O1.
Thank you for joining me for my biweekly newsletter, Ripples. Ripples will meet you here on substack or in your inbox every two weeks with a personal letter of thoughts and/or guidance, growth, lessons, mini challenges to take along with you and emotional wellness tools that will help start or elevate your journey towards emotional understanding and balance.
I keep thinking on how this all began and to be real with you; I found myself heavily seeking emotional balance for a long time. I can’t honestly say I knew that’s what it was called when I was younger but as I grow in my years and experience I realize more and more that that’s often what’s sought in our lifetimes.
We spend so much time avoiding our emotions more than we engage in exploring and understanding them. I get it though, how can you not do all of that as a human in a very 3D world. It’ll happen out of fear or worry, sometimes out of embarrassment or even misunderstanding. We dislike the discomfort and frankly, who can blame us? Who wants to sit in uncomfortable feelings for the sake of growth or whatever other hot healing term can inserted here.
I hated being in this space though. This strange space of rehearsing nearly everything in life in order to be able to enjoy it. I was catching drops of control and telling myself I’ve captured the sea. The faux balance was control disguised as peace and I began to reach my brim. In my journey for balance, genuine surrender and trust, and emotional understanding I began using my own practices (writing, meditating, journaling, dance) and incorporated new ones into my life too, (breathwork, yoga, childlike play). It hasn’t been and wasn’t an easy thing to start, nor to stay consistent with. I mean it’s legitimately taken years to find consistency with even taking vitamins — or finding myself worthy of taking them each day if you want to hit the deep end of that pool — but it’s truly beautiful to be able to say I’m in a place in which these practices have become more ritualistic than I ever anticipated.
And it’s rippled.
I didn’t just gain balance — I gained:
Peace: something I found more inside of me than in any of my external world. It’s helped me realize how often I can sit within that peace I’ve found internally.
Softer inner dialogue: I found myself talking to myself a lot sweeter. I wasn’t as harsh with myself when I made mistakes and strangely I found myself rippling those actions to my external world.
Self care: I started to find desire in wanting to put time into myself like I did to/with others. I found myself taking my time with the mundane things — dishes, skincare, the in between moments no one but me knows and cares for. I found myself enjoying that time with myself.
Confidence: When I was focused on things like other people’s opinions, how someone may or may not feel, or what that person was thinking when they saw me trip over nothing while crossing the street. It kept me so clouded. I was reaching for standards that didn’t exist which kept my confidence six feet under.
Awareness — I found myself more aware of who I am and what I’m feeling. I began to understand what worked for me and began to shift what didn’t.
The ripples I began to create started with small drops of care for self, not control. I began seeing how staying focused led to peace, which led to safety, which led to exploration and curiosity and adventure and so on. This isn’t exclusive to me, nor is it due to my background or profession, my life or upbringing or any of it. It’s not to say it hasn’t played a role in all of it but I’ve seen my clients, friends, and family create the ripples in their life that have yielded much success. Throughout our newsletters each month, I’ll be showing you how to further create ripples in your life in ways that feel easy, possible, and achievable.
To start our newsletter off with a bang, our first newsletter’s materials will help you:
Identify how you’ve created ripples in the past
Create the ripples you want to see
Have trust in yourself and surrendering to the process
Finding what your first drop would be and identifying the ripples it may create
I encourage you to:
Be gentle with yourself throughout the process
Know it’s okay to not get it right, right away
Be aware that some ripples come fast, others will take their time
Create ripples daily, for you and because you’re worth it.
How to use these newsletters:
MOTIVATIONAL RIPPLES: I was always a fan of intentionally written notes and letters. My Motivational Ripples will be a note/letter for you to take with you throughout your weeks. You can rely on the motivational pieces to provide comfort, understanding, and a push forward, especially on the days it’s just not that easy.
DROPS IN YOUR OCEAN: I believe we can be in our thinking brains forever if we allow ourselves to. Sometimes challenging ourselves to take even the smallest steps forward ripples out to create changes that are grand and long lasting. I’ll be engaging in these challenges and I invite you to do the same and check back in with this space and community with your experiences.
RIPPLING REFLECTIONS: These journal prompts can serve as openers or enhancers to your journaling practice. Whether you’re a free-writer or a guided writer, I believe putting pen(cil) to paper can take all that’s going on in our brains and make some sense of it once it’s out. I think of writing as engaging with a space that’s truly yours and entirely safe. This blank page serves as open arms and actively listening ears simply waiting for you to dive in and release.
A QUICK DROP: These audio notes from myself will vary each newsletter. I’m excited to share thoughts, guidance, meditation, breathwork, and so much more. A quick note you can bring with you, fall back on, and save as a gentle reminder whenever needed.
Enjoy this week’s Ripples:
MOTIVATIONAL RIPPLES: Every choice you make can create ripples. It’s why the root of your decisions should come from within as opposed to what might suit your external world. As you move through the next few weeks, I encourage you make decisions from your heart — decisions that feel good for you, that feel like immediate yeses — and see how those ripples affect you. Watch your smiles widen, your thoughts soften, your kindness spread. Note the moments of peace, even if they are few and far between. See yourself create the ripples you want to live in.
DROPS IN YOUR OCEAN: Throughout these next few weeks, I encourage you to take on these challenges when you feel ready to do so and have found a safe environment or people to do them with. If these weeks aren’t suited for it, don’t fret, simply save it for when the timing feels right.
Challenge yourself to make a different choice with the intention of observing the ripples it creates in your life
Make a choice that is solely yours — note what internal ripples you find comes with making a choice based on what you really want
Ask a friend/family to share a way you’ve created positive ripples in their lives
REFLECTIVE RIPPLES: These prompts can be used for daily journaling, dedicated internal/emotional work, meditation prompts, and so on. You may take or leave these, think or write on them, or share them. They are meant to challenge current thought, provoke new ideas, and share a new perspective at times.
Think back to a choice you made at the beginning of the year. Has that choice created any ripples that you feel throughout your life today? How do you feel about the ripples you noticed you created?
What choices have you made recently that you’re currently experiencing the ripples of? Is there a current or upcoming choice whose ripples you can predict? Does that shift how you engage with that choice?
How can you celebrate your positive ripples? How can you find understanding for your not-so-positive ripples? What needs to shift in order for the ripples to shift? What would make that achievable?
Here’s a lil about me these days:
I’m reading: Little Women by Louisa May Alcott
I’m listening to: Brent Faiyaz radio on Spotify
I’m enjoying: flirting with nature on my walks
I’m looking forward to: more time with my family during the summer breaks
I’m staying curious about: my interests and hobbies shifting
I’m working on: romanticizing my life more, being a more consistent reader
My mantra: Back to breath, back to breath.