Hi my friend, how are you today? I wanted to tell you how beautiful you are, inside and outside. The light that you carry within yourself, the one that is yours and only yours, is so unique and we are so lucky to have your light in our lives. I wanted to remind you of this. In doing so, I just realized how rarely I remind myself of this: Of how unique and beautiful I am. No, I am not being arrogant! I am trying to stay grounded by reminding myself of the original light that I carry like others. And that how much my unique life story makes me unique and valuable, and how much yours, makes you unique. When I used to go in the lab, talking to my students or sit in the meeting with colleagues, I tried to put on a mask, a mask of “ I am a strong and accomplished person”, it didn’t matter that in my heart I had many doubts or that the “ strong serious face” was not my actual face. Mine was a face of a loving person who just wants to send love and care to others. my friend, if you like me, came back home at night and felt exhausted and unreal, I want to remind you you don’t have to. That your uniqueness and originality needs to shine at work, that your feminine light and care needs to rule the world, and that nobody and or no rule should demand you not to behave like you are just to conform to the established definition of success. That’s why today, now, I wanted to remind that we are beautiful and unique and the world deserves to see the real us. Okay I gotta go. Have a good night.

Hey my friend, I hope you are doing well and life is treating you well. As you know I traveled for work this week. Every time I used to travel for work I was very self- aware to put on the mask of  a strong, smart and successful woman, in conferences or even at work. But my friend, this time was different. I went on, putting on my own face, and embracing my own uniqueness. My friend, I felt so happy and comfortable and I think people connected with me better. Let me tell you a secret. And I think it is secret we all carry one way or the other. I used to ( am still to lesser extent) compare myself with others, was very self conscious about how better some people were than me in some aspects of life and work and that made me a little anxious, leading to me desiring to sink and disappear from some spaces I attended, unless I put the mask on.  But recently, my friend, I have realized that I am unique, like you are unique, and everyone of us carry our own unique life story, values and light. Because I am unique, I am now realizing that I will have my own unique achievements that is different than yours or others. That has made me more confident about me and has created a motivation to even want to explore and manifest that uniqueness better. This week at a work dinner, for the first time ever, I revealed me, the true me, all my dreams and visions ( no matter how odd they are) for a colleague of mine. I was so happy and confident, coming from the space of  as if: As if I have already achieved them. You know what happened my friend? The colleague and friend whom I had dinner with, asked me how he could help me with my vision at the end of dinner? Isn’t that amazing my friend? Never happened to me before. I think coming from a place of authenticity and uniqueness resonates with people and more doors open to you. This is now a sign for me and a lesson to keep moving forward that. I wanted to share it with you too, hoping it will help you too. Okay, I have to go now. Talk to you later.

Hey friend, how are you? Hope your day was great. I wanted to check in with you because I recently became quite inspired by those people who live out their dreams. You know they say self doubt is the biggest killers of all dreams. My friend, I have dealt with self-doubt for most of my life. Even if at the eyes of people around me, I looked confident, knew what I was doing or appeared quite self-confident. Deep down I limited the grandness of my dreams because I thought how could a girl like me achieve those. But quite recently I have learned that I was doing myself a disservice by thinking and acting like that. Yesterday I was thinking of a boy, raised in a poor neighborhood in Brazil, who at the age of 18, when he literally had nothing but the belief in his vision and support of his parents, followed a vision so greater than himself, and built a beautiful world wide spiritual empire. I know because he is my teacher. And I keep reminding myself, above all the teaching that I have received from him, what inspires me is him following his vision and not limiting himself, no matter how wild that dream was or how greater than himself it felt at the moment. How many times have we tried to visualize our dream but then catching ourselves choosing its details based on our current limitations? How many times we didn’t even dare to see it in dreams because we didn’t believe it could be possible? For me, many many times. But my friend, enough is enough. I am determined to live a life that manifests the fullest me. I am determined not to limit myself in my dreams and visualize the biggest, greatest, most beautiful of all the possibilities I could be. I have learned it is part of the law of attraction. If you think about it, talk about it, See it clearly and act as if you have it, even the wildest dreams can become a reality one day. And it costs us nothing. I can spend 10-20 min per day visualizing that. It is cheap. I am going to start a vision board and really spend time on that. I am not going to limit my dreams. Because I am so much bigger than what I currently believe. Do you want to give it a try too? Because my friend, I believe we all can be everything we are born to be and more.

Hi my friend, how are you? I hope your day was beautiful. Not all the days are rosy here for me. Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful for all I have, and I have so many beautiful things to be grateful for. I am grateful for my health and health of the people I love, I am grateful for my amazing family and my beautiful furry baby, Hero. I am grateful for the awareness and courage to explore my deepest dreams. But my friend, some days like this, when I see the doors I hoped to open to me still closed, I struggle to maintain the positivity. Today, was one of those days. They say to maintain its balance, when universe closes a door to you, another door will open. When I see the closed doors, I struggle to see the door that is now open. And I know I am not being patient. Because you need to give it the time it needs and be open to the new possibilities. I ask the universe what I am supposed to learn from a failed attempt? You see my friend, sometimes universe puts amazing opportunities in front of me, and I do my best to grab them. I take the steps to grab those opportunities without success. Failure after failure. Looking at these attempts as failures make me sad and I can’t afford it. My friend, I am trying a new technique: when they say “no” you say “next”. Just keep going. I am trying to see failures as an opportunity to learn something and grow: maybe I need to try harder, maybe I need to roll up my sleeves and do more ground work. I noticed that I rely too much on others to make my dream a reality and that I need to be more proactive in making things happen. Am I afraid to rely on myself? These are enlightening questions and to succeed into making my vision a reality I have to learn to do all the heavy lifting myself and not to rely on others. I am going to practice that, my friend. Hope this insight helps you too. For now, take care of yourself.

Hey my friend, how are you? Hope your day was great. Today, I learned something valuable. I actually reached this clarity of mind, after listening to this great book, Success principles by Jack Canfield. In the book he emphasized the importance of leaning in. You know for most of my life I had this urge of exactly knowing where the path leads, every step, before stepping in to it. I think it is partly my scientist/analytical left brain that is used to taking calculated actions. This way of thinking has not helped me in taking steps towards dreams that are not entirely vivid in my mind and the steps towards those dreams are not clear to me. I have been waiting for clues to define the dream. Wasting the time that I could actually take small steps towards it. But I learned, my friend, that sometime to reach the fullest potential of our dreams we need to act on them, we need to lean into the path and we need to accept that maybe it means just knowing where the first step is, trusting that other steps will reveal themselves along the way. This is a very profound revelation for me. Because my friend, I have a dream, a dream that is an uncharted territory. My dream is to combine my passion to serve people with love and kindness, with my passion in storytelling and art and my passion in science. How can you come up with something unique that can also give you an opportunity to earn living. I haven’t figured out this yet but I have decided to step into the path, trusting that it will reveal itself. I am taking the first step. I have a vague image of where the destination is: I want to empower the human behind science and technology and promote a reform in STEM culture that is reflective, human centered and accommodate the diversity of ideas and people. I have decided to trust. For me the first step was taking a coaching training. I know that for helping people to become better innovators, I need to help them connect with who they really are and address the shadow the carry within. Coaching training will give me the necessary skills to help people navigate that path. I don’t exactly know what the best step after is but I am trusting that by just stepping into it, and taking action, the path becomes clear and I can take next steps. I wanted to share this with you my friend, because I know sometimes you may also feel you have to plan out everything before taking action towards the dreams of yours. Seems we don’t have to, we just need to trust and take the first step. Isn’t that liberating? Okay, I have to go now. Have a great night.

Hi my friend, I hope you had a nice day, I am doing great. You know why, because I am grateful I stepped into this journey of building a better relationship with my self, to open the doorway to my soul and start to understand the woman inside. You know well my friend how much I was alienated with myself. How much my whole life I tried to quiet down the woman inside and nurture the woman outside. You know when I stepped into this path, it was out of necessity, a calling that if I wanted to survive the grief of loss, I needed to be aligned with the woman inside. I had heard about this, had read books about it that you should love yourself and nurture self and soul. I didn’t know what that meant. The more I quieted down the woman outside and listened to the woman inside, I learned that she actually rules my subconscious, that she defines who I am, how I think, how I react, what decisions I make, I just didn’t know about it, I didn’t pay attention, didn’t listen.

When I started to build a better relationship with her, to nurture her and empower her, I started to see how powerful that can be. I started to hear what she tells me, sometimes positive and encouraging, sometimes freightened and full of self criticism. I started to remind her she is great, unique and full of wonders. That I was there to make her known to the entire world, that she needs to trust the path and be positive and strong. Every time I caught her saying negative to me, that I am not smart enough, strong enough or my ideas aren’t worth pursuing, I gave her love and attention and reminded her that she is unique, she is one and only and the world needs to see her fullest. She is calming down and revealing her beautiful self, and I feel more harmonious. This is a beautiful journey and I am amazed by the universe that she carries with her. I wanted to let you know of this because I know sometimes you may have that dialogue with your inner self too. Reminding you of how beautiful you are inside and that if you build friendship with inner you, you will find calmness too and will be surprised of how powerful the whole you can become…

Hi my friend, hope you are doing well. I am talking to you today because I feel very vulnerable yet empowered. You may wonder what I am talking about. Well, I have made a decision. My decision is to remove the mask of pretense, that I am the figured it all out type of a person. The reality is I have not figured it out yet but I am on a journey to do that. And I am talking to you candidly and openly because I have decided being open and honest should be a virtue and not a sign of weakness. I am scared releasing my words, my feelings and inner journey out to the world! Like many, I am also scared of how I may be perceived by others. But holding back all the amazing transformation that I experience in me doesn’t feel right either. You know my friend, for many many years I tried to conform to what I thought others expected to see from me. But it didn’t give me peace and happiness. Now, I am exploring the power of me and the liberating sensation of honoring my self and soul and that is something that I believe I need to openly share with the world. Because I know there is someone out there that may be going through a similar journey and may be inspired by my journey! Hiding, covering up and pretending that everything is rosy and beautiful doesn’t help us grow. That is why, I see my fears, I feel my fears, I acknowledge them but for the sake of me and those who may be waiting for these words, I put my words and my authentic self out there. I hope my friend those who listen to my story can appreciate that you can be smart, highly accomplished, own many things yet still trying to figure out the you in yourself. It is okay! The good news is that you can always step into the journey of self discovery and never is not too late. And that if you let the world see the authentic side of you and your struggles, you will attract those who are like you and appreciate you and enrich your life with values you seek and people who share those values. There is no harm! So, my friend, let’s celebrate talking about our real selves! Are you onboard with me? Thanks for being there. I talk to you later!

Hey my friend, just check in with you. Hope you had a fantastic day. Mine was magical. I visited the beach last night. It was super moon, and the beach at night was quiet and majestic. It made me feel insignificant and yet deeply connected with the grandness of the universe. I have lived my whole life in the hustle and bustle of big cities. I have grown up in high rising building of metropolitan environment and have attended schools, like many of us do, in the confined concrete spaces. I wasn’t lucky to commute with nature until recently. But about three years ago, I shook up my entire life completely. As I mentioned before, it was because I needed to revive my soul that was suffocating under the loads of external demands of being, doing and saying! I was at the deepest, darkest part of the shadow that was encompassing all of me. In the quest to rebuild myself and my life, I was drawn to nature in serendipitous way. Ocean, forest, and beautiful hills of northern California called me over. The last three years I am spending time in Nature. As much as I can. I stop and smell flowers. When I am out in the nature, I really try to quiet the chatter in my brain. It is so hard my friend. But when I manage to do that, I try to feel the energy of nature. When I feel the energy, I feel loved, cared for and protected. It is such a beautiful feeling. Mostly, I was feeling isolated and lonely most of my adult life, but recently, I feel nature is caring for me, is loving me, is embracing me and I am part of. I feel so peaceful. Most importantly I feel grateful. So grateful. And I ask myself, how come all those years that I felt lonely and abandoned in the depth of my heart, I didn’t see this beautiful force and energy around me that is opening its beautiful arms to embrace me. When I sensed and felt with my entire body and soul that I am tiny peace of this bigger universe, it consoled me. I know you and I live a life that many times separate us from nature, we go to work, take care of kids and put others in priority, but my friend, spending time with Nature, whether it is with the flowers in my patio or the hiking trails miles away by the ocean, has had a deep healing effect in me. I think you should give it a try and this time that you see a tree or flower, stop and really see them and try to connect internally with their existence in your world and your cognitive space! It will be healing. Ok, I have to go now. Talk to you later!

Hey my friend, I hope you had a great day. Even if it didn’t feel great, let’s celebrate it for the tiny beautiful things it brought. You don’t know me yet but over the next few months I want to take you with me to the journey of self discovery I am on, I am hoping my journey inspires you. I hope we become friends in the path we are both on. I haven’t figured out my destination yet but the path is revealing itself to me and is beautiful. I am trusting the path. I am a scientist, a genetic designer, I am also: wait, I am not those things. I do those things and I keep reminding myself that I should separate who I am with what I do. So let’s start over, I do genetic engineering, my work involves being a university professor. I also do a number of science communication projects, mainly looking at societal impact of technologies. I could go on and on. But does it matter? To be honest, not any more. Those external successes never brought me joy because they were built on the person I chose to be to satisfy others. It is so difficult to grow up being someone who others expect you to be and keep that in the face of all the obstacles adulthood throws at you. To sum up, my life events with details I can share later, gradually and increasingly crushed my soul and sent me to the depth of the darkness of the shadow I was carrying. I had everything but one thing: my soul and peace. So when you witness your soul chipping away, what would you do? You may have a different answer than mine. For me, the only way forward was rush to the spiritual emergency room to rescue my soul. So I gave it all up. My marriage, my tenured professorship, the false security of success to build myself, based on the expression of the soul I was determined to revive. Boy it is something. The path feels warm. I have to admit that there are many days and nights that I am terrified. You know, I am mostly scared of two things: 1- How do I earn enough living to pay bills? 2- Will I ever be successful in the new path, whatever it is? These questions in the beginning threw me off balance a lot, but gradually, through many hours of interception and building self love I realized I am asking the wrong questions. The reality is: I am on a path to build something authentic, original, true expression of me. That per se is more satisfying than any stability of money that came with erosion of my soul. I keep reminding myself to the law of attraction: Be positive, believe in yourself and dream of your fullest potential and you will get there. That is what I believe now and this belief in itself, has eroded the sense of fear and provided a sense of peace. I wanted to let you know of this. If you have any doubt, know that you can become everything you are. This is what I repeat to myself. You can do that too. For now, have a great night. Know that tomorrow is a beautiful new beginning.