Six life lessons about self-esteem, friendship, and toxic relationships I wish I'd known at 26. Self-acceptance and radical acceptance are the foundation for real confidence. Your flaws are not a moral failing and you deserve to celebrate your achievements.

Six lessons across three categories:

1. Self-esteem and confidence: Your flaws are not a moral failing, celebrate your achievements
2. Friendship lessons: Deep friendships require intentionality, friends are your village
3. Love life lessons: If your creativity dies because of him, leave him, one hard conversation shouldn't end a relationship

I learned these lessons through mistakes, painful friendships that faded, and a toxic relationship that took my creativity. Looking back, I wish I'd known my flaws didn't define me and that I deserved to celebrate my wins.

Subscribe. Share. Remember that the lessons you learn the hard way are worth sharing so others don't have to wait 10 years to understand them.

Small steps, big healing. Keep growing! ✨

Join the conversation! What's a life lesson you wish you'd known sooner? DM me on Instagram @YourCoachMari!

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Poetry and mental health intersect beautifully in this conversation with award-winning poet Leisly Roman about her seasonal poetry collection that guides intentional living and personal growth. Her latest book "All That a Season Can Carry (In Me)" is organized by seasons to help readers explore the emotional landscapes of winter, spring, summer, and fall while understanding how their inner world connects to nature.

What we cover:

• How seasons guide self-reflection, healing, and intentional living throughout the year
• Winter as an opportunity for peace and quiet self-reflection instead of just depression and darkness
• Moving intentionally through seasons instead of carrying the same goals and guilt all year long

About Our Guest: Leisly Roman is an award-winning Dominican American poet and mental health advocate from New York City. Her debut bilingual collection "Living in Phases" explores mental health journey with honesty. Her latest work uses poetry to help readers connect their emotional experiences to nature's rhythms and find healing through self-reflection.

The book shows that each season offers different emotional and spiritual opportunities. Winter brings rest and self-discovery. Spring brings growth. Summer brings action. Fall brings completion. When you move intentionally through seasons, you let go of what each season teaches before carrying it into the next.

Subscribe. Share. Remember that your inner world connects to the world around you and moving intentionally through seasons helps you let go of weight you've been carrying all year.

Small steps, big healing. Keep growing! ✨

Join the conversation! Which season are you in emotionally right now? DM me on Instagram!

📖 Get Leisly's Books:

Living in Phases

All That a Season Can Carry (In Me)

💌 Follow Leisly:

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Website & Links

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People pleasing in parenting is costing your children their self-worth, emotional regulation, and healthy boundaries. Kids learn through observation, so if you're a people pleaser, your children are picking up those same behaviors and internalizing them as normal. This is how generational trauma works and how the cycle continues unless you heal it.

How people pleasing affects your children:

• Kids learn interpersonal skills through observation and copy your people pleasing behavior
• You normalize overextending yourself and putting everyone else's needs first constantly
• Toxic family members stay around because you can't set boundaries, exposing kids to potential harm

People pleasing parents struggle with consistent discipline and handling conflict, making parenting inconsistent. This becomes generational trauma that your children inherit.

In my Growing Pains, I recognize how my parents' people pleasing affected me. Now as an adult healing, I understand this is a generational curse I want to break with my future kids.

Subscribe. Share. Remember that your healing is your children's healing and breaking the generational curse starts with you doing the work.

Small steps, big healing. Keep growing! ✨

Join the conversation! How has people pleasing shown up in your family? DM me on Instagram.

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People pleasing in your career is costing you money, promotions, and career growth. If people pleasing is ruining your love life, chances are it's also ruining your finances. People pleasers take on more work for free, can't say no, avoid negotiating, and don't assert themselves for opportunities like promotions or raises.

How people pleasing shows up in your career:

• Taking on more work for free and to the detriment of your own projects
• Unable to say no so you're always the last to leave, missing deadlines on your own tasks
• Taking blame for things that aren't your fault, damaging your professional reputation

This directly impacts promotions, raises, and how much money you make. Good leaders are authentic but people pleasers can't be authentic so they stay stuck. Money impacts everything: healthcare access, where you live, what food you buy, your overall quality of life.

Subscribe. Share. Remember that healing people pleasing requires recognizing how it's affecting your career and finances, and taking small steps to assert yourself.

Small steps, big healing. Keep growing! ✨

Join the conversation! What's one thing you said yes to at work that you wish you'd said no to? DM me on Instagram!

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People pleasing in your love life is ruining your relationships, whether you're dating or in a committed partnership. If people pleasing has been ruining your life, I guarantee it's affecting your love life too. I've both experienced and witnessed how people pleasing leads down a path of feeling unloved and unfulfilled relationships.

In the dating stage, people pleasers ask the wrong questions:

• Does he like me instead of do I like him, are they right for me
• You accept low and minimal effort because low self-worth has you feeling undeserving
• Minor red flags and small transgressions become the foundation of disrespect later

I was a people pleaser with low self-worth and ended up in an emotionally abusive relationship. It led to years of depression and CPTSD. But healing is possible. I'm now a healed people pleaser in healthy relationships.

Subscribe. Share. Remember that healing people pleasing is possible and you deserve to be truly loved and cherished.

Small steps, big healing. Keep growing! ✨

Join the conversation! What red flag did you ignore early that you wish you hadn't? DM me on Instagram!

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In this Stories That Shape Us episode, I'm breaking down A Magical Girl Retires by Park Seolyeon, a book about depression, hope, and stepping into your power when you least expect it. The unnamed protagonist is 29, depressed, drowning in debt. As a 35-year-old American with three degrees, hard relate. She's saved from attempting suicide by a clairvoyant magical girl and discovers she might be the one who saves the world.

🚨 Major spoiler alert for A Magical Girl Retires and trigger warning for attempted suicide.

What this book teaches about hope and transformation:

• By the mere act of trying, there is hope—persistence shows something worth living for
• You dare to hope then boom disappointment—that quick switch to "yeah that makes sense"
• From suicidal self-doubt to saving the world, then choosing yourself by retiring

The story shows that for those of us struggling with depression and mental health challenges, we can't deny how much hope we still have. The mere fact that you keep moving forward shows there's still a kernel of self-love, love for your dog, friends, family, something beautiful enough to keep going. Even if it doesn't feel good.

Subscribe. Share. Remember that finding hope in unexpected places and choosing yourself, even after achieving something amazing, is radical self-acceptance.

Small steps, big healing. Keep growing! ✨

Join the conversation! What book unexpectedly taught you about hope? DM me on Instagram @YourCoachMari!

🎧 Related episode: Embracing the Dichotomy: How to Hold Space for All of Yourself

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Do you ever struggle with loving yourself at the beginning of your healing journey when you're not a finished product? That constant feeling of not being good enough, not worthy, not deserving, even of things you've worked for. One day you feel confident like "Yeah, one step at a time, let's go." The next day you feel so low: "Is this even for me? Maybe I'm not meant to get better."

The highs and lows of healing and transformation:

• Happens at beginning stages when you want change but haven't gotten there yet
• Affects your mood, mental space, and progress creating a vicious cycle
• High achievers attach self-worth to achievement—slow progress triggers self-hatred

I also talk about being a writer. It feels like a "was" even though it's an "is." I lost my creativity in a toxic relationship and it took years to heal it back. Now I get frustrated with myself for not writing "enough", even though I recognize my life is busier and I need more sleep now than I did before.

Subscribe. Share. Remember that radical self-acceptance means you can have love for yourself now while you are at the beginning of your journey.

Small steps, big healing. Keep growing! ✨

Join the conversation! How do you practice self-acceptance during transformation? DM me on Instagram @YourCoachMari!

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You want the soft life. You're tired of hustling. I texted my friend this morning: "Girl, I wish I had one job that paid for everything." But who actually gets to have a soft life? And is it even possible for most of us right now?

What we're unpacking about soft life vs hustle culture:

• Trad wife isn't soft life, it's unpaid labor unless you're wealthy enough to hire help for everything
• Who gets to opt out, successful influencers can slow down, but most of us are working multiple jobs just to make ends meet
• Economic reality check, gas prices, living expenses increasing, gig work most accessible, we're hustling just to afford life

Influencers are finally being honest that there's no such thing as work-life balance. Sometimes work demands everything, sometimes life does. You can't have a perfect 50/50 pie chart. And for most of us right now? Not having a soft life is just a fact of life. But that doesn't mean you can't work toward it, financial baseline, knowing your security number, recalibrating how you hustle.

Subscribe. Share. Remember that hustling to make ends meet isn't something to be ashamed of.

Small steps, big healing. Keep growing! ✨

Join the conversation! Are you in your hustling era or have you found your soft life? DM me on Instagram @YourCoachMari!

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Life becomes a waiting game. Waiting for texts, commitment, apologies, explanations. Always from someone who isn't really interested in getting back to you. So what does decentering men actually mean, and how do you do it without giving up on wanting love?

What decentering men really is:

• Men stop being the reference point for what you do, look like, where you go, what you tolerate, and prioritize
• Not outsourcing your worth to male attention or treating relationships as your main source of life success
• Not shrinking yourself to keep someone else comfortable

I also talk about why this feels louder now. Emotional burnout from being the project manager of connection. Information everywhere, we're comparing notes in real time and can't be gaslit as easily. Economic reality where relationships add stress instead of support. And what you actually reclaim: time, money, body autonomy, ambition, deeper friendships, and peace. Single isn't a consolation prize, it's your home base.

Subscribe. Share. Remember that you're not behind for being single, not incomplete, and not waiting for life to start.

Small steps, big healing. Keep growing! ✨

Join the conversation! What are you reclaiming by decentering men? DM me on Instagram @YourCoachMari!

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Hot girl walks. Pilates. Korean skincare. Wellness trends are everywhere, and they all promise empowerment. But when does a helpful practice stop being about your wellbeing and start being about someone else's bottom line?

What we're unpacking about the wellness industrial complex:

• When aesthetic and gear become more important than the actual practice
• Paywalling basic things like hydration and movement as luxury
• Turning missed days into failure when systemic barriers are the real problem

I also talk about how wellness trends targeting women are tied to beauty standards. Post-COVID brought thinness back as health. "Good outfit or is she just thin?" Rest is something you earn, not something healthy. Moral virtue gets attached to how "well" you perform wellness.

Subscribe. Share. Remember that wellness is a relationship with yourself, not with your gear.

Small steps, big healing. Keep growing! ✨

Join the conversation! What wellness trend have you questioned lately? DM me on Instagram @YourCoachMari!

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🌱 LET’S GROW TOGETHER: Schedule your discovery call