useful to me! They’ve supported an inner dialogue that helps me meet what’s been buried deep down, not just as the little girl trying to hold herself together, but as the woman who doesn’t have to try—she just does.
So that’s where I’m at currently.
I keep coming back to this thought that focusing only on lessons, challenges, and growth ends up reinforcing a kind of highlight-reel mentality; picking and choosing what I think is worth writing about. In doing so, I’m unconsciously assigning value to certain parts of my life over others.
Maybe part of this, too, is the belief that telling a fuller story—including the mundane or even shallow aspects—somehow turns away from what a newsletter is “supposed to” be.
So this feels like an invitation to widen the frame a bit.
To share from the middle of things, not just the moments that come neatly packaged as insight. To let the ordinary sit beside the meaningful.
Because we secretly already know, the ordinary is meaningful.
Some moments, some books, some favorites from the past year.
I read a lot this year. For my fellow fantasy fans, Rachel Gillig by far creates some of the most richly imagined and haunting worlds I’ve encountered in the genre. I began the year with One Dark Window, quickly moved into the follow-up Two Twisted Crowns, and brought The Knight and the Moth along on my summer travels. I’m very much looking forward to more of her writing.
Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar was perhaps my most memorable book of the year. Of all the things I could tell you about it, I really think you should just read it. But this line has stayed with me:
“Love is a room that appears when you step into it.”
This summer, after learning about the goddess Cybele, I traveled to Spain, where her statue—flanked by lions—resides. Fun fact: in the earliest depictions, she was accompanied by lionesses, but as time and history began to downplay the importance of the feminine, those lionesses were replaced by their male counterparts. And she seems to have also gotten a new body type. 🤔
On that same trip, I visited the Black Madonna in Montserrat and walked a path of Virgin Mary mosaics. I toured the Museo del Prado, ate so much meat and so many olives, visited Catalonian vineyards tucked into the mountains, and felt in one hand the beauty and richness of Spain—and in the other, the complicated history of colonization and religion that so fascinates my Aquarian mind.
I celebrated my 39th birthday in Puerto Rico on a trip with friends, where I continued to eat the most decadent meals my heart desired. I wore really short dresses and reminded myself that I still have it, and, in fact, that I haven’t even reached my peak “got-it-ness.”
This year, I also ventured into new local friendships; through tarot study groups and girls’ nights that have since evolved into couples hangs. We passed one year of Karmic Mirror podcast and grew into a Substack newsletter, including a monthly collaboration with one of our guests for new moon tarot readings.
I also started working out this year. Like, actually working out. Motivated to enter my 40s with fewer aches and pains and feeling smoking hot. Like all new goals, I started small and listened to my body. I experimented with different apps and different styles, finding my groove, falling off it, getting back on.
And, as manifesting so often works, somewhere along the way while doing the work, the universe met me. I manifested a free Peloton.
Here we go.
Also in 2025, I finally beat my husband at Monopoly, which is huge. But if I’m finding meaning in the mundane, as I like to do, it also felt like a personal pinnacle in a year spent shattering old money mindsets and inherited beliefs about what I can and can’t achieve financially. A year of vulnerability. Of facing the shame and judgments that often accompany our money story. Of letting myself lean more fully into the arms of my person: both physically and emotionally.
And in divine timing, we’re entering our biggest business collaboration to date. This year, we bought an antique center.
I’m looking forward to sharing the evolution of all of this in the months ahead. For now, I’m grateful we’re all here.
I really enjoyed reading a piece where you “widened your frame” 🤍