Slower, Wealthier, Happier

Good morning, beautiful.

Learning to love myself has been a journey, and I can see now that every decade has been an evolution of awareness. There were things I felt deeply in my twenties and thirties that I did not yet have the language to articulate. Time, experience, and grace have given me words for emotions that once felt overwhelming. It has not always been easy, and it has definitely not been a straight line. Yet even through the uneven parts, there has been fruit. There has been growth. There has been becoming. Some areas of my life are flourishing while others are still unfolding, and I am learning to hold both without shame.

Last week, as I was traveling home after visiting family, I arrived at the airport early and found myself sitting quietly with a wave of anxiety moving through my body. Over the years, I have learned that anxiety is not my enemy. It is a signal. It is my subconscious inviting my conscious self into awareness. As I sat there and felt it rising, I stood up and moved my body, breathed, and asked myself what I was believing in that moment. Beneath the surface, I realized I was carrying deep desires for my family, hopes I wanted to see fulfilled for my siblings and my mom. I was joyful to be returning home, yet I was also grieving the distance between who I used to be and who I am now.

There are still moments when I weep for the younger versions of myself. The twenty year old. The thirty year old. The woman who wanted so many things to be true and did not yet have the script or the blueprint to get there. She tried. She believed. She pushed forward with what she knew. And sometimes the tears come simply because she did not know better and did not have the tools that I now carry. I am learning that loving myself means loving her too, not dismissing her, not criticizing her, but soothing her when she resurfaces.

The joy I hold today is that I can calm her. In that airport chair, I told myself it is going to be okay. I reminded myself that whatever comes, I have enough wisdom for the moment I am in. I may not have every answer, but I have the tools to self-soothe. I have awareness. I have language. I have grace. And that is what loving yourself looks like in real time. It looks like tears without shame and reassurance without panic. It looks like holding both memory and growth in the same breath.

If tears still visit you sometimes, let that be proof that you have lived and loved and hoped deeply. Remind yourself that you have tools now. Remind yourself that you are capable of calming your own nervous system and speaking kindly to the parts of you that still ache. Love is not the absence of emotion. Love is the way you respond to yourself when emotion shows up. And even in the tender moments, you are still becoming, still healing, still magical.

Love always,
Your most magical self