Believing in yourself can be a lonely road

I’ve worked tirelessly these past couple years to undo my lifelong low self confidence, and replaced quick dopamine hits with things like daily meditation, running, hypnosis videos, affirmation videos, self recorded manifestation videos, removing UPF and processed foods from diet, avoiding microplastics, reducing reliances on medication, avoiding social situations that trigger my fawning trauma response and dysregulated nervous system, dancing to happy music et al. Learning to say no to people, places and things that drain me. Vision boards. CONFIDENCE boards.

It. Is. Working.

I am seeing the fruits of my labor but the highs are *high* and the lows are, despondent.

Just less than a week after losing one gig, another one came banging down my door. Another opportunity, and an even better one. Not the pie in the sky one that was dangled from a $$ perspective, but one I know I can excel at while I’m still healing and growing and that has supportive and cool people.

One of the hardest parts during my growth journey has been to find people in my corner who care about me and who aren’t trapped in negative thought loops that they flake onto me, like obsession with dating apps or fancy clothes, OR people who aren’t able to respect my boundaries because they don’t fully empathize with where I’m at in life.

I’m not able to commit to virtual calls or random social outings a week in advance, if there’s others that are more likely to lead to valuable connections that will lead to work aka $$$. My number one priority is making more in person connections and trying to make sure I have food to eat for me and my cat, and reliable shelter. Bills paid. People don’t understand this because of the online Marketing I do about my life. When you are seeking better opportunities you don’t make it about your struggles. You make it look like you’re on the come up.

And I know everything I’ve done is making me so much smarter because I find myself doing incredible things I never thought possible like teaching myself Javascript and Python, listening to “Fundamentals of Computer Programming on 2X speed”, building an app I use on my phone every day to help me regulate my nervous system, building programs to achieve inbox 0 and automate tedious emails.

I’m super smart. And so are you. Being super smart is a mindset shift. Being “born that way”, the child of successful intellectuals, means you had access to their 1 on 1 coaching all your life, their trust fund for special schools, their network and jobs and more. But being self taught is so much easier these days thanks to AI tools. Becoming super smart is a matter of dealing with and clearing the traumas and anxieties taking up your brain space, and getting your body comfortable enough to let you FULLY immerse yourself in learning new skills. My daily meditation makes my working memory 3X as good. The answer is always more NATURE:Natur-al foods, walks in Nature, time with Natur-al beings aka humans and animals, etc, Natur-al human activities like dancing, playing music, making art and jewelry, and laughing and crying with other beings. Nature heals all.

When it comes to the negative friends, I am being kind and yet more vocal about my boundaries in hopes that I will be able to build friendships with people who will try to respect not ‘yucking my yum’ or bringing down my energy.

😷 My recent bout with Streptococcus pyogenes that had me wondering if I was going to meet my maker left me feeling so ready to get out of this financial abyss and create true, lasting financial stability for myself and my future family.

The most beautiful part about is that I do not need to force myself to try. I just need to look within, to connect with my deeper self, and I feel the sudden inspiration to do the things I need to do to create a better life for myself. I am so grateful I figured out how to do that.

If you’re interested in any of this stuff here’s my cheat sheet of videos I like to have playing every day.

My insights from 2025: didn’t make as much progress as I wanted but had some important epiphanies

The great blackout of San Francisco December 2025. Read an entire book “Kings of Crypto” by my phone’s flashlight in 1 sitting

What will it take for me to be honest with myself?

I grew up in an environment I was encouraged to repress how I felt. It was not a safe space to tell people how I felt because that made THEM feel bad or like they “did something wrong”. Therefore, I was encouraged to repress any negative feelings down and not tell anyone I have them. Therapy was highly stigmatized and not an option. If I was feeling depressed, I “should just not feel that way.” I was encouraged to deny my feelings and bury them deeply. I wasn’t allowed to be anything other than straight “because that would my make my life harder, and I just wasn’t that way.” (Newflash… My life has been hard regardless).

This is a dangerous thing to teach a kid who had very difficult feelings of low self worth and depression, to teach them to hide how they felt and become disconnected from themselves in order to please those around them and keep the peace. Repressing my true feelings created a very deep level of disassociation between me and my feelings.

Eventually, when I reflected on my actions, I realized that my actions were not in alignment with my perceived feelings. 

At least coming to that conclusion helped me realize that I now know that my true feelings are often hidden from my conscious brain but I’m genuinely interested in finding out what they are. 

In the presence of others, I still have an intense tendency to put down the needs of my body and allow my nervous system to be dysregulated in order to keep the peace.

THAT’s why I LOVE being alone – because my nervous system is regulated and I can process the events of my life and understand how I truly feel about them. 

My next goal is to work very heavily on having boundaries for the sake of myself and everyone around me. Boundaries are important because it allows you to get to know people while protecting yourself and your energy. Not everyone can be trusted.. Some people have experienced trauma and seek to inflict that trauma and harm on others. Therefore it’s very important to get to know people with certain boundaries, social rules at a safe distance before letting these people into your inner world. 

Because I’m an empath, I have a lot of empathy for other people and people see that and want to cling to me. I attract energy vampires. But having strong boundaries is a way in which energy vampires will eventually give up on me. Having low self-esteem has also been difficult for me to make real friends and that means a struggle while I have limited means to show up as a friend to others around me. My focus is still on Maslow’s most basic hierarchy of needs, I don’t think so I need to say more, you get the picture.

 I am a HYPER independent person.

It’s hard for me to admit that I need help and accept help freely from others. But I’m working on seeing if I can do this because I am lonely and looking for more community and friends. It’s hard to do everything yourself, but once you’ve experienced trauma, you can become very reluctant to let others in for fear they will re- traumatize you.

I am grateful for the friends I do have supported me and helped me. I am grateful for all the new things I’ve learned this year and the confidence I am slowly gaining. I’m hopeful that next year will be the year I get a tree for myself and can get my life completely back operating like it once was. But back then, I was treating the *symptoms*, NOT the root, as I was on antidepressants. Now I’m actually dealing with the root of my problems and the root of my social anxiety and I can sense that one once I’m fully operating again, I will live life in a way I have never done before. With a solid foundation in place, and confidence deep down where once there was just self-doubt and very deep inner wounds. 

The hardest thing is not to obsess, but to channel my energy into healthy outlets. To spend time connecting with others, to be in nature, to take care of sweet innocent animals, to move my body, to nourish my body with healthy natural foods, to have difficult conversations *AND*: to do things I *don’t* feel like doing in the moment, because I KNOW they’re part of my growth and will help me build the stable life I want for myself. 

To be without money and resources is a VERY dangerous place to be.

It’s a place where it’s very easy for people to take advantage of you.

Having that stability: having *resources*, so that you can take care of yourself there’s so much more important than any clothing item, a daily treat, or anything else. Once I get back to that place, I’m going to guard it more fiercely than I guard anything else in my life. To be able to take care of oneself and one’s life without being at the mercy of others is true freedom.

Sometimes you don’t reach the goals you set for yourself and that’s okay

Last year I came up with a few goals for myself. One of those goals was to have a real Christmas tree.

If you’re curious about why that was a goal for me, it was because at time where I was living there was this idea that Christmas trees are toxic and going to kill the cat and dog that live there.

To be honest if you believe everything you read on the internet then 90% of plants are toxic. I don’t believe all that. When I was growing up, we always had a Christmas tree, and multiple animals and they were fine.

Getting a real Christmas tree just felt special to me, I liked the smell of it, the fact that it’s real, that our family would go to the Christmas tree farm and pick it out and I just enjoyed those moments because we didn’t have that many traditions but that was a nice one. And I want to add that I’m not religious. I think that religion tends to divide people. But I believe everyone should be able to enjoy the traditions that make them happy and are nostalgic for them, even if they’re considered “basic” or “overdone” by others. My family traditions are just as important as yours.

My goal seemed small but doable. Because if I was able to get a Christmas tree, that would mean that I had a little more control over my life than I did back then. I’d be able to have a room of my own with whatever I wanted in it.

And although that much is true, in the scheme of things, those little Christmas at Gus’s are $65. And times are still tight. I’d rather spend that $65 on food or paying my mom back.

This has been the most difficult year of my life and yet I’ve grown more this year than I have since I can remember. I’ve figured out unresolved issues that have been holding me back since I started getting bulled in sixth grade, 11 years old, that’s 25 years ago.

If you guys have seen K Pop Demon Hunters, which I highly recommend – you’ll remember that this girl, she’s part demon and she has these demon stripes that she hides because she’s ashamed. And her aunt tells her that those stripes are shameful and that she has to hide them. And that hit really hard because I felt I wasn’t allowed to say how I felt. I wasn’t allowed to say that I hated myself, or that I had low self esteem. I was pressured to hide the way that I felt because it would make other people feel bad or uncomfortable. And I’ve realized our conscious brain can hide things from ourselves that are uncomfortable and that we don’t want to face. So it took me 25 years to realize that I had such low self esteem, that things I was doing were a form of self harm because I didn’t believe I deserved happiness, and that I was hiding even from myself how I felt.

Just realizing that was a big step for me. And I don’t care what anyone else thinks about it. My bullying experiences throughout my life wired my brain to tell me that I was dumb, or stupid, or that no one likes me. And to get better, I do listen to positive affirmations, some I find on YouTube, some I record myself. And they are helping me to feel better. To hear these positive things about myself, to rewire my brain. So I could care less if you think it’s dumb or stupid. They are helping me and that’s all that matters.

So maybe I don’t have a Christmas tree, but I have something better. I know myself better than I ever did before, I’m accepting my demon stripes and learning to let the world see them.

How I’m “limiting access” to myself in 2025

“Limit access” is one of the terms I listed on my vision board this year.

But what does exactly does this mean?

As a former people pleaser, I was (implicitly) taught growing up to be “nice” to everyone. Becoming friends with people BECAUSE I felt sorry for them was a legitimate reason to befriend someone. I’m not sure where exactly it came from, perhaps because you rarely feel judged when you surround yourself by people who are in worse off situations that you are. Also, it’s a great distraction from doing your own inner work to spend that time worrying about and trying to help all the people around you.

Edited with Afterlight

Unfortunately, I’ve learned that I can no longer be friends with someone simply because I feel sorry for them. I’m evolving and part of that journey means seeking friends who I can talk with on an intellectual level that excites me, where we like some of the same things, we share ideas, we do mutual hobbies together, we teach each other things, etc. and it’s a mutually beneficial friendship of sorts.

Over the years, I’ve had to pull back on friendships and remove myself from many friend groups over the years. One of the main reasons I did so was to limit my interactions with people who are super negative and critical of everyone/everything around them, people who are engaged in self destructive habits with no interest in stopping, and really, many people who are way too comfortable with the status quo of mindless consumerism: endless spirals of shopping, drinking, consuming, taking (illegal and often times legally prescribed) drugs to numb the pain and avoid the discomfort of healing their deep inner pain. Never stopping to question the lies that have been told to us by capitalism and the patriarchy. Just trying to “win” at life, but the dies are loaded.

It can be a lonely path to find yourself having to make new friends and enter into new social circles, but it also offers an important opportunity to keep leveling up.

Once I left friend groups with extremely critical people in them, I felt so much more free to create, to make silly lil videos, and not to have someone in my circle saying that was “dumb” or “pointless” or “cringe.”

Of course sharing your thoughts or videos with the whole world via the internet will inevitably open yourself up for criticism and commentary, and that’s something you have to learn to deal with. Be selective about when you read feedback, and stay off all social media for the first hour you wake up. Guided meditations and affirmations are the first things I listen to in the morning because they prime my subconscious mind to be present, positive, confident and optimistic. That steels you to be ready to read people’s comments. And honestly some negative people just want to put others down to feel better about their own lives. Having the courage to put your thoughts and work into the world is not something that everyone has. When people see that you have that, it makes them feel insecure that they don’t.

So if you want to try limiting access to yourself (which is a great way to keep making content and staying focused), try these tips. Don’t always reply right away when someone messages you. Keep your notifications OFF. My phone is always on DND but allows calls. Check your email only 2x a day. Don’t apologize for taking awhile to respond. You don’t owe anyone your time.

Remember, being your friend is a privilege, not a right. If someone displays red or yellow flags as you are getting to know them as a friend, pull back. See what they do next. Allow friendships to form organically and naturally over time, and don’t rush the process. Trust the universe. Friends will be understanding if you need breaks to tend to other parts of your life or even other friendships. Life is full of ebbs and flows. If you feel drained after hanging out with a friend, take some time apart and see how you feel. Friends should lift you up and make you feel good to spend time with.

When I was 8 or so, I had a pen pal I met on the train. I remember we would handwrite each other letters. I hope to one day have handwritten pen pals again. Damn was that a simpler time.

Why I don’t “diet” anymore (to avoid feeling deprived) and focus on making my body feel GOOD

Over the past year, I have learned to eat in an intuitive way where I don’t count calories, but I am really checking in with myself to figure out if I’m actually hungry, or just wanting a dopamine ‘hit’ with food. I had no idea, but the prolactinoma, my tiny brain tumor, was part of the reason I used to eat more, because it tricked my body into thinking I was breastfeeding and gave me an insatiable appetite! I’ve also learned to avoid processed foods because of their inherently addictive nature.

In terms of actual diets, counting calories, etc.: What I’ve found is that if I eat a very strict diet such as keto, I eventually start to crave things like pasta and bread, and I feel very deprived when I can’t have them. So I decided that that type of diet doesn’t work for me, because if I tell myself that I’m unable to eat something that I “love”, then I will start to feel deprived. Once that happens, at some point my self control wanes and I give in, and then I massively overeat because my body feels so deprived. So, I don’t count calories or follow a super strict diet. I do stick to sourdough bread because it’s easier for my body to digest, and I avoid cheese and milk because I am sensitive to it and I can get canker sores from it or feel lactose intolerance effects (but mostly with cheap dairy).

Give your body mostly food that makes it feel good: I’ve also realized that if something I eat gives me any kind of stomach problems, gas, heartburn, then I will remove that item from my diet as best as I can. Sometimes that might be a specific type of dairy (for instance, certain butters bother me like from the “Clover” brand, so I eliminate that from my diet). Sometimes you’re just not used to eating that item such as something with a lot of fiber so if it’s a fundamentally healthy item, I will try to slowly introduce it into my diet. If you feel super tired after eating a huge pasta dinner, that probably wasn’t the best thing for your body. It’s important to listen to the cues of your body. Food should fuel us and give us energy to go about our days.

Processed foods and foods that have an addictive quality: I have found that many processed foods are very addictive to me, and so I avoid buying or eating specific items that seem to “hit” in my brain like a drug. Occasionally I will buy something processed, like Halloween candy, but I will give it away, take it out of my house, or hide it away some place where I can’t see it.

If you do have addictive processed food in the house: Ensure it’s hidden and you’re not seeing it on a regular basis unless you look for it. Otherwise just seeing it can make you want it.
Remember, processed food is DESIGNED to make you never feel full. The companies make more money that way! If I do have something processed, I make sure it’s something that isn’t that addictive to me so I can keep it in the house. Like I have a bag of regular tortilla chips because they’re just not addictive to me without guac or salsa.

Regularly incorporate new fruits, veggies, spices, nuts into your diet: I never limit how much I can eat of any fruit or vegetable, and eat bananas, carrots and onions every day. It’s hard for me to over eat any kind of fruit or vegetable. Nuts are more addictive to me, so I put them in small jars in my pantry so that I avoid overeating them and can grab them when I want a snack while I’m out.

Random crying is a sign of low blood sugar: Things like ADHD meds or Ozempic can make people forget to eat and get low blood sugar. If you find yourself crying over something small and you didn’t eat anything that day, or nothing substantial, that’s likely why. Ensure you are nourishing your body properly and you have something like eggs and veggies for breakfast or a banana and almonds for a snack during the day. It’s not good to get your body in this state so be sure to eat if this happens.

Do body check ins: If you find yourself continuously craving food, I suggest doing a guided meditation to figure out if you’re really hungry or if something else is going on. Sometimes after meditation I realize that I wasn’t truly hungry, just thirsty or bored.

If you never feel satiated, there might be something off balance with your body: I had a small brain growth (called a prolactinoma) that made my body think that I was breastfeeding. So if you haven’t had your prolactin checked, I’d recommend doing so. Particularly if you’re a woman and you’ve ever taken SSRI’s or birth control. had elevated levels of prolactin that made me feel never satiated. I lost about 20 lbs naturally without trying to diet once I began treatment for my condition.

Point being, something may be OFF with your body if you are always craving food and never feel satiated. Or, if you’re consuming tons of processed foods, that can definitely cause it. Try incorporating more fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds into your diet.

Why I live life without regrets now, because you don’t always get second chances in life… or do you?

Trigger warning: Death of a parent

It has been almost exactly since 6 years since my dad passed away. 5 years, 11 months, 3 weeks and two days, or something like that.

When my dad passed away, there was so much left unsaid. We had a complicated relationship. I knew he cared about me, but he had some issues, and had trouble relating to me. He wasn’t able to “pretend” to like the things I liked, and he also “disliked” a lot of things that most people like (most foods, going out to dinner, going to the movies, going outside at all, people talking too much, so on and so forth). I, on the other hand, was put under a LOT of pressure, even when I was younger, to be the one to make the relationship work. So when he passed away, I felt SO much shame, guilt and regret for failing to have a super close relationship with him, and also, for feeling like I was a failure, that I hadn’t lived up to my career “potential” (as I see now I had CPTSD from childhood bullying, and consequently, social anxiety, low self esteem, deep depression, ADHD.. etc..) And due to more shame and stigma around mental health support, it took a very long time for me to heal and finally understand and overcome the root of my issues. But the weight of shame and guilt by myself and from others, was a heavy burden that weighed heavily on my soul and took years and years **and years** to overcome.

I still remember driving to the hospital the night that my dad got so sick. “All I need is one more chance,” I thought. “If the universe can give me one more chance, I can prove that I won’t be a selfish daughter anymore. I’ll spend so much more time with my dad.” I just didn’t realize his health was so fragile and that he could die from what seemed like a minor sickness, after he “recovered” from chemo for leukemia.

I would have done anything to get a second chance, to talk to my dad more, to make our complicated relationship less complicated. To say the things that will forever be left unsaid.

But life doesn’t work like that. You don’t always get second chances.

So when it comes to complicated relationships with people, I choose to be the one who says the thing that I might have left unsaid before. F it. You live only once. Once I’ve gotten it off my chest, I can let it go.

Living a life without regrets is about doing the thing, taking a chance, and never getting to a place where you’re old and gray and you say, “Oh I wish I had done this, or done that.”

It’s NEVER too late to completely start over! When it comes your friendships, where you live, what you do, even your “identity”, the way you dress, the music you like, the hobbies you have. That’s what meditation has taught me. It’s helped me try so many new hobbies.

Quit your 20 year corporate career and go be a pop star.

Maybe your audience will be 10 people, but who cares?

Creating and expressing yourself is so deeply fulfilling – I think each person needs a creative outlet, so we aren’t just vehicles consuming what society tells us we should like.

So one of my goals this year is to learn how to play the guitar and sing and make an album. Just for the hell of it, to say I did. Because you only live once, and I want to leave a legacy. And I know my dad would have really liked it. He loved music and enjoyed playing the guitar and singing. So it feels right.

And so, while six years have passed since my dad passed away and I’ve made my peace in some ways, I’ve also come to another conclusion…

Maybe the universe DOES give us second chances, when we least expect it. Sometimes we might find ourselves with a new work opportunity, a new person, a new situation.

A chance to start anew.

To this time finally show up as the “you” you want to be, with love for yourself, respect, confidence, and boundaries. Remember you teach other people how you like to be treated. So even if you’ve gone most of your life with low self esteem, it’s never too late to turn that around, to change how you show up in this world, and to be the most bold and daring version of yourself.

And the universe is challenging you. So that do-over you wanted?

Well here it is.

Now what are you going to do with it?

Taking a kintsugi approach to leftovers, and to perceived dating “value”

Many people I’ve talked to have told me that they don’t like or won’t eat leftovers.

I’ve realized this is a really consumerist/American approach – we have a very “disposable, one and done” approach to life.

The button fell off a dress? Better throw it away!

I too used to be averse to leftovers. But I realized that leftovers can actually taste better than the original.

Let’s say you got noodles that were okay but kind of bland, and didn’t have that many veggies and only a few shrimp. Why not chop up an onion and some tomatoes, add some chili powder, and scramble an egg into them when you warm them up?

In the same way that Japanese people take broken pottery and fill in gold in the cracks, a practice known as kintsugi. In the end they find that piece might be more beautiful than the original. It has character, uniqueness.

It has flaws.

But that is beautiful. It is unique, it is special. There is not one like it.

Imperfections are a most beautiful part of being human.

I can’t help but think how this relates to the massive divide between men and women in today’s society. If you go on the internet you will read diatribes by incels, claiming that they only want very young, thin women, and that they are not interested in women their own age. Is that really true? Are they aware that those young women will age as well? Maybe they can find a very superficial, hollow relationship if that’s truly what matters to them. But in my own life, I know that emotional depth, trauma and overcoming it, is part of what makes me “me”. And in a life partner, I’m looking for someone who also has that depth, who has dealt with their demons and is working on healing. Not someone who is choosing to date someone for validation, because society told them that’s what matters. Is that young, thin woman who grew up being told that all that matters is her looks and beauty, really going to be a responsible mother of your children? Is she someone you can really relate to? Or are you using her as a tool to feel better about yourself, to make yourself feel like more of a “man”? It’s time to wake up to the lies that the patriarchy has fed us. The truth is most of the men pushing this woman hating agenda online are single and alone, filled with hatred from years of rejections and who are desperately in need of therapy. Never let anyone else tell you your value or give you a rating. That’s toxic masculinity at it’s finest.

I know without a doubt that I am more beautiful than I ever was in my 20’s, because I love myself so much more and I am so much more healthy, emotionally, physically. Maybe I have some cracks, but the gold to fill them is coming faster than I could have ever imagined, and I’m finally doing all the things I never had the self confidence to do before. I’m finally living a life without regrets and taking chances, instead of being too scared to be judged and criticized. I’ve finally let go of all the harsh words I’ve heard throughout my life.

None of that matters. Call me anything you like. I’ve finally learn to choose the community I surround myself with very carefully, so negative words cannot permeate my subconscious. (Hence I’m off Tik Tok!)

Yes, I live in a tiny and beautiful bubble of positivity and presence, thanks to meditation, exercise, affirmations, manifestations, real friends, nature, music, coffee, whole foods, and chocolate. My bbuble helps me live my life with confidence and go after my dreams, no matter how outlandish they might seem.

And when it comes to how I am perceived, the only person’s opinion whom I care about, is my own.

The Forest Fairy Finds Her Home (in Cafe form)

Mad props to the guy who waited until I got the perfect shot to return to his seat

Cafes have long since been a favorite place of mine. Ever since I used to go to Barnes & Noble with my mom & brother. I would get a big stack of books, a latte or a snack, and leaf through them. Each book was an escape, a fantasy into another world. A world where it didn’t matter what *I* looked like. A world where I could just be in someone else’s head and world completely.

In college, I would go to a cafe almost every day. I realized now I was buying myself “little treats” on almost a daily basis, and although that wasn’t the best for my wallet or my body, it got me through some difficult times and helped me study, do well in school and feel part of a community where I didn’t necessarily always feel that well connected.

Suffice to say, cafes have long since been part of my story.

Personally I’ve found that cafes in San Francisco have not quite met the bar I’m used to, which is to say special, Instagrammy drinks and ambiance and hopefully, cute baristas with tattoos or piercings.

I thought that my favorite cafe was La Promenade Café, even though the drinks and food are not my favorite, they are pretty affordable, there’s tons of room and even tons of outlets, and not terribly far from me.

Until I happened upon Home Roasters coffee, which has A) really yummy drinks B) decent seating for chill co-working and C) barista eye candy. 😉 They lured me in with a birthday cake latte, yes a rainbow latte, that I get (with oat milk of course).

One of the last times I was in there, I totally spaced forgot a charger for my phone. The workers there very kindly loaned me one which really made my day. They also had really yummy mochi muffins, which I’m a sucker for anything that’s got that chewy mochi texture.

However, unlike college me, I’m happy with once or twice a week visits “home”, just when I feel I’ve earned a change of a pace and a sweet lil pick me up. On the daily my French press will do just fine.

Gotta love the “Welcome Home” sign!